Neal Shusterman Quotes

Books are packaged dreams.

When I was a young boy, I loved spending hours in St. Franics Xavier's school library at Saint Louis University. The feel of the books in my hands and the magical new worlds I discovered always drew me back to that fantastic place. Each time I visited, I could expect to find a new adventure and from time to time use my imagination to revisit my favorite place and enjoy Green Eggs and Ham in a house, with a mouse, on a train, on a plane, in a box, with a fox.

Books" - Snell smiled - "are a kind of magic.

Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.

If I wasn't an actress I'd want to be a writer or else find a job where I got to read books and watch movies all day, everyday, for the rest of my life.

In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don't, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.

My dad had this outlook: It doesn't matter what I want to read - reading was a good thing. So whatever I was curious about they'd get for me from the library. Books were a kind of a resistance to reality. I liked to imagine worlds that were different. I still do.

I read a lot, I always read. I like to be inside a story. When I started acting, even in high school, it sort of felt like that's as close as you can get to being inside a book, and I feel that way even with movies more so, because you've kind of created this imaginary world, and everybody is colluding to create it.

She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.

To start with, look at all the books.

The more I write, the more I've come to realize that books have a different place in our society than other media. Books are different from television or film because they ask you to finish the project. You have to be actively engaged to read a book. It's more like a blueprint. What it really is, is an opportunity... A book is a place where you're forced to use your imagination. I find it disappointing that you're not being asked to imagine more.

Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.

I just love fiction. I love it.

What would make me happiest is if kids read these books [Bink & Gollie] and think: there is so much to love in the world; and words are so much fun.

I never had money for anything. But I tell you what did really work - books. Between the covers of those books I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything.

I write my own stories. I like telling stories to little children. I think the good thing about stories is they carry you to another place which you've never been. And you feel like you're just enveloped by the book and the characters.

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

[Books] will visit you at your convenience, whether you are lonesome or not, on rainy days or fair. They propose themselves as either transient acquaintances or permanent friends. They will stay as long as you like, departing or returning as you wish. Their friendship entails no obligation. Best of all, and not always true of our merely human friends, they have Cleopatra's infinite variety.

Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.

Books are like friends to me. Words come alive on the page.

But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale screen. To transform these icons into characters and events, you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create.

Books light the fire-whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.

Dreams, books, are each a world.