Neal Shusterman: The thing was, if I had found a way to escape- even f...

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy

Neal Shusterman

uncles pain joy

Looks are deceiving," Risa says. "After all, when I first saw you I thought you looked reasonably intelligent.

Neal Shusterman

intelligence intelligent looks

Connor smiles with mocking warmth at him, and glances at the tattoo on his wrist. "I like your dolphin.

Neal Shusterman

wrists dolphins tattoo

How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?

Neal Shusterman

shade figures choices

It's a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?

Neal Shusterman

big-questions bigs world

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change. The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter.

Neal Shusterman

nice girl beautiful

Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear.

Neal Shusterman

thrill refuse dream

Mental illness is by far the most misunderstood, and stigmatized, of all afflictions. Statistically, one in three families in the U.S. deals with mental illness, and yet it's rarely discussed in the open. It's time for that to change.

Neal Shusterman

affliction misunderstood three

I'm scared," he says."I know," says the nurse."I want you all to go to Hell.""That's natural.

Neal Shusterman

scared nurse want

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

flames silence two

A family is a collection of strangers trapped in a web of DNA and forced to cope.

Neal Shusterman

collections dna stranger

Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can.

Neal Shusterman

twists dream reality

It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years." "So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked. "No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell.

Neal Shusterman

teenager butterfly mom

My grandmother used to say that twisting paths always cross again," he told her. "And whose paths are more twisted than ours?

Neal Shusterman

twisted grandmother path

But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -Connor

Neal Shusterman

perfect people thinking

Whoever invented the spork should be killed.

Neal Shusterman

sporks should

So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie?

Neal Shusterman

heartfelt darkness lying

I'm against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray.

Neal Shusterman

shoes color hair

A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised.

Neal Shusterman

insidious pedestal prison

People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before.

Neal Shusterman

cheer moments people

The thing was, if I had found a way to escape- even for just a little while- I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.