Neal shusterman quotes

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

If your heart tells you something but your mind tells you something else, which do you believe? Both are just as apt to lie. In fact, they play at deceit all the time. Mostly they balance each other, giving us that crucial reality check. But what happens on the rare occasions when they conspire together?

I imagine the center of the Earth must be a crowded place by now, but perhaps it is the spirits of those of us residing there that keep the Earth alive and green.

But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel their own pain--and as awful as that is, it's also wonderful.

Because if their own parents didn't care enough about them to keep them, who would want them in Heaven?

The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe.

It's a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?

When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come.

the captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat

In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.

You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.

On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur of gray.

I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

The sad truth about humanity...is that people believe what they're told. Maybe not the first time, but by the hundredth time, the craziest of ideas just becomes a given.

Already Roland feels his limbs starting to go numb. He swallows hard. "I hate this. I hate you. I hate all of you." "I understand.

There are mysteries in Everlost. Some of them are wonderful, and others scary. They should all be explored, though- perhaps that's why we're here: to experience the good and the bad that Everlost has to offer.

You don't like her, do you?" "Who, me? No, I love her dearly. Evil scheming bitches are my favorite kind of people." (Risa)

On a sunny Tuesday - for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday - six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars.

All this time, Lev ever realized what he needed. He did not need to be adored or pitied. He needed to be forgiven. Not by God, who is all forgiving. Not by people like Marcus and Pastor Dan, who would always stand by his side. He needed to be forgiven by an unforgiving world.

It's amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries.

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.

...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear.

I have no idea,' he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change. The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter.

We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?" "They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

We'll never be ready. So I guess that means we're as ready as we'll ever be.

Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.

It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years." "So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked. "No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell.

Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this. "Nice socks." Although Roland doesn't look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesn't check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isn't looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are bet­ter than none.

Your hair looks funny," Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids left. "It stands straight up!" No," said Nick, intensely irritated, "It's hanging straight down." Lief just gave him an upside-down shrug. "Up is down in China and you're part-Chinese.

His life has been like a ballpark, hasn't it? All lines, structure, and rules, never changing. But now he's been hit over the wall into unknown territory.

Monster only had the power that you gave them

We weren't going anywhere," Nick said with a smile. He was trying to sound charming, but instead wound up sounding heavily sedated.

Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.

It's funny how a flame can only burn your hand if you move too slow, you can tease it all you want and it never gets you, if your quick enough.

Lev smiles. "Leave it to you to turn someone else's screwup into gold

Connor smiles with mocking warmth at him, and glances at the tattoo on his wrist. "I like your dolphin.

Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can.

How easy is murder when one calls it by a different name? How much easier is it for the conscience to condone "reaping" than "killing"-and when one knows that death isn't the end, does it stop the killing hand for fear of retribution, or does it simply make it easier to kill, because, if life continues, how can murder be murder at all?

This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds.

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.

Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.

There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things.

Love, Allie concluded, wasn't blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.

That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?

What, are you totally psycho?" I shouted. "Maybe I am!" he screamed back at me. "Maybe that's just what I am. Maybe I'm that quiet guy who suddenly goes nuts and then you find half the neighborhood in his freezer." I gotta admit, that one stumped me for a second - but only for a second. "Which half?" I asked. "Huh?" "Which half of the neighborhood? Could you make it the people on the other side of Avenue T, because I never really liked them anyway.

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

There's a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it's anger.

Small victories are bet­ter than none.

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.

Well...you're a martyr and I'm a patron saint-I can't think of anyone better!

Fight, flight, and screw up royaly.

Looks are deceiving," Risa says. "After all, when I first saw you I thought you looked reasonably intelligent.

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

You can't change laws without first changing human nature.

And next to Allie, the screamer, once more reminded of his job, began to wail in Allie's ear. Reflexively Allie clapped her hand over his mouth. "That," she said, "is totally uncalled for. Don't do that again. Ever." The screamer looked at her with worried eyes. "Are we clear on this subject?" said Allie. The screamer nodded and she removed her hand. "Can I scream a little?" he asked. "No," said Allie. "Your screaming days are over." "Darn." And he was quiet thereafter.

The thing was, if I had found a way to escape- even for just a little while- I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.

You should never apologize for existing, Lev. Not even to all those people out there who wish you didn't.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

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.

Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched out all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?

They signed the unwind order just to spite each other,but laugh,laugh,laugh,Hayden, because if you ever stop laughing,it might just tear you apart worse than a Chop Shop.

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

Heaven might shine bright, but so do flames.

A family is a collection of strangers trapped in a web of DNA and forced to cope.

Love turns a heart to crystal...Much more valuable, but much more fragile.

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

Would you rather die, or be unwound? Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it's why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he'd rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference.

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy

Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.

As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself." She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual!

Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

I'm against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray.

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem. In fact, a city is nothing more than a solution to a problem, that in turn creates more problems that need more solutions, until towers rise, roads widen, bridges are built, and millions of people are caught up in a mad race to feed the problem-solving, problem-creating frenzy.

There's a set of unspoken rules we live by when it comes to fighting. We can't help it. It comes from living in a civilized world. Even when you're fighting your hardest, somewhere deep down, you know how far you can go. But today the rules are gone. Today I fight not to win, but to destroy.

The eternally sleeping princess, thinks Cam. But I shall free you from those poisoned brambles that surround your heart. And then you will have no choice but to love me.

Then she offers him a slim but sincere smile, and he reluctantly returns it. It doesn't bridge the gap between them, but at least it marks the spot where the bridge might be built.

But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -Connor

What's the point of living if you're going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don't shut it away.

My grandmother used to say that twisting paths always cross again," he told her. "And whose paths are more twisted than ours?

In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.

...if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened...but people like to keep what's theirs, even after they're dead.

Lik the tree falling in the forest," says Ira. "Huh?" "You know, the old question - if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it really make a sound?" Howie considers this. "Is it a pine forest, or oak?" "What's the difference?" "Oak is a much denser wood; it's more likely to be heard by someone on the freeway next to the forest where no one is.

The good thing about being explosive is that no one can beat you.

He's become like that briefcase in the ground-full of gems yet void of light, so nothing sparkles, nothing shines.

We want what you no longer want.

She smiles at them as they go by and continues to play, making it clear that this furnace of a place, full of planes that cannot fly, is more than it seems. It is a womb of redemption for every Unwind, and fora ll those who fought the Heartland War and lost - which was everybody.

Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you've ever been there, you know the signs don't tell you the exit you're coming up to, they only point out the exits you've just missed.

How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?

Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.

I mean, it's like we all get our raw materials from our families―but it's up to us whether we build bridges or bombs.

I'm scared," he says."I know," says the nurse."I want you all to go to Hell.""That's natural.

He only wishes there were something that would heal the scars in his mind, which he can still feel. He sees his mind now as an archipelago of islands that he labors to build bridges between - and while he's had great success engineering the most spectacular of bridges, he suspects there are some islands that he'll never reach.

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity

Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.

Eventually your body will learn the alliances it has to make with itself,' Kenny had said - as if Cam was a factory full of strike-prone workers, or worse, a clutch of slaves forced into unwanted labor.

The living would come up with endless theories to argue, because the living were exceptionally good at arguing, especially when no one knew the answer.

Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.

What? Were you born stupid, or did you just die that way?

Mental illness is by far the most misunderstood, and stigmatized, of all afflictions. Statistically, one in three families in the U.S. deals with mental illness, and yet it's rarely discussed in the open. It's time for that to change.

I don't know what happens to our consciousness when we're unwound," says Connor. "I don't even know when that consciousness starts. But I do know this." He pauses to make sure all of them are listening. "We have a right to our lives!" The kids go wild. "We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!" The cheers reach fever pitch. "We deserve a world where both those things are possible— and it's our job to help make that world.

Hayden shouts, "To the new Teen Uprising!

How do you judge the brightness of a light when you’re the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts.

One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.

Makes sense, the earth is quick to consume the flesh of things that ain't natural.

Milestone! This is a momentous occasion," he tells her cheerily. "It should be witnessed by a friend." She throws him an icy gaze, and he does a verbal back pedal. "Aaaand since no friends are present, I'll have to do.

"You...you lost your faith?" "No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing." Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk-throughout the weeks-arriving all at once like a sonic boom. "I never knew there was a choice".

So," says Lev, as casually as he can, "you wanna dance?" "Do you believe in the end of the world?" she responds. Lev shrugs. "I don't know. Why?" "Because the day after that is when I'll dance with you.

Conner Lassiter. Scheduled to be unwound the 21st of November-until you went AWOL. You caused an accident that killed a bus driver, left dozens of others injured, and shut down an interstate highway for hours. Then, on top of it, you took a hostage AND shot a Juvey-cop with his own tranq gun." ..."He's the Akron AWOL?!

Anger is only our friend when we know its caliber and how to aim it.

I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning.

What can fingerprints mean when they’re not necessarily yours?

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

You can't change laws without first changing human nature.' -Nurse Greta You can't change human nature without first changing the law.' -Nurse Yvonne

Which is worse, Risa often wondered, to have tens of thousands of babies that no one wanted or to silently make then go away before they were even born

Tranq'd by your own gun,"Lev says."How pathetic.

You are so obtuse!" Brontë says, exasperated. I am calm in my response. "Do you mean stupid, or angular? You need to be more specific with your insults.

Walls don't fall without effort.