Neal Shusterman (born November 12, 1962) is an American writer of young-adult fiction. He won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for Challenger Deep.
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.
. . . And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of 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 a doubt, which is which.
Heaven might shine bright, but so do flames.
If you have to ask then you don't deserve an answer.
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.
Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.
What do you do with a textbook case when no one's written the textbook?
There's a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it's anger.
[. . . ] 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.
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 know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.
Lev smiles. "Leave it to you to turn someone else's screwup into gold
Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.
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.
(Why did they call them sneakers if it was so hard to sneak in them?)
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.
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.
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 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!