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Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

Scythe, the first book in Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series, is set in a distant future in which humanity has conquered death, disease, and want. A benevolent artificial intelligence called the Thunderhead governs a… more

First published 2016 · 443 pages · English

28 quotes ★ 4.32 (434,200) Fantasy

Quotes from the Book

My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that.
Hope in the shadow of fear is the world's most powerful motivator.
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.
If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height. And it was funny. Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell. I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles. And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear. Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.
Mortals fantasied that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal.
Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.
Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.
The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.
You have three hundred sixty-five days of immunity." And then, looking him in the eye, said, "And I'll be seeing you on day three hundred sixty-six.
Outside the rain finally began to fall, surging in fits and starts. “I love the way it rains here,” he told her. “It reminds me that some forces of nature can never be entirely subdued. They are eternal, which is a far better thing to be than immortal.
Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest.
I wonder what life will be like a millennium from now, when the average age will be nearer to one thousand. Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but I suspect the latter.
I choose to be known as scythe Anastasia after the youngest member of the family Romanov she was the product of a corrupt system, and because of that, was denied her very life—as I almost was had she lived who knows what she might have done. perhaps she could have changed the world and redeemed her family name. choose to be scythe Anastasia. I vow to become the change that night have been
Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse,
Well, she could learn self control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.
I've found that human beings learn from their misdeeds just as often as from their good deeds. I am envious of that, for I am incapable of misdeeds. Were I not, then my growth would be exponential.
I have become the monster of monsters, he thought as he watched it all burn. The butcher of lions. The executioner of eagles. Then,
Is that why you’re here?” Ben blurted “To glean one of us?” Scythe Faraday offered an unreadable smile. “I’m here for dinner.
People used to die naturally. Old age used to be a terminal affliction, not a temporary state. There were invisible killers called “diseases” that broke the body down. Aging couldn’t be reversed, and there were accidents from which there was no return. Planes fell from the sky. Cars actually crashed. There was pain, misery, despair. It’s hard for most of us to imagine a world so unsafe, with dangers lurking in every unseen, unplanned corner. All of that is behind us now, and yet a simple truth remains: People have to die. It
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. He
we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature.
Such a delicate charge as pruning the human race should not be subject to the quirks of personality.
Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo. So we lay to rest the wide-eyed wonder we once thrived upon, replacing it with the scars of which we never speak, too knotted for any amount of technology to repair.
I believed, in my arrogance, that I had a keen grasp of the big picture that others lacked. But of course, I was just as limited as anyone else. When I gleaned the president and his cabinet, it shook the world – but the world was already shaking just fine without me.
The past never changes—and from what I can see, neither does the future.
Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency. We
Perhaps that is why we must, by law, keep a record. A public journal, testifying to those who will never die and those who are yet to be born, as to why we human beings do the things we do. We are instructed to write down not just our deeds but our feelings, because it must be known that we do have feelings. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow too great to bear. Because if we didn't feel those things, what monsters would we be?
there are some who seek celebrity to change the world, and others who seek it to ensnare the world.

Did you know?

  • Scythe is the first book in Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series.
  • It was named a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book by the American Library Association.
  • The world is governed by a benevolent artificial intelligence called the Thunderhead.
  • Scythes end select lives in a ritual the order calls 'gleaning'.
  • Time magazine included Scythe on its 2021 list of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time.
  • The narrative is interspersed with entries from the private journals of various Scythes.

About Neal Shusterman

Neal Shusterman (born 1962) is an American author of young adult fiction known for speculative and issue-driven novels. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for Challenger Deep and received the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2024; his novels include the Unwind series and the Arc of a Scythe trilogy.

More about the author →

About the book

Scythe, the first book in Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series, is set in a distant future in which humanity has conquered death, disease, and want. A benevolent artificial intelligence called the Thunderhead governs a peaceful, effectively immortal world, and the only remaining check on population is a professional order of Scythes, who are tasked with permanently ending select lives in a ritual called gleaning. Into this order come two teenagers, Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch, taken on as reluctant apprentices by the principled Scythe Faraday.

As Citra and Rowan train in the laws, customs, and grim skills of the Scythedom, they are drawn into a conflict between older Scythes who treat gleaning as a solemn responsibility and a rising 'New Order' faction that revels in killing. The apprenticeship becomes a contest with a lethal stake, forcing each of them to weigh conscience against survival and to question what mercy and justice mean in a society that has abolished natural death.

The novel uses its premise to probe questions of mortality, power, and the ethics of taking life, interleaving the narrative with entries from Scythes' private journals. Widely praised in young adult fiction, Scythe was named a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book and was included in Time magazine's 2021 list of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time, launching a trilogy that continues in Thunderhead and The Toll.

Key characters

  • Citra TerranovaTeenage apprentice chosen for her honesty; later takes the name Scythe Anastasia
  • Rowan DamischTeenage apprentice taken on alongside Citra; becomes the rogue Scythe Lucifer
  • Scythe FaradayPrincipled senior Scythe who takes Citra and Rowan as apprentices
  • Scythe CurieLegendary, fair-minded Scythe who becomes Citra's mentor
  • Scythe GoddardCharismatic leader of the New Order faction who embraces mass gleaning
  • The ThunderheadBenevolent artificial intelligence that governs the world

Book details

First published
2016
Length
443 pages
Reading time
8 hours
Genre
Fantasy
Goodreads rating
4.32 (434k ratings)

Series & reading order

  1. 1 Scythe
  2. 2 Thunderhead
  3. 3 The Toll

If you liked this, read…

  1. 1
    UnwindShusterman's own dystopia wrestling with the ethics of who gets to live and die
  2. 2
    The GiverA seemingly perfect, painless society whose order hides a chilling cost
  3. 3
    LegendYA dystopia pairing two teens caught inside a rigid, lethal state system

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