Quotes from Neal Shusterman

I guess once you start parting with all the things you think hold your life together, it's hard to stop—and then you find out your life holds together all by itself.

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.

But it seems to me that these worlds we touch upon can get so dark, anything we can do to lighten them must be a good thing, right?

The scythedom—or what was left of it after the global revolts—had a new calling. They no longer brought uninvited death. Instead they brought much-needed peace.

Hope is a terrible thing to lose. Sometimes that wounded space gets filled with scar tissue, bitter, ugly, and angry.

The world has a talent for rewarding bad behaviour with stardom

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.

Tell me, Connor, is this the first time you've been pregnant?' 'What?' 'Just answer the question, yes or no.' 'Yes. I mean no! Shut up! What kind of stupid-ass question is that?' Cam smiles. 'You see? You're damned no matter how you answer. By playing both sides, Proactive Citizenry keeps people focused on choosing between two different kinds of unwinding, making people forget that the real question...' 'Is whether or not someone should be unwound at all.

Estúpidos sueños. Incluso los buenos son malos, porque te recuerdan hasta qué punto es mala la realidad.

If I exist without form—a soul sparking between a billion different servers—could not the universe itself be alive with a spirit sparking between stars? I must sheepishly admit that I have dedicated far too many algorithms and computational resources toward finding an answer to this unknowable thing. —The Thunderhead

When a semi-stranger invites you inside to see her darkroom, any sensible human being would break the land speed record running in the other direction. However, with her perpetually present pocket pepper spray and a brown belt in theoretical jujitsu, Petula felt well able to protect herself should Ms. Planck turn out to be serving up local children in the beef ragout, like that lunch lady down in Phoenix.

Have a mint," she said. "No thanks," Mitch told her. "I SAID, HAVE A MINT." And Mitch, like a weak mind manipulated by the Force, obeyed.

Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it.

It sets me oof giggling, which gets everyone else laughing. And it occurs to me that even in these do-or-die moments, there's still space for us to laugh. I guess that means we still have some fight left in us.

We weren't close," Citra insisted. "We weren't anything." And that hurt to admit more than her parents could possibly know. How could she and Rowan have any kind of relationship when they were forced to be lethal adversaries? Even now, when he was hunted and she was yoked with the heavy responsibility of scythehood, how could there be anything between them but a dark well of longing?

And so night after night, the Thunderhead silently monitored Greyson in every way it could. Because monitoring was the closest it could come to embracing.

Wasn't it Jacqui who told us the human body is sixty percent water? Well, now I know what the rest is. The rest is dust, the rest is ash, it's sorrow and it's grief... But above all that, in spite of all that, binding us together... is hope. And joy. And a wellspring of all the things that still might be.

See, every hotel in Las Vegas has a gimmick, and the biggest gimmick of all is the Stratosphere Tower, which claims to have 113 floors, although I think they're measuring floors in Las-Vegas-inches, which stretch and contract to fit whatever lie you're trying to sell.

The harder you scrutinize randomness, the more coincidence seems like design.

It's funny how a flame can only burn your hand if you move too slow, Hayden says. You can tease it all you want and it never gets you, if you're quick enough. Are you a pyro? Connor asks. You're confusing boredom with obsession.

They had grown violent, turning riotous. Venerated statues were being pulled down on the scythedom tower grounds, and scythe vehicles that had been foolishly parked on the street were set aflame.

O)ne cannot let the event's of one's past murder one's future.

My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There's no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that.

it occurs to me that all scarecrows look as if they've been crucified.