“Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“You can't change laws without first changing human nature.'
-Nurse Greta
You can't change human nature without first changing the law.'
-Nurse Yvonne”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“It's funny how a flame can only burn your hand if you move too slow, you can tease it all you want and it never gets you, if your quick enough.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“I'm scared," he says.
"I know," says the nurse.
"I want you all to go to Hell."
"That's natural.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this.
"Nice socks."
Although Roland doesn't look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesn't check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isn't looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are better than none.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Looks are deceiving," Risa says. "After all, when I first saw you I thought you looked reasonably intelligent.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Getting to know someone in blind darkness changes your impression of them.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Fight, flight, and screw up royaly.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“[...] 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.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Would you rather die, or be unwound? Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it's why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he'd rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“They meet in the girls' bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There's no time left in their lives for games, or for awkwardness, or for pretending they don't care about each others, and so they kiss as if they've done it forever. As if it is as crucial as the need for oxygen.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“You...you lost your faith?"
"No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing."
Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk- throughout the weeks- arriving all at once like a sonic boom.
"I never knew there was a choice.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“...the first sign of civilization is always trash.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“I'm alone. And I'm crying. And no one is coming to the crib. And the nightlight has burned out. And I'm mad. I'm so mad. Left frontal lobe. I...I...I don't feel so good. Left occipital lobe. I... don't remember where...Left parietal lobe. I...I...I can't remember my name,but...but...Right temporal...but I'm still here. Right frontal. I'm still here... Right occipital.I'm still...Right parietal. I'm...Cerebellum. I'm...Thalamus. I...Hypothalamus. I...Hippocampus...Medulla........................”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles.
"You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Most people have two emergency modes. Fight and Flight. But Conner always knew he had three. Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“Hey," says Hayden, "I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate."
"Get lost," Roland tells him.
"Already am." And Hayden strolls away.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“The good thing about being explosive is that no one can beat you.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“I was asking if unwinding kills you, or if it leaves you alive somehow. C'mon—it's not like we haven't thought about it." (...)
What do you think, Connor?" asks Hayden. "What happens to your soul when you get unwound?"
Who says I even got one?"
For the sake of argument, let's say you do."
Who says I want an argument?”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“The way I see it, it's got nothing to do with all of that. It has to do with love...A person don't got a soul until that person is loved. If a mother loves her baby--wants her baby--it's got a soul from the moment she knows it's there. The moment you're loved, that's when you got your soul.
--Diego”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
“The woman wears a floral print blouse with lots of leaves and pink flowers. Risa would like to attack her with a weed whacker.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
Neal Shusterman
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
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“And if it is possible that creatures live underwater, could not creatures also live under the earth, nations of salamanders capable of arriving, through their tunnels, at the central fire that animates the planet?”
― Umberto Eco, quote from The Island of the Day Before
“Maera lay still, his head on his arms, his face in the sand. He felt warm and sticky from the bleeding. Each time he felt the horn coming. Sometimes the bull only bumped him with his head. Once the horn went all the way through him and he felt it go into the sand. Some one had the bull by the tail. They were swearing at him and flopping the cape in his face. Then the bull was gone. Some men picked Maera up and started to run with him toward the barriers through the gate out the passageway around under the grandstand to the infirmary. They laid Maera down on the cot and one of the men went out for the doctor. The others stood around. The doctor came running from the coral where he had been sewing up picador horses. He had to stop and wash his hands. There was a great shouting going on in the grandstand overhead. Maera felt everything getting larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then it got larger and larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then everything commenced to run faster and faster as when they speed up a cinematograph film. Then he was dead.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from In Our Time
“Reaching a bench, he dismounted and tied Dancer to the arm.
“Are you intending to be a student here?” one of the older boys asked, looking him over.
Hadrian got the impression from the wrinkled nose that the student didn’t approve. The boy had a haughty tone for someone so young, small, and weaponless. “I’m here to see a man by the name of Arcadius.”
“ Professor Arcadius is in Glen Hall.”
“Which one of these…” He looked up at the columned buildings that appeared even taller with his feet on the grass.
“The big one,” the boy said.
Hadrian almost chuckled, wondering which ones the boy thought were small.
The student pointed to the hall with the bell tower.
“Ah … thanks.”
“You didn’t answer me. Do you expect to attend this school?”
“Naw-already graduated.”
The young man looked stunned. “From Sheridan?”
Hadrian shook his head and grinned. “Different school. Easier to get into but literally murder to pass. Hey, watch my horse, will you? But be careful-she bites.”
He left the boy and three others standing bewildered by the bench, watching him cross to the big doors of Glen Hall.”
― Michael J. Sullivan, quote from The Crown Tower
“He [Widmerpool] moistened his lips, though scarcely perceptibly. I thought his mixture of secretiveness and curiosity quite intolerable.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement
“He is a young man with a future of power and opportunity and we are young women destined to be either wives and mothers at the very best, or spinster parasites at the worst.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Boleyn Inheritance
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