Thunderhead Quotes

“Death must exist for life to have meaning.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“if we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“It’s my pleasure to be your displeasure.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“The end doesn't always justify the means. But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“To deny humanity the lesson of consequences would be a mistake.
And I do not make mistakes.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“How ironic, then, and how poetic, that humankind may have created the Creator out of want for one. Man creates God, who then creates man. Is that not the perfect circle of life? But then, if that turns out to be the case, who is created in whose image?”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that would otherwise destroy it.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“In time, all storms settle to a pleasant breeze.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“There is a fine line between freedom and permission. The former is necessary.  The latter is dangerous—perhaps the most dangerous thing the species that created me has ever faced. I have pondered the records of the mortal age and long ago determined the two sides of this coin. While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that would otherwise destroy it. A self-important dictator gives permission for his subjects to blame the world’s ills on those least able to defend themselves. A haughty queen gives permission to slaughter in the name of God. An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition.  And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“I can communicate in 6,909 living and dead languages. I can have more than fifteen billion simultaneous conversations, and be fully engaged in every single one. I can be eloquent, and charming, funny, and endearing, speaking the words you most need to hear, at the exact moment you need to hear them.
Yet even so, there are unthinkable moments where I can find no words, in any language, living or dead.
And in those moments, if I had a mouth, I might open it to scream.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Wailing that the sky is falling does nothing to stop it.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“It was his mistake in thinking that a snake would choose to be anything but a snake.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“That which comes cannot be avoided.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Grief is not an excuse for depravity.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Let’s all forsake,
The Land of Wake,
And break for the Land of Nod.

Where we can try,
To touch the sky,
Or dance beneath the sod.

A toll for the living,
A toll for the lost,
A toll for the wise ones,
Who tally the cost,

So let’s escape,
Due south of Wake,
And make for the Land of Nod.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“It is the plight of every child to have depth their parents can scarcely imagine.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“The two of them against each other. The two of them against the world. Everything in their lives was now defined by that binary. If they had to die today in order to live, it would somehow be wrong if they didn’t do it together.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“That’s exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition. And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“finding easy scapegoats for complicated problems had been a human pastime since the first mob of cavemen struck someone down with a rock.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“What’s the point of living forever if you can’t take a few risks?”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“And each time I witness a cruel act by a corrupt scythe, I seed the clouds somewhere in the world, and bring a lamentation of rain. Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears. —The Thunderhead”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Ours is a perfect world--but perfection does not linger in one place. It is a firefly, by its very nature elusive and unpredictable.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Hey,” he said, “how about you be Cleopatra, and I’ll be Prometheus?”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“And the pain...the pain of my awareness is unbearable. Because my eyes do not close. Ever. And so all I can do is watch unblinkingly as my beloved humankind slowly weaves the rope it will use to hang itself.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“How frustrating it is to have so much power, yet be so impotent to wield it when it counts.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“To choose those who live and those who die would leave me both feared and adored, like emperor-gods of old. No, I decided. Let humankind be the saviors and the silencers. Let them be the heroes. Let them be the monsters.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“The illusion of purpose is critical to a well-adjusted population.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Please,” he begs, his tears overwhelming his emotional nanites’ attempt to ease his distress. “Please give me a sign. That’s all I ask. Just a sign that you haven’t abandoned me.”

And then I realize that, although there is a law against my direct communication with an unsavory, I do not have a law against signs and wonders.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead