Top 236 Quotes & Sayings by 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.

I love writing music, but it seems I'm always writing words, so I don't get much time to do it.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Try to see things differently - It's the only way to get a clearer perspective on the world and on your life.

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.

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.

...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.

Connor smiles with mocking warmth at him, and glances at the tattoo on his wrist. "I like your dolphin.

Love turns a heart to crystal...Much more valuable, but much more fragile.

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.

Looks are deceiving," Risa says. "After all, when I first saw you I thought you looked reasonably intelligent.

Small victories are bet­ter than none.

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change. The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter.

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.

We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.

What, are you totally psycho?" I shouted. "Maybe I am!" he screamed back at me. "Maybe that's just what I am. Maybe I'm that quiet guy who suddenly goes nuts and then you find half the neighborhood in his freezer." I gotta admit, that one stumped me for a second - but only for a second. "Which half?" I asked. "Huh?" "Which half of the neighborhood? Could you make it the people on the other side of Avenue T, because I never really liked them anyway.

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.

You are so obtuse!" Brontë says, exasperated. I am calm in my response. "Do you mean stupid, or angular? You need to be more specific with your insults.

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!

Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.

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.

In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.

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?

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

"You...you lost your faith?" "No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing." Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk-throughout the weeks-arriving all at once like a sonic boom. "I never knew there was a choice".

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem. In fact, a city is nothing more than a solution to a problem, that in turn creates more problems that need more solutions, until towers rise, roads widen, bridges are built, and millions of people are caught up in a mad race to feed the problem-solving, problem-creating frenzy.

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.

That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

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.

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

the captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat

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

Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this. "Nice socks." Although Roland doesn't look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesn't check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isn't looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are bet­ter than none.

Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.

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.

Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.

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.

When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... 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...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

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.

It's strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don't you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it's only good the second time if it's the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you.

I'm scared," he says."I know," says the nurse."I want you all to go to Hell.""That's natural.

If your heart tells you something but your mind tells you something else, which do you believe? Both are just as apt to lie. In fact, they play at deceit all the time. Mostly they balance each other, giving us that crucial reality check. But what happens on the rare occasions when they conspire together?

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.

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.

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?

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

It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years." "So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked. "No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell.

I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning.

In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear.