Neal Shusterman citations

Page 4

“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.”

“History is written by the victors--and when there is no victors, it all winds up in the corporate shredders.”

“They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not.”

“Happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is a vector, it is movement.”

“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.”

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

“A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised.”

“But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -Connor”

“The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind… so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Lord, if what I'm doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.”

“… survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences.”

“Love, Allie concluded, wasn't blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.”

“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.”

“Sometimes, Lev, I just want to smack you."
"You already hit him with a car.”

“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.”

“Hole…" He grips Risa's hand tighter. "Hole, Risa, hole…" And she smiles "Yes, Connor," she says. "You're whole. You're finally whole.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

“He's become like that briefcase in the ground-full of gems yet void of light, so nothing sparkles, nothing shines.”

“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.”

“What? Were you born stupid, or did you just die that way?”

“You may feel a tugging sensation near your ankles.”

“How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?"
"They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.”

“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.”