“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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“For many thousands of years people had looked at expensive heads of hair and thought of how much food and warmth they represented, so obviously it was a thought of no use at all, so why bother to have it? But thoughts of this sort did go ticking on, useless or not.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from The Summer Before the Dark
“Nuestro espía de El Cairo es el más grande de todos los héroes. ERWIN ROMMEL, septiembre de 1942”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Key to Rebecca
“Sit down," she ordered Peabody.
"I prefer to stand."
"And I prefer to give you a good boot in the ass, but I'm restraining myself." Eve reached up, fisted her hands in her own hair and yanked until the pain cleared most of the rage.
"Okay, stand. You couldn't sit with that stick up your butt, anyway. One you shove up it every time Subject Monroe, Charles, is mentioned. You want to be filled in, you want to be briefed? Fine. Here it is."
She had to take another deep breath to insure her tone was professional. "On the evening of March twenty-six, at or about nineteen-thirty, I, accompanied by Roarke, had occasion to visit Areena Mansfield's penthouse suite at The Palace Hotel, this city. Upon entering said premises, investigation officer found subject Mansfield in the company of one Charles Monroe, licensed companion. It was ascertained and confirmed that LC Monroe was there in a professional capacity and had no links to the deceased or the current investigation. His presence, and the salient details pertaining to it, were noted in the report of the interview and marked Level Five in a stupid, ill-conceived attempt by the investigating officer to spare her fat-headed aide any unnecessary embarrassment."
Eve stomped back to her desk, snatched up her coffee, gulped some down. "Record that," she snapped.
Peabody's lip trembled. She sat. She sniffled.
"Oh, no." In genuine panic, Eve stabbed out a finger. "No, you don't. No crying. We're on duty. There is no crying on duty.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Witness in Death
“Le Chat
Je souhaite dans ma maison:
Une femme ayant sa raison.
Un chat passant parmi les livres.
Des amis en toute saison
Sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, quote from Alcools
“For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House
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The First and Last F...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
