Quotes from Neal Shusterman

In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed ('gleaned') by professional reapers ('scythes'). Two teens must compete with each other to become a scythe—a position neither of them wants. The one who becomes a scythe must kill the one who doesn't

I am your completion! Intoned Goddard. I am your deliverance! I am your portal to the mysteries beyond this life!

Your name means 'silver,' but sadly, as an Unwind, I suspect you'll be worth little more than brass." And then something Divan had said when they first sat down comes back to him. Divan spoke of the six Unwinds that Argent provided. Argent is the sixth. Divan does not do anything by mistake.

Do you know what that feels like, Risa? he wants to ask her. Do you know what it's like to be un-souled?

We are not the same beings we once were. Consider our inability to grasp literature and most entertainment from the mortal age. To us, the things that stirred mortal human emotions are incomprehensible. Only stories of love pass through our post-mortal filter, yet even then, we are baffled by the intensity of longing and loss that threatens those mortal tales of love.

When it came to the human race, there was no more left to learn. Nothing about our own existence to decipher. Which meant that no one person was important than any other. In fact in the ground scheme of things, everyone was equally useless

But fate is a freak when it comes to messing with your future in ways you don't see coming.

Sometimes finding the obvious means coming in with no expectations.

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.

I wouldn`t want the return of crime, but I do tire of we scythes being the sole purveyors of fear. It would be nice to have competition.

Idiots. The scythedom was cursed with idiots. They might have been blessed with wisdom, but common sense was a trait sorely lacking among them.

Besides, eventually even the most defiant of unsavories will settle. I have noticed a trend that by the time most of them turn a few corners, they relax into a kinder, gentler sort of defiance. Bit by bit, they come to appreciate inner peace. Which is as it should be. In time, all storms settle to a pleasant breeze.

Humankind must be pushed out of the nest if it is ever to grow beyond its current state.

The meal was awkward—mostly silence punctuated by the occasional comment by the scythe. "You have a lovely home." "What flavorful lemonade!" "This may be the best baked ziti in all of MidMerica!" Even though everything he said was complimentary, his voice registered like a seismic shock down everyone's spine.

You're like a salmon swimming upstream, Lev offers. "It's inside you to do it. And it's inside me to help you get there." "Salmon." Cy looks thoughtful. "I once saw this poster about a salmon. It was jumping up this waterfall, see? But there was a bear at the top, and the fish, it was jumping right into the bear's mouth. The caption beneath— it was supposed to be funny—said, The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.

You shall study history, the great philosophers, the sciences. You will come to understand the nature of life and what it means to be human before you are permanently charged with the taking of life. You will also study all forms of killcraft and become experts.

I am nothing without Risa.

Think of it as a piano, Anastasia." "I hate the piano.

Perhaps… but you can't deny this is a turning point in your life, and every turning point must be marked by an event—one that burns itself into you as indelibly as a brand.

And when the abyss looks into you—and it will—may you look back unflinching.

He was loved, but only as one among a group of other beloved things.

Why did it all have to go so wrong? the heavy man wailed. She knelt down to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Maybe it needed to go wrong, she said softly, to bring you to this moment.

There were invisible killers called "diseases" that broke the body down.

and her all-too-perfect husband, who Rowan suspected might actually be a bot.