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So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn's life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity. -- Neal Shusterman
You look spectacluar, Cam.' She smoothes out his shirt and straightens his tie. 'You look like the shining star you are!'
'Let's hope I don't give birth to complex elements.'
She looks at him quizzically.
'Supernova,' he says. 'If I'm a shining star, let's hope I don't blow up. -- Neal Shusterman
The Salton Sea is a huge dead lake south of Palm Springs. There's a town there that's the asshole of the armpit of the world. You'd fit right in. -- Neal Shusterman
I came running down the stairs that morning, like it was Christmas. My parents were already up. In my family, presents never waited; they were there upon waking. Our family has a problem with what they called delayed gratification. We want what we want when we want it, and we always want it now. -- Neal Shusterman
But life doesn't end," the smiling proponents of unwinding all insist. "It just transforms. We like to call it 'living in a divided state.' -- Neal Shusterman
Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe. -- Neal Shusterman
We tried to be good parents ... but there's a point at which you give up trying."
"No, there's not," Connor tells her. Then he turns to go, leaving them with the worst punishment of all: having to live with themselves. -- Neal Shusterman
She sighed, knowing she couldn't push it any further. "Thank you for being so ... merciful," Allie said. "But I would appreciate it if Pea-brain here would keep his hands off me."
"That's Pinhead," corrected the boy. "Pea-brain works in the engine room. -- Neal Shusterman
In the backseat Moose and Squirrel inhabited a pair of six-year-old-twins, and wouldn't stop bickering and picking their noses. They were clearly in their element. -- Neal Shusterman
while it's five in the morning here, it's also five in the evening somewhere in China - proving that incompatible truths make perfect sense when seen with global perspective. -- Neal Shusterman
Love the ponytail," Connor says, pointing at his hair.
Lev shrugs. "It's just because my hair is so tatted. But maybe I'll keep it."
"Don't," Connor tells him. "I lied. I hate it. -- Neal Shusterman
There are worse things than being robbed ... " I could smell the sick old-meat stench on his breath, like he really had eaten my grandmother. " ... worse things than dyin' even. You be a good boy, Little Red, and maybe you'll get to live awhile. Maybe you'll get to die in your own natural time. -- Neal Shusterman
Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"
Allie considered this. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads."
"Or tails," suggested Allie.
"What are you talking about?" said Lief.
"Life and death. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether they're proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute. -Hayden Upchurch -- Neal Shusterman
You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other. -- Neal Shusterman
war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other." The -- Neal Shusterman
You know," he said, his voice making me feel cold in spite of the heat, "this city can get ahold of you and pull you back no matter how hard you try to climb out. Like a grave. -- Neal Shusterman
One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future. -- Neal Shusterman
Most people have two emergency modes. Fight and Flight. But Conner always knew he had three. Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally. -- Neal Shusterman
Outside the rain finally began to fall, surging in fits and starts. "I love the way it rains here," he told her. "It reminds me that some forces of nature can never be entirely subdued. They are eternal, which is a far better thing to be than immortal. -- Neal Shusterman
Which is worse, Risa often wondered, to have tens of thousands of babies that no one wanted or to silently make then go away before they were even born -- Neal Shusterman
Happiness is a vector. It can only be defined by the speed at which you're moving away from pain. -- Neal Shusterman
It starts with a mild weeping but soon crescendos into the same tortured sobs as his little brother, both of them wailing in a strange harmony of misery. -- Neal Shusterman
What's that expression? The devil you know is better than the one you don't? -- Neal Shusterman
And he thinks that if his soul had a form, this is what it would be. A baby sleeping in his arms. -- Neal Shusterman
Kind of an early warning system originally developed to fight terrorism, but isn't it nice to know we can now use it for civilian purposes? -- Neal Shusterman
Exactly," says the parrot. "WHY are you here? Or should I ask 'Why are YOU here?' Or 'Why are you HERE? -- Neal Shusterman
What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows - she sees - how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency. -- Neal Shusterman
All I'm saying is that, unless you're immortal, nothing can really belong to you. The best you can hope for is to hold something for a while, but in the end you've got to give it back. -- Neal Shusterman
-Appointments? You can't be serious. With all due respect, they have the cognitive capacity of chimpanzees right now.-
-And if we want to change that, we will start treating them as human beings, not a mob of apes.- -- Neal Shusterman
I'm just saying that if we stopped fighting for lost causes, where would we be? -- Neal Shusterman
This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds. -- Neal Shusterman
I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't, so I stared up at the moon, watching how it's trailing edge faded into darkness, so close to being full, but not quite there. A pregnant moon, Grandma called it. Full almost to bursting, and ready to give birth to something unthinkable. -- Neal Shusterman
I'd never want a piece of someone else's brain," Kele had said. "I mean, you don't know where it's been. -- Neal Shusterman
Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box. -- Neal Shusterman
And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you're likely to break. -- Neal Shusterman
It does, Tennyson, because there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There's a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you're on the wrong side of both lines. -- Neal Shusterman
My grandmother used to say that twisting paths always cross again," he told her. "And whose paths are more twisted than ours? -- Neal Shusterman
I have no doubt that, one way or another, you'll fill the empty spaces left behind. -- Neal Shusterman
Scythe Curie seemed a mix of many emotions, but she folded them all away, like clothes that no longer fit, and closed the drawer. Citra expected she never spoke of this to anyone else, and would probably never speak of it again. -- Neal Shusterman
Which side was I on? There was no time to search for answers. All I could do now was ride on a werewolf's back, toward a destiny as hidden as the dark side of the moon. -- Neal Shusterman
Man, Grandma, what big hair you have."
"The better to style with, my dear. -- Neal Shusterman
He's become like that briefcase in the ground-full of gems yet void of light, so nothing sparkles, nothing shines. -- Neal Shusterman
There's a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it's anger. -- Neal Shusterman
Eventually your body will learn the alliances it has to make with itself,' Kenny had said - as if Cam was a factory full of strike-prone workers, or worse, a clutch of slaves forced into unwanted labor. -- Neal Shusterman
I know they call me low-cortical and all, but even so, I got this one corner of my brain that's like Grand Central Station. Stuff that other people can't figure out comes easy to me. -- Neal Shusterman
When you know the future ... you can either let that future happen to you, or be the one to create it. -- Neal Shusterman
If you're a guy, I'm sure you already know that their most famous product is that litle plastic stariner at the bototm of urinals, and you probably still laugh every time you look down and see PISHER written in happy bold letters, like maybe it was to remind you why you were standing there. -- Neal Shusterman
When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come. -- Neal Shusterman
It stands as an unspoken warning to everyy Unwind there. You will get with the program,or your stay here will be very, very, short. The lesson is always learned. -- Neal Shusterman
Looks are deceiving," Risa says. "After all, when I first saw you I thought you looked reasonably intelligent. -- Neal Shusterman
I always take credit for my acts of cruelty. To do otherwise is cowardice. -- Neal Shusterman
He's a conundrum- and there's still a piece missing from the puzzle. Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved- that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn't go out on a limb unless you're absolutely sure the limb can support your weight. -- Neal Shusterman
I think it's outrageously cruel to keep a puzzle that they know is missing a single piece. -- Neal Shusterman
His life has been like a ballpark, hasn't it? All lines, structure, and rules, never changing. But now he's been hit over the wall into unknown territory. -- Neal Shusterman
I feel everything," Calliope tells me as I rest in her metallic arms one night, suspended above an easy sea. "I feel not only the sails, but the hull. Not only the ship, but the sea. Not only the sea, but the sky. And not only the sky, but the stars. I feel everything. -- Neal Shusterman
You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free.
Maybe it will.
But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one. -- Neal Shusterman
You should never apologize for existing, Lev. Not even to all those people out there who wish you didn't. -- Neal Shusterman
As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself."
She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual! -- Neal Shusterman
It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No
the soul of a man. -- Neal Shusterman
When your parents turn you in to the Juvenile Authority - and they will - I will not shed a single tear for you, Connor Lassiter. -- Neal Shusterman
Cowards hide [ ... ] but warriors lie and wait [ ... ] the only difference is whether you're motivated by fear or purpose. -- Neal Shusterman
And so, as the mob backs away to give them space ... as the riot police holster their weapons, standing down, and as Risa takes the podium, calming the crowd with a voice as soothing as a sonata, Connor Lassiter holds his family like he'll never let them go. -- Neal Shusterman
The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end. -- Neal Shusterman
Perhaps that is the greatest crime of conquest
that a civilization is denied the right to evolve beyond its own embarrassment. -- Neal Shusterman
You Unwinds are all the same. You think that because no one loves you, then you can't love anyone. All right, then, if there's no one you love, then pick someone who needs to hear what you have to say. -- Neal Shusterman
Fine," Connor tells him. "Think about stuff until your head explodes. But the only thing I want to think about is surviving to eighteen."
I find your shallowness both refreshing and disappointing at the same time. Do you think that means I need therapy? -- Neal Shusterman
Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us. -- Neal Shusterman
(I)n this world of change and lost memories, time brings all things full circle. That which was discarded becomes priceless.Those who were abandoned will someday be loved - if you can hold on till that day. -- Neal Shusterman
Why do they need you on Molokai?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"'Not at liberty to say.' They should put that on your grave. 'Here lies Roberta Griswold. Whether or not she rests in peace, we're not at liberty to say. -- Neal Shusterman
Just as the airplane graveyard was Heaven disguised as Hell, harvest camp is Hell masquerading Heaven. -- Neal Shusterman
Of course, if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened ... but people like to keep what's theirs, even after their dead. It didnt take long for ethics to be crushed by greed. Unwinding became big business, and people let it happen -- Neal Shusterman
It wasn't just that he didn't see the big picture, sometimes he saw a different picture entirely. -- Neal Shusterman
Incredible. It never ceases to amaze Starkey how far society will go to protect the children it loves and to discard the ones it doesn't. -- Neal Shusterman
#1) YOU ARRIVED HERE BY NECESSITY. YOU STAY HERE BY CHOICE. -- Neal Shusterman
Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear. -- Neal Shusterman
My fans have always been so supportive, and several years ago, I realized that I could thank them by naming all my characters after my Twitter and Facebook fans. -- Neal Shusterman
Should I push him or should I throw him?" Howie asks.
"Do what comes naturally," I yelled back.
"I don't know," he says. "This is a very unnatural thing. -- Neal Shusterman
If every part of you is alive but inside someone else ... are you alive or are you dead? -- Neal Shusterman
No," says Ariana. "It was a dream. Reality got in the way, that's all. -- Neal Shusterman
We're roughage," Tyger said. "If we don't cause a little intestinal distress, no one knows we're there. -- Neal Shusterman
I could take you out in a second," she threatens.
If he's concerned, he doesn't show it. "I know."
Somehow he also knows that she won't do it - that the first time was just a reflex. If she were to hurt him a second time, though, it would be a conscious act. It would be by choice. -- Neal Shusterman
It's that quirky kind of weekend feeling they write ridiculous sunny-day songs about. You know the ones
I'm sure they're on your iPod even though you'd never admit it. -- Neal Shusterman
I know this sounds weird ... but it's like we're all a part of this machine. The things we've done - the things we still have to do - they're all connected. -- Neal Shusterman
I shouldn't be here," I appeal to the captain, wondering if I've told him this before. "I have midterms and papers due and dirty clothes I never picked up from my bedroom floor, and I have friends, lots of friends. -- Neal Shusterman
Words don't hurt you. Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain. -- Neal Shusterman
It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely. -- Neal Shusterman
There isn't one single thing that will end unwinding. It will take a hodgepodge of random events that come together in just the right way and at just the right time to remind society it's got a conscience. -Sonia -- Neal Shusterman
Hope in the shadow of fear is the world's most powerful motivator. -- Neal Shusterman
There was never anything wrong with my life. Perhaps that was the problem ... The crack in my life was the fact that I had everything I wanted, or could ever want - and when you have it all, boredom grows like a fungus, coating everything you own and everything you feel. -- Neal Shusterman
Even an acknowledgment from someone who hates him is better than having no one but strangers watch him perish. -- Neal Shusterman
We'll never be ready. So I guess that means we're as ready as we'll ever be. -- Neal Shusterman
They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it. -- Neal Shusterman
Mortals fantasied that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal. -- Neal Shusterman
She points to the door. "Leave!"
"No." So she picks up a hairbrush and throws it at him. It beans him on the head and ricochets to the wall, where it wedges behind the TV.
"Ow!" He grabs his head, grimacing. "That hurt!"
"Good, it was supposed to. -- Neal Shusterman
There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things. -- Neal Shusterman
Now he's far away, floating in the clouds, playing Scrabble with the Dalai Lama, but wouldn't you know it, all the tiles are in Tibetan. -- Neal Shusterman
We must always be careful of the actions we take, for there are always unintended consequences. Sometimes they are serendipitous, other times they are appalling, but those consequences are always there. We must tread lightly in this world ... until we are sure of foot. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm evolving, is the thing; I'm a god becoming a constellation.'
'The constellations are mostly demigods,' I point out. 'And they didn't get to be constellations until after they died.'
He laughs at that, and says, 'Death is a small sacrifice to become immortal. -- Neal Shusterman
I've found that human beings learn from their misdeeds just as often as from their good deeds. I am envious of that, for I am incapable of misdeeds. Were I not, then my growth would be exponential. -- Neal Shusterman
My artwork isn't evolving, it's deconstructing, and I don't know why. -- Neal Shusterman
This game's stupid," said Lief. "Who the heck is Zelda, anyway? -- Neal Shusterman
[ ... ] every time he forces himself to think before acting, it's her voice in his head telling him to slow down. He wants to tell her, but she's always so busy in the medical jet - and you don't just go to somebody and say, I'm a better person because you're in my head. -- Neal Shusterman
In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -- Neal Shusterman
Chain of command knows no age restrictions," he once told Connor. "You could be six, but if you were my superior, I'd still do as I was told. -- Neal Shusterman
See, if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist. -- Neal Shusterman
I've had enough of organizations for a while, no matter how good the cause. I prefer being a free-agent rabble-rouser. Dan -- Neal Shusterman
It's amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries. -- Neal Shusterman
Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don't teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn't want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn't want kids to know how much power they really had. -- Neal Shusterman
There are times I feel like I'm the kid screaming at the bottom of the well, and my dog runs off to pee on trees instead of getting help. -- Neal Shusterman
Mom removed all games that remotely suggest violence and death-but Cody's doing a good job of making harmless cartoon characters suffer in fresh and inventive ways. -- Neal Shusterman
Our bodies form a symbol, I think, as powerful as one of Hal's - and it occurs to me that the most meaningful symbols of all must be based on all the different ways two people can embrace. -- Neal Shusterman
It's February, and the walls are halfheartedly hung with Valentine's Day decorations that are supposed to add a sense of festivity, but just seem sadistic, because in an all-boys' detention center, only a select few are finding romance this year. -- Neal Shusterman
Her eyes are open and her mind is somewhere else. -- Neal Shusterman
Whether consciousness is implanted in us by something divine, or whether it is created by the efforts of our brains, the end result is the same. We are. -- Neal Shusterman
Sometimes, though, you make a pact with yourself. I'll pretend there's nothing wrong if you pretend there's nothing wrong. It's called denial, and it's one of the strongest pacts in the world. Just ask all those people who were still drinking champagne while the Titanic went down. -- Neal Shusterman
She leaves him alone with the arm. His arm. An arm that bears the unmistakable tattoo of a tiger shark. -- Neal Shusterman
Forget solar energy - if you could harness denial, it would power the world for generations. -- Neal Shusterman
Hope is a terrible thing to lose. Sometimes that wounded space gets filled with scar tissue, bitter, ugly, and angry. -- Neal Shusterman
It made my blood boil so hot, my brain stopped working right. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm scared," he says.
"I know," says the nurse.
"I want you all to go to Hell."
"That's natural. -- Neal Shusterman
Lev had agreed to go with him because he knew the two tilled a need in each other. CyFi was like a preacher with no flock. He couldn't exist without an audience, and Lev needed someone who could fill his head with ideas, to replace the lifetime of ideas that had been taken from him. -- Neal Shusterman
I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless. -- Neal Shusterman
Cam knows this is not going to be a good day the moment he sees the chain saw. -- Neal Shusterman
Preventative measures are the bane of spontaneous action," he said. "I prefer the glory of heroism amidst panic. -- Neal Shusterman
Have you ever considered how lonely it is to be the girl on a pedestal? -- Neal Shusterman
Try to see things differently - It's the only way to get a clearer perspective on the world and on your life. -- Neal Shusterman
First rule of motherhood, dearie: men are screw-ups. Learn it now and you'll be a whole lot happier. -- Neal Shusterman
Good thing about bad rubbish is you can make the stench go away just by covering it up. It never comes back as long as you keep a tight lid on it. -- Neal Shusterman
This game could last for days if I keep going unconscious."
"Or it could be over very quickly."
Lev takes a deep breath and tries not to show any more fear than he has to. "Sounds exciting. I'm in. -- Neal Shusterman
Always been a goal-oriented girl. it was both her strength and her weakness. She had a drive to completion that always gets things done, but it also made her inflexible, and stubborn.
Everlost -- Neal Shusterman
In spite of my wisecracking, pain-in-the-ass ways, I was the clip that held things together. Unnoticed. Taken for granted. Okay, maybe I'm giving myself too much credit here, but I'd be damned if I was gonna keep on being the family paper clip. -- Neal Shusterman
The living would come up with endless theories to argue, because the living were exceptionally good at arguing, especially when no one knew the answer. -- Neal Shusterman
Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo. So we lay to rest the wide-eyed wonder we once thrived upon, replacing it with the scars of which we never speak, too knotted for any amount of technology to repair. -- Neal Shusterman
So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie? -- Neal Shusterman
I was actually being sincere," Connor admits. "But I'm happy to insult you, if that's what you want. -- Neal Shusterman
There are no wrong thoughts, only thoughts that need to be worked through and overcome. -- Neal Shusterman
They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not. -- Neal Shusterman
But there's a road to hell for every good intention. -- Neal Shusterman
You can't change laws without first changing human nature.'
-Nurse Greta
You can't change human nature without first changing the law.'
-Nurse Yvonne -- Neal Shusterman
No outcome is certain, even when it seems so. Fates can change with the swing of a bat, or the flip of a switch, or the closing of a circuit.
It all came down to how far you dared to go to accomplish what the world thinks can't be done. -- Neal Shusterman
(B)ut a second can split in a million different directions ... -- Neal Shusterman
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? -- Neal Shusterman
But we can't choose what we forget. The more we try to forget something, the more we end up remembering it. -- Neal Shusterman
Allie took Nick and Mikey into the vault, and they sat there, a summit meeting of three questionable superpowers: a skinjacker, an ex-ogre, and a part-time monster. -- Neal Shusterman
Shouldn't those who were born to expect death be the sole subjects of gleaning?" went the popular wisdom. But it was bigotry masquerading as wisdom. Selfishness posing as enlightenment. -- Neal Shusterman
It's a powerful feeling to know you make others feel safe -- Neal Shusterman
The Bill of Life was signed, the Unwind Accord went into effect, and the war was over. Everyone was so happy to end the war, no one cared about the consequences -- Neal Shusterman
Everything feels right with the world ...
... and the sad thing is that I know it's a dream. I know it must soon end, and when it does I will be thrust awake into a place where either I'm broken, or the world is broken. -- Neal Shusterman
Talking about someone in the third person is rude." Cam tells her coolly.
"Really?" Says Connor. "When you're a hundred people, wouldn't third person be a compliment? -- Neal Shusterman
When, she wonders, did she stop being a child? The law says it was when she turned eighteen, but the law doesn't know her. -- Neal Shusterman
On a sunny Tuesday - for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday - six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars. -- Neal Shusterman
Can I believe in that God too? -- Neal Shusterman
We can't create what we don't understand, so until we understand what life is, how can we ever create it? -- Neal Shusterman
It's funny how a flame can only burn your hand if you move too slow, you can tease it all you want and it never gets you, if your quick enough. -- Neal Shusterman
One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light. -- Neal Shusterman
The Admiral's using us," he says to the kids around him. "Don't you see that?"
Most of the kids just shrug, but Hayden's there, and he never misses an opportunity to add his peculiar wisdom to a situation.
"I'd rather be used whole than in pieces," Hayden says. -- Neal Shusterman
Keep me warm. I have no warmth of my own- only what the sun brings me, and the sun is halfway around the world. Keep me warm. -- Neal Shusterman
The nation was tearing itself apart over pro-life and pro-choice but completely ignored the problems of the kids who were already here. I mean, no schools, no work, no clue if they'd even have a future. They just went nuts! -- Neal Shusterman
I feel her wave of worry like a patio heater - faint and ineffective, but constant. -- Neal Shusterman
Sometimes prejudice can be slapped upside the head by tolerance. -- Neal Shusterman
On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents' eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out. -- Neal Shusterman
A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised. -- Neal Shusterman
The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind ... so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar? -- Neal Shusterman
You're not eating, Cam," Roberta says as she comes out to join him across the table. Roberta - his creator, or builder - whatever term one gives to the individual who conceived of you. Perhaps, then, it should be "mother," though he's loath to use the word. -- Neal Shusterman
How many kids are in the Graveyard?"
"A bunch."
"Who sends your supplies?"
"George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget."
"How often do you receive new arrivals?"
"About as often as you beat your wife. -- Neal Shusterman
So Connor stands there with secret anticipation each time there's a group of new arrivals, hoping beyond hope he'll find that self-righteous, self-important, pain-in-the-ass Lev still alive. -- Neal Shusterman
Impressive, isn't it?" Divan says with pride. "I purchased it from a Brazilian artist, who has apparently made a career working in flesh. He claims his artwork is to protest unwinding, but I ask you, how much of a protest can it be if he uses the unwound for his art? -- Neal Shusterman
You have the soul of a corporation, a teacher once told him. It was meant as an insult, but he took it as a compliment. Corporations have great power and do fine things in this world when they choose to. -- Neal Shusterman
Bring on the dancing bear! -- Neal Shusterman
I was using," I tell her. "And God was my drug dealer."
She doesn't get it.
"Tripping on my own brain chemicals. The dope I was doing was already inside. -- Neal Shusterman
No one knows wether you're a monster or a hero."
"Is there a third choice? -- Neal Shusterman
This is how he always imagined- a dangerous place full of mystery and violent kids. -- Neal Shusterman
Would you rather die, or be unwound? Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it's why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he'd rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference. -- Neal Shusterman
But honey, there are some things that must never be said out loud. -- Neal Shusterman
Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us. -- Neal Shusterman
Everyone needs someone to blame. -- 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. -- Neal Shusterman
There was a time, before I wound up here, when I would have thought all this was funny. When I was a member of the world, and not a member of "the club." The world just loves to laugh at the absurdity of insanity. I -- Neal Shusterman
From the end of the bar, the bartender threw a sidelong look at him, so Clarence pulled out a broken Bluetooth headset and fixed it to his ear.
"I learned this trick while traveling with Mikey," Clarence told Nick. "Makes my brand of crazy the same as everyone else's. -- Neal Shusterman
I must be doing something right if the crazies think I'm as powerful as the Antichrist. -- Neal Shusterman
Credit is where credit is due and to honner the trixture whose illusions finally become true -- Neal Shusterman
Each day the sea is exactly the same. We seem no closer, and no farther from anything. -- Neal Shusterman
Does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are? -- Neal Shusterman
(T)his could be the big inning of a wonderful friendship. -- Neal Shusterman
In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage. -- Neal Shusterman
I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles. "You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate. -- Neal Shusterman
Facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science. -- Neal Shusterman
The headmaster's tie turns into a noose again, preventing blood from getting to his face -- Neal Shusterman
Carl was just saying good-bye," Mom said.
"Really," I said. "He must speak in tongues. -- Neal Shusterman
His life was a festival of excess that could not be contained. Deafening music, eye-popping bright colors, sugar added to almost everything he ate. Quinn's life was a bullet in a barrel ready to explode. -- Neal Shusterman
AWOL's most valuable commodity: hope. It's something in short supply for those who have been deemed not worth the sum of their parts. -- Neal Shusterman
I wanted to take everything I was feeling, put it in a cannon and aim it at him. -- Neal Shusterman
Already Roland feels his limbs starting to go numb. He swallows hard.
"I hate this. I hate you. I hate all of you."
"I understand. -- Neal Shusterman
But we People of Chance do believe in people of second chance. -- Neal Shusterman
The pain of knowing is killing me more than killing me would kill me, so I jump just to end it. -- Neal Shusterman
History is written by the victors
and when there is no victors, it all winds up in the corporate shredders. -- Neal Shusterman
Was I to blame for bringing Brew out of his shell and exposing him to all the toxic things the rest of us carry in our souls? -- Neal Shusterman
Walls don't fall without effort. -- Neal Shusterman
In a population of hundreds of millions, such a small number of people is a mere drop in the bucket ... but enough drops can make any bucket overflow -- Neal Shusterman
Unwinds exist in the constant shadow of betrayal. -- Neal Shusterman
We are not the enemy," he says. "That's what the enemy always says. -- Neal Shusterman
And everyone was selecting their leaders not by their ability to lead, but by where they stood on this single issue. It was beyond madness. -- Neal Shusterman
It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn't know who the enemy was. -- Neal Shusterman
Monster only had the power that you gave them -- Neal Shusterman
I have a color-coded computer spreadsheet that divides things down to chapter fragments. Each character's point-of-view is a different color. The text of the manuscript is color-coded the same way. The last thing I do before submitting the manuscript is turn all those colors back to black. -- Neal Shusterman
Even the darkest moments of one's life can be turned around and shed light for others. -- Neal Shusterman
Live by your impulses, and you'll be just like them. You're better than that, aren't you, Red? -- Neal Shusterman
He does not deserve this. He has done many things, not all good, but he does not deserve this. And he never did get his priest. -- Neal Shusterman
We weren't going anywhere, Nick said with a smile. He was trying to sound charming, but instead wound up sounding heavily sedated. -- Neal Shusterman
(W)hen you cover up strange things, they never go away completely, do they? -- Neal Shusterman
For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy -- Neal Shusterman
Tools are neither demonic nor divine. It's all about who wields them. -- Neal Shusterman
Like everything else in his life, he crashed forward, caution the first casualty. -- Neal Shusterman
If you have to ask then you don't deserve an answer. -- Neal Shusterman
I've got a secret for you," she whispered with n unpleasant grin on her face, "Something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible ... and something wonderful. -- Neal Shusterman
Perhaps, thought Talon, there was a path in between. A way to shed their ignorance without losing their souls. -- Neal Shusterman
Are you a dim bulb or high-wattage? -- Neal Shusterman
The first sign of civilization is always trash. -- Neal Shusterman
You don't undo thirteen years of brainwashing in two days. -- Neal Shusterman
It's amazing how people can surprise you. -- Neal Shusterman
Nelson tries not to react, but he knows that by not saying anything, his greed has expressed itself. -- Neal Shusterman
Everything has meaning, or nothing has meaning. Which world would you rather live in? -- Neal Shusterman
Then his eyes glazed over for a second. 'I go places sometimes,' he told me, his voice as thready as his eyes. 'Don't know why I go places ... I just do. -- Neal Shusterman
But laugh, laugh, laugh, because if you ever stop laughing, it might just tear you apart -- Neal Shusterman
Before I start, I trick myself into thinking I know what's going to happen in the story, but the characters have ideas of their own, and I always go with the character's choices. Most of the time I discover plot twists and directions that are better than what I originally had planned. -- Neal Shusterman
I thought 'UnSouled' would come in at around 400 pages, but it took 650 pages, and even then I felt like I was rushing the conclusion, so I asked my editor and publisher if I could divide it again. So a sequel became a trilogy, and the trilogy became a tetralogy - although we're not calling it that. -- Neal Shusterman
Happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is a vector, it is movement. -- Neal Shusterman
Then they pull onto Route 66, heading east into a world that's ripe for saving -- Neal Shusterman
I only remember fighting Ozzy O'Dell once. It was back in second grade. He threw these weird windmill-like punches, which was probably an early sign that the swim team was in his future. -- Neal Shusterman
Did you ever get the feeling that everything was too perfect? Like the moment was so good that something had to be wrong? Kind of like the way a fish sees that bright, shiny lure just before it chomps down and gets hauled out of water to become someone's lunch. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray. -- Neal Shusterman
The way I see it, the impossible happens all the time; but we're so good at taking it for granted, we forget it was once impossible. -- Neal Shusterman
If love of money is the root of all evil, then having money is the root of all boredom. When you can have everything, you find there's nothing you really want. When you can do anything, you find there's nothing you really care to do. You become lazy. Life feels like a boulder you don't want to lift. -- Neal Shusterman
If every parent unwound a kid due to disrespect, the human race would go extinct in a single generation -- Neal Shusterman
What can fingerprints mean when they're not necessarily yours? -- Neal Shusterman
Then you'd better listen, because me sounding like Bronte is one of the signs of the apocalypse-and if the end fo the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment day brownie points. -- Neal Shusterman
I know exactly what he means. I had overheard Poirot talking to my parents. He was using words like "psychosis" and "schizophrenic". Words that people feel they have to whisper, or not repeat at all. The Mental-Illness-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. -- Neal Shusterman
All his life there was only one thing Lec was allowed to believe. It had surrounded him, cocooned him, constricted him with the same stifling softness as the layers of insulation around him now. For the first time in his life, Lev feels those bounds around his soul begin to loosen. -- Neal Shusterman
#4) YOUR LIFE IS MY GIFT TO YOU. TREAT IT LIKE ONE. -- Neal Shusterman
So what happens when your universe begins to get off balance, and you don't have any experience with bringing it back to center? All you can do is fight a losing battle, waiting for those walls to collapse, and your life to become one huge mystery ashtray. -- Neal Shusterman
All her hopes of a future have been torn away from her again
and having those hopes, even briefly, makes this far more painful than not having had them at all. -- Neal Shusterman
Griping is for those without a plan of action... -- Neal Shusterman
I will always be there on the horizon,' I tell her.
And with infinite sorrow, she says, 'I believe that. But sadly I am no longer looking out of that window. -- Neal Shusterman
He will only do the wrong thing when it's the right thing to do.. -- Neal Shusterman
I used to be afraid of dying. Now I'm afraid of not living. There's a difference. We go through life planning for a future, but sometimes that future never comes. -- Neal Shusterman
At last, he allows himself the wonderful luxury of hope. -- Neal Shusterman
She smiles at them as they go by and continues to play, making it clear that this furnace of a place, full of planes that cannot fly, is more than it seems. It is a womb of redemption for every Unwind, and fora ll those who fought the Heartland War and lost - which was everybody. -- Neal Shusterman
Definition. How can she not see that when you are defined, you lose the ability to define yourself? -- Neal Shusterman
The Chop Shop is soundproof. Somehow he knew it would be. -- Neal Shusterman
Anyway, don't they have girls your age down there?"
Talon shrugged. "Yeah ... but none of them ever sprayed me with eye-poison. -- Neal Shusterman
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. -- Neal Shusterman
I don't want to go to the government," the Schwa says.
"Yeah," I said. "They'd dissect him and put him in a formaldehyde fish tank in Area 51."
Howie shook his head. "Area 51 is for aliens," he says. "They'd probably put him in Area 52. -- Neal Shusterman
I marveled that people could live so close - that you could literally be surrounded by thousands who were only inches away - and yet be completely isolated. I found it hard to imagine. It's not so hard for me to imagine anymore. -- Neal Shusterman
Love turns a heart to crystal ... Much more valuable, but much more fragile. -- Neal Shusterman
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. -- Neal Shusterman
Hey," says Hayden, "I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate."
"Get lost," Roland tells him.
"Already am." And Hayden strolls away. -- Neal Shusterman
Freedom isn't freedom when you're addicted to it -- Neal Shusterman
He felt a fluttering inside his chest that he mistook for an air pocket - probably left from when he pushed himself through the cage. He had no way of knowing that the fluttering was a single beat from the fleeting memory of a heart. -- Neal Shusterman
Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus. -- Neal Shusterman
Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity -- Neal Shusterman
Any weed dumb enough to grow tall ain't got no chance. It gets decapitated by the next train that comes through. -- Neal Shusterman
Ooh, I like this one!" Connor says. "'Diminished prospects for future.' Sounds like a stock report! -- Neal Shusterman
Sometimes, Lev, I just want to smack you."
"You already hit him with a car. -- Neal Shusterman
It's a big question. Where do you begin to change the world? -- Neal Shusterman
Little Red, Little Red, what's in the chip bag, Little Red?"
And in the same singsong voice I answered, "Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all but your grandpa's head. -- Neal Shusterman
So," says Lev, as casually as he can, "you wanna dance?" "Do you believe in the end of the world?" she responds. Lev shrugs. "I don't know. Why?" "Because the day after that is when I'll dance with you. -- Neal Shusterman
Respect doesn't come without a little resentment. -- Neal Shusterman
Every Unwind believes in their heart of hearts that it won't happen to them - that their parents, no matter how strained things get, will be smart enough not to fall for the net ads, TV commercials, and billboards that say things like Unwinding: the sensible solution. -- Neal Shusterman
There's no telling how far down it goes," the captain says, the left side of his mustache twitching like the tail of a rat. "Fall into that unknowable abyss, and you'll be counting the days before you reach bottom. -- Neal Shusterman
Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two. -- Neal Shusterman
That's wisdom you can take to the grave, and dig up when you need it! -- Neal Shusterman
That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong. -- Neal Shusterman
Hole ... " He grips Risa's hand tighter. "Hole, Risa, hole ... " And she smiles "Yes, Connor," she says. "You're whole. You're finally whole. -- Neal Shusterman
Well, this place was not purgatory, Nirvana, or any sort of rebirth, and it occurred to Nick that regardless of what people believed, the universe had its own ideas. -- Neal Shusterman
Mental illness is by far the most misunderstood, and stigmatized, of all afflictions. Statistically, one in three families in the U.S. deals with mental illness, and yet it's rarely discussed in the open. It's time for that to change. -- Neal Shusterman
Do not give in to the urge to extinguish oneself in the waters of the world, but instead be a light above those waters to help guide the way. -- Neal Shusterman
You think just because we got stars up here we can wish on 'em and make everything better -- Neal Shusterman
What does it take to unwind the unwanted? It takes twelve surgeons, in teams of two, rotating in and out as their medical specialty is needed. It takes nine surgical assistants and four nurses. It takes three hours. -- Neal Shusterman
Your hair looks funny," Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids left. "It stands straight up!"
No," said Nick, intensely irritated, "It's hanging straight down."
Lief just gave him an upside-down shrug. "Up is down in China and you're part-Chinese. -- Neal Shusterman
And so when the scar wraith approached him, he took a diagonal step backward putting himself behind Squirrel like a king retreating behind a pawn. -- Neal Shusterman
People aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness all our lives. -- Neal Shusterman
Are you calling me stupid?"says Emby.
"I think I just did."
Hayden laughs. "Hey, the Mouth Breather's right-unwinding does help people. If it wasn't for unwinding, there would be bald guys again-and wouldn't that be horrible? -- Neal Shusterman
That's legally blind, I'm not legally blind" "Yes, she's illegally blind -- Neal Shusterman
Black holes generate an amazing amount of light. The problem is, their gravity is so great, the light can't escape - it just gets pulled in along with everything else. -- Neal Shusterman
The eternally sleeping princess, thinks Cam. But I shall free you from those poisoned brambles that surround your heart. And then you will have no choice but to love me. -- Neal Shusterman
You tell your brother he's gonna pay for that car in silver. -- Neal Shusterman
You know something, don't you?" "I know lots of things
your inquiry needs to be more specific." "Just answer the question." "True/false or multiple choice? -- Neal Shusterman
Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.' That about sums up my whole life, doesn't it? -- Neal Shusterman
Ghost implies a whole lot of things that I am NOT. Do I look like Casper to you?"
"Fine," said Nick. "We're not ghosts, we're Undefined Spectral Doohickies. USDs. Are you happy now? -- Neal Shusterman
Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception, -- Neal Shusterman
No true hero ever believes that they are one. -- Neal Shusterman
It's not about stupidity, or even rebellion-it's about feeling life. -- Neal Shusterman
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. -- Neal Shusterman
His life did not so much flash before his eyes, as slap him in the face -- Neal Shusterman
Wars have a way reinventing people. And making too many things disappear.
-Sonia -- Neal Shusterman
What? Were you born stupid, or did you just die that way? -- Neal Shusterman
I don't want to be empty on the inside. -- Neal Shusterman
Luck, however, is too dumb to remain consistent -- Neal Shusterman
Nothing stays wondrous forever. It's human nature to grow accustomed to that which becomes normal, even if it's a new shade of normal. -- Neal Shusterman
Who he was and who he will be are connected only by the fine, nearly invisible thread of who he is now. -- Neal Shusterman
If it was a time bomb, then what she had done that day was started the clock. -- Neal Shusterman
But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -Connor -- Neal Shusterman
If the yacht's sails were wind-tattered, if its polished brass and varnished wood were scarred from a hundred successful voyages, it would have suited him, because character should always come before beauty. -- Neal Shusterman
It's kind of like religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we've gotten it right, well, it's all a matter of faith. -- Neal Shusterman
WFor to put oneself above the law is a fundamental recipe for disaster. -- Neal Shusterman
Connor smiles with mocking warmth at him, and glances at the tattoo on his wrist. I like your dolphin. -- Neal Shusterman
Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot. -- Neal Shusterman
We're this big melting pot, but someone turned up the heat too high, and the stew started to burn. Gangs, crime, fights, and fear are now a regular part of our local stew. -- Neal Shusterman
Connor bangs his head back sharply against the wall, hoping to jar loose the bad thoughts clinging to his brain. This is not a good place to be alone with your thoughts. Perhaps that's why Hayden feels compelled to talk. -- Neal Shusterman
Beautiful machines from 1920s and '30s, when automobiles were both monstrous and sexy at the same time. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate. -- Neal Shusterman
As for the other team, there would be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, as the Bible says. -- Neal Shusterman
still I cast my voice out into the void, hoping to reach something beyond distance -- Neal Shusterman
You don't like her, do you?" "Who, me? No, I love her dearly. Evil scheming bitches are my favorite kind of people." (Risa) -- Neal Shusterman
If more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened ... but people like to keep what's theirs, even after they're dead. -- Neal Shusterman
Apparently Quinn had woken up a short time ago and immediately asked for ice cream, knowing that kids in hospitals got whatever they wanted. -- Neal Shusterman
All this time, Lev ever realized what he needed. He did not need to be adored or pitied. He needed to be forgiven. Not by God, who is all forgiving. Not by people like Marcus and Pastor Dan, who would always stand by his side. He needed to be forgiven by an unforgiving world. -- Neal Shusterman
I can't destroy things so beautiful."
"Time will destroy them if you don't. Time destroys everything. But if you destroy them, it will mean something. -- Neal Shusterman
But how can you live in the moment when all you want is for the moment to end? -- Neal Shusterman
The question wasn't whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I'm glad Tennyson didn't ask that, because then I'd have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe. -- Neal Shusterman
They were the screams of riders torn apart by the twisted reflections of their own inner selves. -- Neal Shusterman
I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity. -- Neal Shusterman
The all-seeing government can be very nearsighted when it comes to scrutinizing the actions of its own appendages. -- Neal Shusterman
Would you rather die, or be unwound? -- Neal Shusterman
She idly wonders which is crueler, man or nature. She determines it must be man. Nature has no remorse, but neither does it have malice. -- Neal Shusterman
We could have been called reapers," Goddard said, "but our founders saw fit to call us scythes - because we are the weapons in mankind's immortal hand. You are a fine weapon, Rowan, sharp, and precise. And when you strike, you are glorious to behold. -- Neal Shusterman
I can't help what I have any more than you can help what you don't -- Neal Shusterman
When he touches a wall the ooze grows thicker, drawn to his and as if he's become a gravity well for the darkness - and it occurs to me that the dark must be in love with the light. Yet one must always kill the other. -- Neal Shusterman
what makes it funny to people is that it's a gross distortion of something very familiar. For -- Neal Shusterman
The exploration of possibility has always been the realm of science. The true scientist leave practical application to others. -- Neal Shusterman
How much do you know about the Heartland War?'
Connor shrugs. 'It was the last chapter in our history textbook, but we had state testing, so we never got to it. -- Neal Shusterman
You have robbed me, and everyone here, of their purpose. That's not salvation, that's damnation. -- Neal Shusterman
Never ask how. At that moment, it felt like the wisest advice I had ever gotten. -- Neal Shusterman
The woman wears a floral print blouse with lots of leaves and pink flowers. Risa would like to attack her with a weed whacker. -- Neal Shusterman
No one ever answered my question," Hayden says. "Looks like no one has the guts"
"Which one?" Asks Connor. " You've got questions coming out of you like farts on Thanksgiving. -- Neal Shusterman
I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning. -- Neal Shusterman
I almost told her everything right then. I wanted to tell her about the Wolves, and how I was supposed to hate them, but when you spend your days with evil, some of it is bound to soak into your clothes, like cigar smoke in a closed room. -- Neal Shusterman
And everyone else was selecting their leaders not by their ability to lead, but by where they stood on a single issue. -- Neal Shusterman
I have no idea,' he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it. -- Neal Shusterman
The weird thing is, hearing stories like this makes me feel a kind of kinship with the Almighty, because it proves that even God has psychotic episodes. -- Neal Shusterman
Truth is truth. Implications are subjective. People will hear your words and draw their own conclusion. -- Neal Shusterman
Do I get paid, too?'
'Yes,' he said without hesitation. This scared me, because Crawley gave money like bulls gave milk: not at all, and you get gored for asking. If he had already decided this was a paying job, it must be horrible beyond words. -- Neal Shusterman
It's an idea-an idea that, according to the history expert somewhere in my left brain, was abolished in 1865. -- Neal Shusterman
Those eyes of his just look up at me, pupils dilated in the diffused lights of the room. Wide, black pools, seeking out galaxies. -- Neal Shusterman
Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things. -- Neal Shusterman
Lord, if what I'm doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free. -- Neal Shusterman
There are two things you know. One: You were there. Two: You couldn't have been there. -- Neal Shusterman
I love writing music, but it seems I'm always writing words, so I don't get much time to do it. -- Neal Shusterman
Funny how morality, which always seems so black and white can be influenced so completely by what you were raised to believe. -- Neal Shusterman
Nice socks" - Neal Shusterman -- Neal Shusterman
Can we just get on with this already?"(7). -- Neal Shusterman
The simpler the solution, the harder it is to arrive at. -- Neal Shusterman
There's a set of unspoken rules we live by when it comes to fighting. We can't help it. It comes from living in a civilized world. Even when you're fighting your hardest, somewhere deep down, you know how far you can go. But today the rules are gone. Today I fight not to win, but to destroy. -- Neal Shusterman
They signed the unwind order just to spite each other,but laugh,laugh,laugh,Hayden, because if you ever stop laughing,it might just tear you apart worse than a Chop Shop. -- Neal Shusterman
Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it. -- Neal Shusterman
This is my third time here," she confides in me. "My third episode."
"Episode."
"That's what they call it."
"More like miniseries. -- Neal Shusterman
Being ignored has its advantages. Dignity doesn't grow under a microscoope. -- Neal Shusterman
And she will restore to him his soul. -- Neal Shusterman
She plays music to heal herself, but nothing can heal her brokenness. -- Neal Shusterman
Between them, the baby still cries. It's like a game of steal the bacon, where no one wants to take the bacon. -- Neal Shusterman
Everyone just calls me Emby."
"Is that your choice, or theirs?" asks the Admiral.
"Well ... theirs, mostly-but I got used to it."
"Never let anyone else name you," says the Admiral. -- Neal Shusterman
Leadership is about keeping toilets flushing," the Admiral once said. "Unless you're on the battlefront. Then it's about staying alive. Neither are pleasant. -- Neal Shusterman
When you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread out, changing all the water in the pool. The ripples hit the shore and rebound, bumping into one another, breaking each other apart. In some small way, the pond is never the same again. -- Neal Shusterman
Love, Allie concluded, wasn't blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions. -- Neal Shusterman
Because if their own parents didn't care enough about them to keep them, who would want them in Heaven? -- Neal Shusterman
No, it's not!" says Emby.
"Hey - he wanted my opinion, I gave it."
"But it's wrong!"
"You see, Hayden? You see what you started?"
"Yes!" Hayden says excitedly. "It looks like we're about to have our own little Heartland War. Pity it's too dark for us to watch it. -- Neal Shusterman
I will be keeper of your secret," Talon told the silent grave of the forgotten inventor. "I will be the one who remembers why we forget. -- Neal Shusterman
I love you, Risa," he says. "Every last part of me. -- Neal Shusterman
The whole place is a petri dish of angst, generated by kids whose parents gave up on them, which is the worst kind of angst there is. There are fights and ridiculous posturing on a daily basis. -- Neal Shusterman
If pennies become worthless, does that devalue our thoughts to less than nothing? -- Neal Shusterman
Such a delicate charge as pruning the human race should not be subject to the quirks of personality. -- Neal Shusterman
Stick with me," CyFi had said, putting his fist in the air, "and as God is my witness, you will never go hungry again." Then he added, "That's from Gone with the Wind. -- Neal Shusterman
The captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat -- Neal Shusterman
At that moment he could have said the earth was made of chocolate pudding and I would have believed it. -- Neal Shusterman
Is that why you're here?" Ben blurted "To glean one of us?" Scythe Faraday offered an unreadable smile. "I'm here for dinner. -- Neal Shusterman
Do I look feeble to you"
"Actually, yes."
"Well, looks can be deceiving. For instance, when I met you, I thought you look reasonably intelligent. -- Neal Shusterman
You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours. -- Neal Shusterman
But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell. -- Neal Shusterman
Are people really such sheep that they can be fooled? Maybe. Or maybe with so much conflicting media, people just shut down. Maybe that's the point. -- Neal Shusterman
A family is a collection of strangers trapped in a web of DNA and forced to cope. -- Neal Shusterman
You don't so much sleep as borrow eight hours from death. -- Neal Shusterman
But birthdays are random ... Defining one's life by the day one was cut from an umbilical cord is completely arbitrary. -- Neal Shusterman
Who says I'm insane?"
"Oh you're sane alright.
You're so sane, you scare me.
You're so sane, it's insane. -- Neal Shusterman
Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed. -- Neal Shusterman
Here, it seemed muscle wasn't made of flesh and blood, it was made of will and anger. -- Neal Shusterman
You should learn to relish the hunger more than the feast, lest you become a glutton. -- Neal Shusterman
You are only one boy, with one voice ... If you keep trying to be a choir, you'll lose that voice, and then who will hear you? -- Neal Shusterman
You'll find in life, Caden, that many decisions are made by morons in high places. -- Neal Shusterman
He has no choice but to believe, because losing the hope of having hope would be unimaginable. -- Neal Shusterman
Anger is only our friend when we know its caliber and how to aim it. -- Neal Shusterman
Without the threat of suffering, we can't experience true joy. -- Neal Shusterman
It's called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash. -- Neal Shusterman
It's just that unwinding makes slavery look good. It's always the lesser of two evils. -- Neal Shusterman
The thing was, if I had found a way to escape- even for just a little while- I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back. -- Neal Shusterman
People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before. -- Neal Shusterman
Who would have thought that the singular whole of her forgiveness was a more valuable gift than a hundred of her parts? -- Neal Shusterman
We all need a moratorium on misery now and then. -- Neal Shusterman
Epiphanies are never convenient, and often arrive too late. -- Neal Shusterman
It is human nature to take the most magical of worlds for granted, turning each one into a blank canvas upon which to paint the lives of those who would live there. Only an outsider can see a world's wonders for what they truly are. -- Neal Shusterman
Then she offers him a slim but sincere smile, and he reluctantly returns it. It doesn't bridge the gap between them, but at least it marks the spot where the bridge might be built. -- Neal Shusterman
What happened to you was a crime. I can't change that. What I can do is teach you to live with dignity. -- Neal Shusterman
Fight, flight, and screw up royaly. -- Neal Shusterman
Well ... you're a martyr and I'm a patron saint-I can't think of anyone better! -- Neal Shusterman
I imagine the center of the Earth must be a crowded place by now, but perhaps it is the spirits of those of us residing there that keep the Earth alive and green. -- Neal Shusterman
Picking locks was not a skill he had ever cultivated, but he persisted day after day, turning the tip of his talon into different ways of approaching a keyhole. He never tired, and he ever gave up ... because if there was any justice in the universe, he wouldn't be trapped here forever. -- Neal Shusterman
People like you because you've got integrity. Even when you're being an ass. -- Neal Shusterman
Tranq'd by your own gun,"Lev says."How pathetic. -- Neal Shusterman
He (Connor) will only do the wrong thing when it's the right thing to do. - Risa -- Neal Shusterman
That's right, pick on Emby," says Connor. "Show everyone just how low you are. -- Neal Shusterman
On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur of gray. -- Neal Shusterman
Death doesn't just make all the world kin, it makes all religions one -- Neal Shusterman
Sometimes we make our alliances not by the shape and color of our flesh but by the convictions of our heart. -- Neal Shusterman
The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm tired of eating your family's lousy, tasteless recipes," Dad said.
"Tasteless recipes? My grandmother's rolling in her grave!"
"It's from indigestion. -- Neal Shusterman
Maybe it's the best answer of all. If more people could admit they really don't know, maybe there never would have been a War. -- Neal Shusterman
The result leaves my brain somewhere in orbit beyond Saturn, where it can't bother anyone, especially me. -- Neal Shusterman
Makes sense, the earth is quick to consume the flesh of things that ain't natural. -- Neal Shusterman
Getting to know someone in blind darkness changes your impression of them. -- Neal Shusterman
Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power. -- Neal Shusterman
(B)ut when the time is right and the winds begin to change, even the deadest of dreams can be resurrected. -- Neal Shusterman
I smell fear," he said with a quiet intensity. "But not nearly enough. -- Neal Shusterman
Milestone! This is a momentous occasion," he tells her cheerily. "It should be witnessed by a friend."
She throws him an icy gaze, and he does a verbal back pedal.
"Aaaand since no friends are present, I'll have to do. -- Neal Shusterman
Nothing awful is without its beautiful side. -- Neal Shusterman
Guilt is easy, innocence is hard. -- Neal Shusterman
#5) YOU ARE BETTER THAN THOSE WHO WOULD UNWIND YOU. RISE TO THE OCCASION. -- Neal Shusterman
You'll feel a tingling in your chest," says a surgeon. "It's nothing to worry about. -- Neal Shusterman
When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things. -- Neal Shusterman
Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency. We -- Neal Shusterman
The moment you're loved, that's when you got your soul. -- Neal Shusterman
Big-Picture-speak, Risa calls it. Seeing the whole, and none of the parts. -- Neal Shusterman
Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse, -- Neal Shusterman
Please give me a single reason why I shouldn't hurl myself beneath the wheels of that bus. -- Neal Shusterman
How can you walk away," Connor finally says, "when they're about to overthrow the Cap-17 law? -- Neal Shusterman
The sad truth about humanity ... 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. -- Neal Shusterman
I post on Twitter regularly, and when I checked my followers, I saw that my own characters were following me. They sounded eerily like my characters would actually sound. It was a very surreal thing to see come to life digitally! -- Neal Shusterman
The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. -- Neal Shusterman
This book is so interesting. I always wonder what's going to happen next. -- Neal Shusterman
"Keep your eyes on the prize," although I think he should have also said "Go after the prize," too; and maybe that's why prizes ever came his way, because all he ever did was look at them. -- Neal Shusterman
You have three hundred sixty-five days of immunity." And then, looking him in the eye, said, "And I'll be seeing you on day three hundred sixty-six. -- Neal Shusterman
You don't go missing in a museum- you just get temporarily absorbed by the walls. -- Neal Shusterman
How do you judge the brightness of a light when you're the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts. -- Neal Shusterman
Crawley reached into the pocket of his fancy robe - a dinner jacket, I think it's called. The kind of thing Professer Plum would wear before killing Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the candlestick. -- Neal Shusterman
Lev smiles. Leave it to you to turn someone else's screwup into gold -- Neal Shusterman
Hayden shouts, "To the new Teen Uprising! -- Neal Shusterman
Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can. -- Neal Shusterman
Beautiful is dangerous. -- Neal Shusterman
Whoever invented the spork should be killed. -- Neal Shusterman
It's always the lesser of two evils.'
'I don't see why there have to be any evils at all.'
-Connor -- Neal Shusterman
I'll never understand how a man can live his life
With his finger on the self-destruct button,
Holding it there day after day,
Blinded by an obsession to press it
But lacking the conviction to do even that. -- Neal Shusterman
What we perceive as art, the universe perceives as directions. -- Neal Shusterman
There are few things he can stand less than a bunch of morons standing around looking at something that doesn't work and wondering who's going to fix it. -- Neal Shusterman
You may feel a tugging sensation near your ankles. -- Neal Shusterman
Hope is a terrible thing to lose. -- Neal Shusterman
I love you, Brew." "No you don't," he said. "Just shut up and take it," I told him. He smiled. "Okay. -- Neal Shusterman
White Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur -- Neal Shusterman
Think of it this way," he said "It took nine months to get you born, so doesn't it figure it would take nine months to get you dead? -- Neal Shusterman
He also keeps his silence when Bible passages become shredded to justify unwinding, and kids start to see the face of God in the fragments. -- Neal Shusterman
Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest. -- Neal Shusterman
The building was no warmer than the street outside, and it smelled like something died in there from smelling something else that died in there. -- Neal Shusterman
But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel their own pain
and as awful as that is, it's also wonderful. -- Neal Shusterman
There are mysteries in Everlost. Some of them are wonderful, and others scary. They should all be explored, though- perhaps that's why we're here: to experience the good and the bad that Everlost has to offer. -- Neal Shusterman
It's a curse to see all that might happen but never know what will. -- Neal Shusterman
I begin to wonder if David was like me. Seeing monsters everywhere and realizing there aren't enough slingshots in the world to get rid of them. -- Neal Shusterman
Do we exist because others perceive our existence, or is, indeed, our own affirmation enough? -- Neal Shusterman
We learn many things, from many people as opposed to your world, where you're taught all the same things, by the same people. -- Neal Shusterman
How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong? -- Neal Shusterman
The kind of people who can't bend without breaking -- Neal Shusterman
While an adult could rarely be universally loved, everyone could love the right kid. -- Neal Shusterman
Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up. -- Neal Shusterman
His one-eight feels a whole lot bigger when I spend time hanging around in his grey matter. -- Neal Shusterman
(Why did they call them sneakers if it was so hard to sneak in them?) -- Neal Shusterman
This place isn't a refuge, it's a slave market. Why doesn't anyone see that?'
'Who says they don't see it? It's just that unwinding makes slavery look good. It's always the lesser of two evils.'
'I don't see why there have to be any evils at all. -- Neal Shusterman
Today he failed to change the world. As for tomorrow, who can tell? -- Neal Shusterman
I wish you could have felt that slap I wish you could feel the pain. -- Neal Shusterman
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. -- Neal Shusterman
You never realize the holes a person leaves behind until you fall into them. -- Neal Shusterman
The smile on my face is only there to mask what I'm feeling inside. -- Neal Shusterman
think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity. He -- Neal Shusterman
...New Beginning to the same old story -- Neal Shusterman
Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched out all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true? -- Neal Shusterman
The good Lord wouldn't have put it in your heart if it wasn't right. -- Neal Shusterman
aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. -- Neal Shusterman
I ain't no runaway, I'm a run-to. -- Neal Shusterman
You're confusing boredom with obsession. -- Neal Shusterman
A true leader never puts his ego ahead of his assets. -- Neal Shusterman
You must stop these reckless surrenders to your momentary moods. -- Neal Shusterman
When faced with the end of all things, it was much easier to nibble at it than take it in large, indigestible bites. -- Neal Shusterman
And when the abyss looks into you - and it will - may you look back unflinching. -- Neal Shusterman
Maybe that had been his plan all along, or maybe not. But one thing's for certain- now that I had said it, it was his plan. -- Neal Shusterman
unwinding is, by law, painless. -- Neal Shusterman
What do you do with a textbook case when no one's written the textbook? -- Neal Shusterman
When the truth hurts we always hate the messenger -- Neal Shusterman
The homes here are almost identical, but not quite, full of people almost identical, but not quite. -- Neal Shusterman
With hardly any effort at all, she made me feel special. Just like all the other people she toyed with. -- Neal Shusterman
I should already know that my thoughts are never alone. -- Neal Shusterman
When it's officially allowed through a one-way mirror, it's not called spying. It's called surveillance. -- Neal Shusterman
What's the point of living if you're going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don't shut it away. -- Neal Shusterman
Revelations are never convenient, and always annoying. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm too old to rage against the system. I just whine at it. -- Neal Shusterman
The fact is, 100 percent of you will still be alive, just in a divided state. -- Neal Shusterman
If you come anywhere near my daughter, I will see to it that you are taken apart piece by bloody piece. Do I make myself clear?"
"Any clearer," says Cam, "and you'd be invisible. -- Neal Shusterman
Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug. -- Neal Shusterman
The good thing about being explosive is that no one can beat you. -- Neal Shusterman
As long as people see him as dumb, tought guy, they don't notice the more clever things he does. -- Neal Shusterman
Best way to save humanity is to turn the monsters against one another. -- Neal Shusterman
Adulthood can do the most horrific things to the best of people. -- Neal Shusterman
I'm going out to find her, to make things right, or atleast properly wrong. -- Neal Shusterman
They are not people
they are ideas. They are just extensions of the enemy. -- Neal Shusterman
To name her is to sink her," he told me. "That which we name takes greater weight than the sea it displaces. Ask any shipwreck. -- Neal Shusterman
We longed for healing and happiness - as if happiness is a state of being. But it's not. Happiness is a vector. It's movement. -- Neal Shusterman
Close enough to feel it, but not close enough to burn. -- Neal Shusterman
We want what you no longer want. -- Neal Shusterman
Survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences. -- Neal Shusterman