Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep
21 quotes
"The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is."
"There is nothing to fear but fear itself," the captain announces from the helm, "and the occasional man-eating monster."
"My artwork isn't evolving, it's deconstructing, and I don't know why."
"When he touches a wall the ooze grows thicker, drawn to his and as if he's become a gravity well for the darkness - and it occurs to me that the dark must be in love with the light. Yet one must always kill the other."
"Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception,"
"And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you're likely to break."
"She was deemed an unfit mother, in spite of the fact that she goes to the gym every day,' Hal once told me. . . .Beautiful people are often forgiven for many things--and maybe she's gotten through life that way, but I don't forgive her for anything--and I don't even know what awful things she's done other than showing a lack of parental fitness."
"We are, however, creatures of containment. We want all things in life packed into boxes that we can label. But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn't mean we really know what's in the box.It's kind of religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we've gotten it right, well, it's all a matter of faith."
"while it’s five in the morning here, it’s also five in the evening somewhere in China—proving that incompatible truths make perfect sense when seen with global perspective."
"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."
"It's kind of like religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we've gotten it right, well, it's all a matter of faith."
"And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation."
"You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees bottomless pit in yours."
"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."
"The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because 'what could have been' is much more highly regarded than 'what should have been.' Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug."
"You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours."
"They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not."
"Everything feels right with the world......and the sad thing is that I know it's a dream. I know it must soon end, and when it does I will be thrust awake into a place where either I'm broken, or the world is broken."
"I begin to wonder if David was like me. Seeing monsters everywhere and realizing there aren't enough slingshots in the world to get rid of them."
"The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe."
"I always take credit for my acts of cruelty. To do otherwise is cowardice."