Quotes from Neal Shusterman

He feels like Frodo at the gates of Mordor. Who would have guessed that Ohio could hold such dark portent?

Have you decided what color you'll be? And what jewels you'll have on your robe? a girl asked... Invisible, Rowan said. I'll come up the statehouse steps naked. Those'll be some jewels, quipped one of the junior scythes, and everyone laughed.

They knew what had happened at school, and what was happening now, but they dismissed it in that self-serving way parents often had of pretending anything they can't solve is not really a problem.

Freedom isn't freedom when you're addicted to it

Death by fire is the only natural death left.

I will not tolerate childish pastimes or vapid communications with friends. Commitment to this life means leaving behind your old life as fully as possible. When, a year from now, I choose between you, the unchosen one can return to his or her former life easily enough. But for now, consider that life a part of your past.

But Greyson Tolliver does not know. He does not see … because his eyes are shut too tightly to know anything beyond his own anguish.

I care, I tell her. Because if there's one thing I know about the news, it's that it decides for most people --including the federal government-- what is and what isn't important.

For Connor it's not about stupidity, or even rebellion—it's about feeling life. Sitting on this ledge, hidden behind an exit sign is where he feels most comfortable. Sure, one false step and he's roadkill. Yet for Connor, life on the edge is home.

Most people, however, didn't take a position either way. They just wanted to disappear into the pleasantries of their lives. As long as when bad thing happened, they happened somewhere else, to someone they didn't know, it was not their problem.

I'm setting up an e-mail address that we can all check regularly,' Allie told her. It's [email protected]." "Cute.

She understood now why ancient peoples turned their heroes into constellations.

I remember thinking, if a baby was going to be so unloved, why would God want it brought into the world?

You have been dead for more than three years.

If there was one thing she had learned, it was that monsters only had the power that you gave them.

We must, by law, keep a record of the innocents we kill. And as I see it, they're all innocents. Even the guilty. Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true. We must, by law, keep a record.

As he slaves over his homework, he begins to wonder what it was like in the old days, when education was a right, not just a privilege. He wonders if school sucked as much then as it does now.

Color shouldn't matter" I was always taught—and always believed. But there's a big difference between "shouldn't" and "doesn't." Privilege is all about not seeing that gap.

Smallpox, polio, Ebola, anthrax

This is all a little theatrical, don't you think?" Greyson commented. "Ah, but theater is the hallmark of ritual, and ritual is the touchstone of religion," Mendoza responded.

Suffering erased was the same as no suffering at all.

What must it be like to go through the motions of life, yet not be alive? Keaton knows he himself lives, because he has compassion for this poor unfortunate creature before him. A creature that is doomed to be nothing more than a collection of parts.

Would she do it if he asked? Definitely not. Probably not. Maybe not.

Siempre han existido y siempre existirán personas que viven al límite de la razón