Neal Shusterman Quotes

“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“No true hero ever believes that they are one.”
― Neal Shusterman, UnSouled

“Therin lies the paradox of the profession,' Faraday said. 'Those who wish to have the job should not have it...and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.”
― Neal Shusterman, UnSouled

“Most people have two emergency modes. But Connor always knew he had three: Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally. It was a dangerous mental circuit.”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind

“Truth is truth. Implications are subjective. People will hear your words and draw their own conclusion.”
― Neal Shusterman, UnWholly

“You don’t just go to somebody and say, ‘I’m a better person because you’re in my head.”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind

“...New Beginning to the same old story”
― Neal Shusterman, Downsiders

“Really?" Risa said, disgusted. "'What do we have here?' Is that your best line? If you're going to attack a defenseless girl in an alley, at least try not to be cliché about it.”
― Neal Shusterman, UnSouled

“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, UnSouled

“Although I do not require devotion, am I not deserving of it?”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before.”
― Neal Shusterman, Downsiders

“How do you fill it?’ Connor asks. 'How do you fill the … the space?’
And to Cam’s own amazement, he has an answer. 'Bit by bit,’ he says, 'and not alone.”
― Neal Shusterman, UnDivided

“You think just because we got stars up here we can wish on 'em and make everything better”
― Neal Shusterman, Downsiders

“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, UnWholly

“He will always be waiting, I realize. He will never go away. And in time, I may find myself his first mate whether I want to or not, journeying to points exotic so that I might make another dive, and another, and another. And maybe one day I'll dive so deep that the Abyssal Serpent will catch me, and I'll never find my way back. No sense in denying that such things happen.

But it's not going to happen today—and there is a deep, abiding comfort in that. Deep enough to carry me through till tomorrow.”
― Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep

“We're roughage," Tyger said. "If we don't cause a little intestinal distress, no one knows we're there.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“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, Bruiser

“Tout ce qui est horrible porte un versant magnifique”
― Neal Shusterman

“He would be provided for even if he made no discernible contribution to the world - and right now he had no desiire to contribute anything to the world but his bodily waste.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

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

“Those who wish to have the job should not have it… and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“The Thunderhead had no arms to embrace. Even so, it could feel the beat of Greyson's heart and the precise temperature of his body as if it were right beside him. To lose that would be a cause of immeasurable sorrow. And so night after night, the Thunderhead silently monitored Greyson in every way it could. Because monitoring was the closest it could come to embracing.”
― Neal Shusterman, The Toll

“Intelligence can only get you so far. True genius isn't in merely being smart, it's knowing how to wield your own intelligence, and that of others."
- Blas Escobedo, father of Ron, characters in All Better Now written by Neal Shusterman, pub. Feb 2025”
― Neal Shusterman (Author)