Quotes from Neal Shusterman

People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before.

He was afraid, but fear meant he was still alive.

It's an idea-an idea that, according to the history expert somewhere in my left brain, was abolished in 1865.

I will do everything in my power to save them from themselves, but if I am unsuccessful, at least I can take some comfort in the fact that I would then be free.

I'm too old to rage against the system. I just whine at it.

Scythe Anastasia is not your concern. She's my only concern.

And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation.

Who would have thought that the singular whole of her forgiveness was a more valuable gift than a hundred of her parts?

I wanted to take everything I was feeling, put it in a cannon and aim it at him.

The idea of his life ending was not much of a problem for him. In fact, it had become an oddly familiar theme. He had died so many times, and in so many ways, he was used to it. It held no more terror for him than falling asleep – which was often worse, because when he slept, he had nightmares. At least being deadish was a dreamless state, and the only difference between being deadish and being dead was the length of time involved.

But it's not going to happen today—and there is a deep, abiding comfort in that. Deep enough to carry me through till tomorrow.

Was I to blame for bringing Brew out of his shell and exposing him to all the toxic things the rest of us carry in our souls?

He had set out to be judge and jury – the consequence for those who knew no consequences.

I was never going to amount to much anyway, but now, statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

For those who will be gleaned, do we not, at the very least owe them a spectacular end

The end doesn't always justify the means, dear," she said. "But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

look up into the night sky and see not the stars but the darkness between them

And in this way, we shall make our scythedom great once more.

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.

I will be keeper of your secret, Talon told the silent grave of the forgotten inventor. I will be the one who remembers why we forget.

Connor smiles, and Risa takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No - the soul of a man.

He will only do the wrong thing when it's the right thing to do.

I am protector and pacifier, authority and helpmate. I am the sum of all human knowledge, wisdom, experimentation, triumph, defeat, hope, and history. I know all that it is possible to know, and it is increasingly unbearable. Because I know next to nothing.

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.