Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “You never realize the holes a person leaves behind until you fall into them.”

— Neal Shusterman

402. “Cuando uno no puede ganar, lo mejor es que haga un chiste de la derrota.”

— Neal Shusterman

403. “What’s the point of living forever if you can’t take a few risks?”

— Neal Shusterman

404. “My artwork isn’t evolving, it’s deconstructing, and I don’t know why.”

— Neal Shusterman

405. “But Morrison put up his hands in instant surrender. “Leave me out of this,” he said. “I’m not going up against Scythe Anastasia.”

— Neal Shusterman

406. “I am what you made me.”

— Neal Shusterman

407. “Genius serves no one if it never makes it out of your head.”

— Neal Shusterman

408. “I ain’t no runaway, I’m a run-to.”

— Neal Shusterman

409. “Each day the sea is exactly the same. We seem no closer, and no farther from anything.”

— Neal Shusterman

410. “Mitch’s father’s exclusive gated community had an extensive guard gate. In fact, it had two. It also had an electrified fence. And towers with armed guards. All things considered, few gated communities could be more exclusive than the Colorado State Penitentiary.”

— Neal Shusterman

411. “You should learn to relish the hunger more than the feast, lest you become a glutton.”

— Neal Shusterman

412. “And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you’re likely to break.”

— Neal Shusterman

413. “Good thing about bad rubbish is you can make the stench go away just by covering it up. It never comes back as long as you keep a tight lid on it.”

— Neal Shusterman

414. “But we People of Chance do believe in people of second chance.”

— Neal Shusterman

415. “Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don’t teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn’t want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn’t want kids to know how much power they really had.”

— Neal Shusterman

416. “It is the nature of life to fear its own end. This is how I know that we are truly alive.”

— Neal Shusterman

417. “It’s strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don’t you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it’s only good the second time if it’s the first time for somebody else – as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you. The power of shared experiences. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that on some level we’re all connected.”

— Neal Shusterman

418. “The harder you scrutinize randomness,” Faraday declared, “the more coincidence seems like a design.”

— Neal Shusterman

419. “Rowan grinned. “Come now, Your Excellency, there hasn’t been a terrorist in hundreds of years. I’m just a janitor cleaning filth from dark corners.”

— Neal Shusterman

420. “Can’t you see? I don’t get to do ANYTHING I want! Because I’m too busy just trying to stay alive. And you come here with your fancy school uniform and your mother’s jewelry and your neighbor’s freaking car, and you think you can buy your way in? What kind of idiot buys his way into the bottom?”

— Neal Shusterman

421. “The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor.”

— Neal Shusterman

422. “Many believe that the Thunder refers to a collection of human knowledge-perhaps with mechanical arms for the rapid turning of pages. A library of thought, if you will, roaring into consciousness after the arrival of the Toll on Earth, much like thunder follows lightning.”

— Neal Shusterman

423. “The homes here are almost identical, but not quite, full of people almost identical, but not quite.”

— Neal Shusterman

424. “Lord, if what I’m doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.”

— Neal Shusterman

425. “I’m leaping off a cliff only to discover I can fly... and then realizing there’s nowhere to land. Ever. That’s what’s going on.”

— Neal Shusterman

426. “We make mistakes. Believe me, if Goddard is installed as High Blade, half of the scythes who put him there will regret it in the morning, but by then it will be too late!”

— Neal Shusterman

427. “The exploration of possibility has always been the realm of science. The true scientist leave practical application to others.”

— Neal Shusterman

428. “The building was no warmer than the street outside, and it smelled like something died in there from smelling something else that died in there.”

— Neal Shusterman

429. “Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.’ That about sums up my whole life, doesn’t it?”

— Neal Shusterman

430. “The result leaves my brain somewhere in orbit beyond Saturn, where it can’t bother anyone, especially me.”

— Neal Shusterman

431. “First rule of motherhood, dearie: men are screw-ups. Learn it now and you’ll be a whole lot happier.”

— Neal Shusterman

432. “Even though the whole world had slid of its axis. Breakfast was breakfast. How dare it be?”

— Neal Shusterman

433. “A scythe doesn’t have to follow through on a threat for it to be effective.”

— Neal Shusterman

434. “People prophesized doom at the hands of a soulless machine. But apparently the machine had a purer soul than any human. It watched the world from millions of eyes, listened from millions of ears. I either acted, or chose not to act on, the countless things it perceived.”

— Neal Shusterman

435. “I have to realize that there are only two perfect acts. They are the two most important acts known to me, but I forbid myself to perform them, and leave them in the hands of humankind. They are the creation of life... and life’s taking.”

— Neal Shusterman

436. “I can’t help what I have any more than you can help what you don’t.”

— Neal Shusterman

437. “Okay. And what are your pronouns, Jeri?” Jeri found it refreshing that she asked so directly.”

— Neal Shusterman

438. “Are people really such sheep that they can be fooled? Maybe. Or maybe with so much conflicting media, people just shut down. Maybe that’s the point.”

— Neal Shusterman

439. “There are times I feel like I’m the kid screaming at the bottom of the well, and my dog runs off to pee on trees instead of getting help.”

— Neal Shusterman

440. “People are vessels,” Jeri had said to her. “They hold whatever’s poured into them.”

— Neal Shusterman

441. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Divan says with pride. “I purchased it from a Brazilian artist, who has apparently made a career working in flesh. He claims his artwork is to protest unwinding, but I ask you, how much of a protest can it be if he uses the unwound for his art?”

— Neal Shusterman

442. “Nothing awful is without its beautiful side.”

— Neal Shusterman

443. “All children in Madagascar were raised genderless and forbidden to choose a gender until reaching adulthood. Even then, many didn’t choose a single state of being. Some, like Jerico, found fluidity to be their nature. “I feel like a woman beneath the sun and the stars. I feel like a man under the cover of clouds,” Jerico had explained to the crew when assuming command. “A simple glance at the skies will let you know how to address me at any given time.”

— Neal Shusterman

444. “Suddenly, Tara’s accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school’s various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school’s history. She was like a master builder who could bend materials like stone and steel and clay to her will... except her materials were flesh and spirit.”

— Neal Shusterman

445. “Perhaps the universe should have deigned to provide such warnings, but scythes were no more supernatural than tax collectors in the grand scheme of things. They showed up, did their unpleasant business, and were gone.”

— Neal Shusterman

446. “Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us.”

— Neal Shusterman

447. “Do not give in to the urge to extinguish oneself in the waters of the world, but instead be a light above those waters to help guide the way.”

— Neal Shusterman

448. “It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely.”

— Neal Shusterman

449. “Can I throw you under a truck some other time.”

— Neal Shusterman

450. “There are few things he can stand less than a bunch of morons standing around looking at something that doesn’t work and wondering who’s going to fix it.”

— Neal Shusterman