Quotes by Neal Shusterman

Im sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether theyre proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute. -Hayden Upchurch

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

First rule of motherhood, dearie: men are screw-ups. Learn it now and youll be a whole lot happier.

Im 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.

You tell your brother hes gonna pay for that car in silver.

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

Those eyes of his just look up at me, pupils dilated in the diffused lights of the room. Wide, black pools, seeking out galaxies.

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.

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.

I cant destroy things so beautiful.Time will destroy them if you dont. Time destroys everything. But if you destroy them, it will mean something.

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.

I went home and tried to sleep, but couldnt, so I stared up at the moon, watching how its 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.

Look behind you now.Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with thousands Afterlights heading toward Memphis.... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in the same city in search for Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery - not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can.... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the covergence of the wrong, of the right, and the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep.... For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of doubt, which is which.

Youre not actually falling for him, are you? he asks her one day, on one of the rare occasions he can get her alone.Ill pretend you didnt just ask that, she tells him in disgust. But Connor has reasons to wonder.On that first night here, he offered you his blanket, and you accepted it, he points out.Only because I knew it would make him cold.And when he offers you his food, you take it.Because it means he goes hungry.Its coolly logical. Connor finds it amazing that she can put her emotions aside and be as calculating as Roland, beating him at his own game. Another reason for Connor to admire her.

He will only do the wrong thing when its the right thing to do..

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

Hes a conundrum- and theres 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 shouldnt go out on a limb unless youre absolutely sure the limb can support your weight.

Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this.Nice socks.Although Roland doesnt look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesnt check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isnt looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are bet­ter than none.

Maybe were 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

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 someones lunch.