If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing—that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. Furthermore, she could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination. If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer, and it can never be taken back. So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world?

— Neal Shusterman

If you think about it, the public perception of funky brain chemistry has been as varied and weird as the symptoms, historically speaking. If I had been born a Native American in another time, I might have been lauded as a medicine man. My voices would have been seen as the voices of ancestors imparting wisdom. I would have been treated with great mystical regard. If I had lived in biblical times, I might have been seen as a prophet, because, let’s face it, there are really only two possibilities: either prophets were actually hearing God speaking to them, or they were mentally ill. I’m sure if an actual prophet surfaced today, he or she would receive plenty of Hall injections, until the sky opened up, and the doctors were slapped silly by the Hand of God. In the Dark Ages my parents would have sent for an exorcist, because I was clearly possessed by evil spirits, or maybe even the Devil himself. And if I lived in Dickensian England, I would have been thrown into Bedlam, which is more than just a description of madness. It was an actual place—a “madhouse” where the insane were imprisoned in unthinkable conditions. Living in the twenty-first century gives a person a much better prognosis for treatment, but sometimes I wish I’d lived in an age before technology. I would much rather everyone think I was a prophet than some poor sick kid.

— Neal Shusterman

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

I know this is your hand now,' she tells him. "Roland would have never touched me like that." Connor smiles, and Rise takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No- the soul of a man.

— Neal Shusterman

I love you, Rise," he says. "Every last part of me.

— Neal Shusterman

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

I’m evolving, is the thing; I’m a god becoming a constellation.’‘The constellations are mostly demigods,’ I point out. ‘And they didn’t get to be constellations until after they died.’ He laughs at that, and says, ‘Death is a small sacrifice to become immortal.

— Neal Shusterman

I'm going out to find her, to make things right, or at least properly wrong.

— Neal Shusterman

I'm sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether they're proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute. -Hayden Up church

— Neal Shusterman

I suppose even a simple slogan can be twisted into whatever shape we want, like a balloon animal—we can even make it loop back around on itself, becoming a noose. In the end, the measure of who we are can be seen in the shapes of our balloon animals.

— Neal Shusterman