Gleanings (Arc of a Scythe)

by Neal Shusterman

Wake. An expression I always found fascinating—for was it intended to imply an ironic counterpoint to eternal sleep, or was it to indicate the waves left behind by a person’s passage? The effect of a single life on the world?

For if my study of human nature has taught me anything, it is that truth and conviction are not comfortable bedfellows, and what one believes will often cast out that which is true.

If you had all the time in the world to learn whatever you wanted—and people now did—did knowledge lose its meaning?

“I don’t want everything to end before I can find something I care about as much as life itself.”

If there’s one thing losing my husband taught me, it’s that everything can—and will—change in an instant. People, truths, whole realities. The trick is deciding if a certain change is good, or bad, or some other thing we don’t yet have words for.”