“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Hope in the shadow of fear is the world's most powerful motivator.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Mortals fantasied that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse,”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Well, she could learn self control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“I have become the monster of monsters, he thought as he watched it all burn. The butcher of lions. The executioner of eagles. Then,”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Is that why you’re here?” Ben blurted “To glean one of us?” Scythe Faraday offered an unreadable smile. “I’m here for dinner.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Such a delicate charge as pruning the human race should not be subject to the quirks of personality.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“The past never changes—and from what I can see, neither does the future.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency. We”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“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?”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
“there are some who seek celebrity to change the world, and others who seek it to ensnare the world.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Scythe
Neal Shusterman
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
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“How the world so dearly loves a cage.”
― Colin Higgins, quote from Harold and Maude
“I thought it would be a good thing to follow John Redmond’s words. I thought for my mother’s sake, her gentle soul, for the sake of my own children, I might go out and fight for to save Europe so that we might have the Home Rule in Ireland in the upshot. I came out to fight for a country that doesn’t exist, and now, Willie, mark my words, it never will.”
― Sebastian Barry, quote from A Long Long Way
“When she rolled her eyes, he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her. “Why don’t you let me push the fridge back and I’ll take you out to lunch.”
“Why?”
“Because you clean when you’re upset and taking a toothbrush to the back of the fridge means you’re on the ragged edge. I’ll take you down to Concord for a Jasper burger. They can fix anything.”
She laughed, but it was on the bitter side. “Yeah, ’cause I need more Kowalskis in my day.”
“Hey, whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
“I’m just not in a good mood today.”
He grinned and rocked back on his heels. “This is because of my magic penis, isn’t it? Four nights of it too much for you?”
“Ha. Don’t flatter yourself, Kowalski. I’m only having sex with you so I can sleep in my own bed again.”
The renewed color in her cheeks let him know she was full of crap. “So if I offered to do you right here on the kitchen floor, you’d say no?”
“I’d have to say no just to prove my point now.”
“Damn.”
― Shannon Stacey, quote from Yours to Keep
“The 1960s:
A lot of people remember hating President Lyndon Baines Johnson and loving Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, depending on the point of view. God rest their souls.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from The Tokyo-Montana Express
“Sweet allowed her pregnancy to get the better of her and simply sat down. Reenie’s lips set into a straight, emotionless line. Mawu no longer talked back, the words she did speak taking on an air of vapidity. Philip was chained at night, no longer trusted. So it was no wonder that Lizzie sought out the white woman then.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, quote from Wench
Howards End
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