Quotes from Challenger Deep

“Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because 'what could have been' is much more highly regarded than 'what should have been.' Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I used to be afraid of dying. Now I’m afraid of not living. There’s a difference. We go through life planning for a future, but sometimes that future never comes.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“And when the abyss looks into you - and it will - may you look back unflinching.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“Forget solar energy—if you could harness denial, it would power the world for generations.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could?”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“There are many ways in which the "check brain" light illuminates, but here's the screwed-up part: the driver can't see it. It's like the light is positioned in the backseat cup holder, beneath an empty can of soda that's been there for a month. No one sees it but the passengers—and only if they're really looking for it, or when the light gets so bright and so hot that it melts the can, and sets the whole car on fire.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“It's a curse to see all that might happen but never know what will.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind . . . so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“We always look for the signs we missed when something goes wrong. We become like detectives trying to solve a murder, because maybe if we uncover the clues, it gives us some control. Sure, we can’t change what happened, but if we can string together enough clues, we can prove that whatever nightmare has befallen us, we could have stopped it, if only we had been smart enough. I suppose it’s better to believe in our own stupidity than it is to believe that all the clues in the world wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“Nothing awful is without its beautiful side.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“When the truth hurts we always hate the messenger”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you're likely to break.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“What we perceive as art, the universe perceives as directions.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“So what happens when your universe begins to get off balance, and you don’t have any experience with bringing it back to center? All you can do is fight a losing battle, waiting for those walls to collapse, and your life to become one huge mystery ashtray.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“Don Quixote - the famous literary madman - fought windmills. People think he saw giants when he looked at them, but those of us who've been there know the truth. He saw windmills, just like everyone else - but he believed they were giants. The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“There are times I feel like I'm the kid screaming at the bottom of the well, and my dog runs off to pee on trees instead of getting help.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“To name her is to sink her,” he told me. “That which we name takes greater weight than the sea it displaces. Ask any shipwreck.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“You'll find in life, Caden, that many decisions are made by morons in high places.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I begin to wonder if David was like me. Seeing monsters everywhere and realizing there aren't enough slingshots in the world to get rid of them.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I still can't figure out if it's bravery or cowardice to take your own life. I can't figure out whether it's being selfish, or selfless. It is the ultimate act of letting go of oneself, or a cheap act of self-possession? People say a failed attempt is a cry for help. I guess that's true if the person meant it to be unsuccessful. But then, I guess most failed attempts aren't entirely sincere, because, let's face it, if you want to off yourself, there are plenty of ways to make sure it works.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I was using," I tell her. "And God was my drug dealer."
She doesn't get it.
"Tripping on my own brain chemicals. The dope I was doing was already inside.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I know exactly what he means. I had overheard Poirot talking to my parents. He was using words like "psychosis" and "schizophrenic". Words that people feel they have to whisper, or not repeat at all. The Mental-Illness-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“They want to do something - anything - to help me. Anything to change my situation. But they are as powerless as I am. The two of them are in a lifeboat, together, but so alone. The boat leaks, and they must bail in tandem to keep themselves afloat. It must be exhausting.
The terrible truth of their helplessness is almost too much to bear. I wish I would take them on board, but even if they could reach us, the captain would never allow it.
Right now it sucks to be me - but until now, it never occurred to me that it also sucks to be them.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

“I marveled that people could live so close - that you could literally be surrounded by thousands who were only inches away - and yet be completely isolated. I found it hard to imagine. It's not so hard for me to imagine anymore.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Challenger Deep

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Popular quotes

“The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict.
The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii)”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from Junky

“Jay took out his guitar. He was decent at it, but the piano was his best talent. He couldn’t get a certain riff right, so he handed the instrument to Kaidan, and my heart flipped.
I recalled him saying he played guitar, but I’d never actually seen or heard him play. Kaidan began to pick at each string, testing and tuning with his full attention. I watched the way his hands moved across the wood and strings, gently, reverently, his body seeming to curl around it as if it were a part of him. . . . I felt my hands getting sweaty, because watching Kaidan get lost in music did crazy things to me. My breathing became ragged and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He looked up at that moment and caught me staring hard. He knew. He knew what it did to me! I could tell because his badge expanded.
He angled himself away from the others and signed to me, I want to be alone with you tonight.
Patti did have a lot of guests staying in the house. I signed back, I’ll work on it.
“Excellent,” he whispered, a hot grin sliding onto his face.”
― Wendy Higgins, quote from Sweet Reckoning

“Believe it. That was the way. Never stop believing. Fool the eye, fool the brain.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Moving Pictures

“Olive. . . knows that loneliness can kill people - in different ways can actually make you die. Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts". Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”
― Elizabeth Strout, quote from Olive Kitteridge

“Goals want to be realized as soon as they're created.”
― Zoltan Andrejkovics, quote from The Invisible Game: Mindset of a Winning Team

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