Quotes from Neal Shusterman

But why waste time lamenting the paths that had closed? Best to embrace the one path that remained.

The kids who knew them would talk about how terrible it was, and gripe about it for a day or two, and then it became old news. 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.

Now there was a supply of anonymous parts for anyone who wanted them. And even if you didn't want younger hands or brighter eyes, there were advertisements everywhere to convince you that you did. 'A new you from the inside out!' the billboards said. 'Add fifty years to your life.' Sonia shakes her head bitterly. They created want...and want turned to need...and unwinding became woven into the fabric of everything.

The Akron AWOL in my storm cellar. Can't be an accident. It was fated, man! Fated!" "You kicked me in the nuts. That wasn't fate; it was your foot.

But then who is he to decide if Dirk truly was soulless? Better to err on the side of grace.

You'll find your own path. It may not bring you redemption, it might not even bring you peace, but it will keep you from despising yourself.

There is something profoundly wrong about him.

That's why people call him Humphrey," Connor adds. " 'Cause 'all the king's horses and all the king's men… couldn't put Humphrey together again.'

The sad truth about humanity, Risa was quick to realize, 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.

That's what you are now. TROUBLE in caps-lock. Then she puts her cane down, and softens a bit. "That's not your fault, though. You didn't ask to be born, and you didn't ask to be unwound, either.

For if my study of human nature has taught me anything, it is that truth and conviction are not comfortable bedfellows, and what one believes will often cast out that which is true.

Of course, the bad scythes weren't all in the past. But instead of bad they were now called innovative and forward-thinking. Like the innovative bloodbaths of Scythe Goddard and his killer cronies.

Then they pull onto Route 66, heading east into a world that's ripe for saving.

Now he was so deep in his own unsavorism, he wasn't quite sure he wanted to come up for air.

for the umpteenth time.

He had to ask, because he knew he wasn't Rowan Damisch anymore—not just because his fake ID said "Ronald Daniels," but because the boy he had once been had died a sad and painful death during his apprenticeship. The child in him had been successfully purged. Did anyone mourn that child? he wondered.

He had even convinced a girl to splat with him once, just so he could say, "Girls fall for me—literally.

You see, there are some who seek celebrity to change the world, and others who seek it to ensnare the world.

My life as a Morlock," he says. "Am I supposed to know what that is?" "Light-sensitive underground frogmen, often portrayed in bad green-rubber costumes. Sadly, this is what we've become. Except for the green-rubber costume part. ...The thing about Morlocks is that they're known to be cannibals.

How can you walk away," Connor finally says, "when they're about to overthrow the Cap-17 law?

Tonight we witness the spectacle of human folly and tragedy," he said. "Tomorrow, we shall live it.

High Blade Xenocrates was a bloated bundle of contradictions. He wore a robe of rich baroque brocades, yet on his feet were frayed, treadworn slippers. He lived in a simple log cabin—yet the cabin had been reassembled on the rooftop of Fulcrum City's tallest building. His furniture was mismatched and thrift-store shabby, yet on the floor beneath them were museum-quality tapestries that could have been priceless.

player had put in her armor. Her well-crafted social veneer

Why must everyone always ask me what I believe in? Why must I believe in anything at all right now? Can't I just have some time to think about it first?