Neal Shusterman Quotes

I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can tell good from bad. But I also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are those we have to make between bad and worse.

Where great evils lie on all sides, it is very difficult to follow the best counsel.

The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.

I can't tell the difference between wrong and right, are you laughing at me?

Inability to tell good from evil is the greatest worry of man's life.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

If you're going to figure something out, study ethics. You can ask What's the answer? What's Right and Wrong? What I learned is that nobody knows the answer and there is no Right and Wrong. So I'm incapable of becoming a fundamentalist because there are no absolutes, there's always a what if.

Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white.

I don't think any of us know how we would react until we were put in a situation where we have to do something bad or do something good. I think I'd like to believe I'd act like a decent human being, but I'm realistic to know I don't know.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

Everybody is grappling with their own moral compass, and that needle, like any needle, can't just stick. It's always floating a little bit, and depending on where you're standing, it's hard to read.

Men who have lost their conviction of what is good and what is bad find themselves without a sextant to check their position by. We are in the position of a man with an elaborate camping kit who finds himself lost in the woods without his matches; to kindle a fire he has to resort to the stratagems of the caveman. We fall back through generations into the oldest terrors and confusions of the race.

You just have to choose which wrong choice feels the least wrong.

The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.

Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.

I consider myself a fairly ethical individual while I do have a lot of dichotomies within me. We're all victims of our own hypocrisy at times.

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

The most painful moral struggles are not those between good and evil, but between the good and the lesser good.

It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.

I do like crossing moral boundaries.

When honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose[?]

Sometimes you're going to be faced with situations where the line isn't clear between what's right and what's wrong.Your heart will tell you to do one thing and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that's left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.

Do you suppose that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?--Just stop to consider whether sacrifice is not involved in every action that is done with deliberation, the worst as well as the best.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.