Fine," Connor tells him. "Think about stuff until your head explodes. But the only thing I want to think about is surviving to eighteen." I find your shallowness both refreshing and disappointing at the same time. Do you think that means I need therapy?

Neal Shusterman

I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

Neal Shusterman

failure ambition inspiring

In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.

Neal Shusterman

enlightenment brain world

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

Neal Shusterman

tests suffering men

When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come.

Neal Shusterman

unprepared

Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.

Neal Shusterman

tangled humanity life-is

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

eye art needs

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

Neal Shusterman

cares-about-someone vulnerable care

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

Neal Shusterman

heart believe thinking

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

Neal Shusterman

true-hero hero believe

Love turns a heart to crystal...Much more valuable, but much more fragile.

Neal Shusterman

crystals valuable heart

Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.

Neal Shusterman

freaky used kind

the captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat

Neal Shusterman

ships captains firsts

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

Neal Shusterman

teacher school thinking

Small victories are better than none.

Neal Shusterman

small-victories unwind victory

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem. In fact, a city is nothing more than a solution to a problem, that in turn creates more problems that need more solutions, until towers rise, roads widen, bridges are built, and millions of people are caught up in a mad race to feed the problem-solving, problem-creating frenzy.

Neal Shusterman

cities race bridges

But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel their own pain--and as awful as that is, it's also wonderful.

Neal Shusterman

awful pain taken

I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning.

Neal Shusterman

mom mother thinking

That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

Neal Shusterman

educated law

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity

Neal Shusterman

aquariums sharks space

Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.

Neal Shusterman

stupid dream reality