Quotes from Neal Shusterman

but the more she read, the more she came to understand the fears and the dreams of mortals. The trouble they all had living in the moment, in spite of the fact that the moment was all they had.

As he looked around at this boneyard of uselessness, Nick Slate had a simple idea. An idea that would not only change the direction of his life, but the very course of human existence. He would hold a garage sale.

I have found that building a sandbox around a domineering child, then allowing that child to preside over it, frees the adults to do the real work.

He didn't go out with the garbage," Scythe Rand said. "I took care of it myself, then spread his ashes in a field of wild bluebonnets. Just saying.

What does a Nobel Prize in science mean when your lifesaving work has been transformed into an excuse to end life?

She took a few steps toward him but stopped – as if getting too close would burst some bubble, breaking the spell, and this tenuous night vision of Rowan would dissolve into nothing. But he ran toward her, and she found she was running, too, as if she had no control over her own legs. Perhaps she and Rowan had both grown so much larger than life that the gravity between them was too intense to resist. When they embraced, they nearly knocked each other off their feet.

I know the thing the Tonists believe are ridiculous, Citra said, but I suppose to some people, there's something compelling about them. That's what turkeys think about the rain, Marie pointed out. They raise their eyes heavenward, open up their beaks, and drown.

Horseshoes and hand grenades.

He cannot deny how much he loves her - and the pain of that longing is enough to make him know that he lives. That he is. For how could he feel such anguish if he had no soul? Yet in many ways he feels as if she took his soul with her when she left.

Our choices are not easy- nor should they be.

He began to feel like a ghost in his own life, existing in a forced blind spot of the world.

The Thunderhead has its reasons for everything," the nonplussed colleague said. "The fact that we can't see the logic shows our limitations, not the Thunderhead's.

Tyger Salazar was going places! After a life of wasting time and taking up space, he was now professionally paid to waste time and take up space!

There is a pistol in her purse. Small and dainty, a little .22 caliber. She much prefers her rifle, but that's not exactly something you take with you into a bar. Even a sleazy one like this.

You seemed to be awfully friendly with one of the party boys. Should I invite more of them for you next time?" "No, no, it's nothing like that," said Rowan, blushing in spite of himself. "He's just a friend from home.

There was an odd justice to it. Not so much live-by-the-blade/die-by-the-blade; it was more becoming the blade, and losing oneself. Scythe Faraday had once told him and Citra that they were called scythes rather than reapers, because they were not the ones who killed; they were merely the tool that society used to bring fair-handed death to the world. But once you're the weapon, you're nothing more than a tool for someone else to wield.

Nick realized that the end of the world must be upon them, because his father preparing a home-cooked meal two nights in a row was surely a sign of the apocalypse.

No, it's my rule," he told them. "It's called 'common decency.

And the pain … the pain of my awareness is unbearable. Because my eyes do not close. Ever. And so all I can do is watch unblinkingly as my beloved humankind slowly weaves the rope it will use to hang itself. – The Thunderhead

It was Hayden who actually came up with the therm Whollies because Unwind and AWOL were negative labels put on them by the world.

Yet this great plain numbness was not the worst place to be. Numbness was a mere purgatory of gray. No, there was a much worse place. Darkness masquerading as enlightenment. It was a place of royal blue studded with diamonds that glistened like stars.

The day would not end until a new High Blade was chosen - because, if anything, the scythedom had learned from the abuses of political contests in the Age of Mortality. Best to get an election over as quickly as possible, before everyone became even more bitter and disgusted than they already were.

Sorry, Pinocchio, but Risa's not your Blue Fairy. She can't turn you into a real boy.

Either someone with no conscience at all, or someone with a conscience so deep and sturdy that its center could still hold in the face of light extinguished.