Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “Some things simply made a person feel feminine; other things made a person feel masculine. Wasn’t that true of everyone regardless of gender? Or did binaries deny themselves the things that didn’t fit the mold? Well, regardless, Jerico found the faux pas and overcompensations more humorous than anything else.”

— Neal Shusterman

402. “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

403. “I am what you made me.”

— Neal Shusterman

404. “Whether consciousness is implanted in us by something divine, or whether it is created by the efforts of our brains, the end result is the same. We are.”

— Neal Shusterman

405. “What was friendship if it isn’t some kind of love?”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

407. “You’ve got questions coming out of you like farts on Thanksgiving.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

409. “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

410. “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

411. “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

412. “Well, this place was not purgatory, Nirvana, or any sort of rebirth, and it occurred to Nick that regardless of what people believed, the universe had its own ideas.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

414. “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

415. “Incredible. It never ceases to amaze Starkey how far society will go to protect the children it loves and to discard the ones it doesn’t.”

— Neal Shusterman

416. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

418. “It’s a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?”

— Neal Shusterman

419. “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

420. “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

421. “Scythe Curie seemed a mix of many emotions, but she folded them all away, like clothes that no longer fit, and closed the drawer.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

423. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

427. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

430. “But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn’t mean we really know what’s in the box.”

— Neal Shusterman

431. “Instead of ignoring me, Frankie was suddenly noticing every little thing I did, wondering why I did it. Christina started asking me questions about things, like I was the smarter brother. Dad was now confiding in me about things that were really none of my business, and Mom started treating me like I was actually a responsible human being. It was all very disturbing.”

— Neal Shusterman

432. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

434. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

436. “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

437. “Apparently Quinn had woken up a short time ago and immediately asked for ice cream, knowing that kids in hospitals got whatever they wanted.”

— Neal Shusterman

438. “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

439. “Important work,” Jeri quipped, “often loses the spotlight to self-important people.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

441. “What’s that expression? The devil you know is better than the one you don’t?”

— Neal Shusterman

442. “The hiss of waves breaking at her ankles is a gentle sigh, as if the sea itself has found lasting contentment.”

— Neal Shusterman

443. “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

444. “You don’t so much sleep as borrow eight hours from death.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

446. “Today he failed to change the world. As for tomorrow, who can tell?”

— Neal Shusterman

447. “Love, Allie concluded, wasn’t blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

449. “The best we can hope for is to be humble in our arrogance.”

— Neal Shusterman

450. “Tyger might have thought of himself as a free spirit, but he wasn’t at all. He just defined the dimensions of his own cage.”

— Neal Shusterman