Neal Shusterman Quotes

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the bread line - right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

A hip-looking teen watches an elderly woman hobble across the street on a walker. "Grammy's here!" he shouts. He puts some MacAttack Mac&Cheese in the microwave and dons headphones and takes out a video game so he won't be bored during the forty seconds it takes his lunch to cook. A truck comes around the corner and hits Grammy, sending her flying over the roof into the backyard, where luckily she lands on a trampoline. Unluckily, she bounces back over the roof, into the front yard, landing on a rosebush.

Comedy is grievances. It's a recitation of grievances - whether they're inconsequential, superficial - like "my wife shops too much", or "kids today", all those old-fashioned themes - or, if it's deeper, and somewhat more thoughtful, about social imbalance and inequities, and the folly of human behavior. It's usually a complaint.

As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe.

A guy's calling to say he's failing algebra II. Just as a point of practice, I say, Kill yourself. A woman calls and says her kids won't behave. Without missing a beat, I tell her, Kill yourself. A man calls to say his car won't start. Kill yourself. A woman calls to ask what time the late movie starts. Kill yourself. She asks, "Isn't this 555-1327? Is this the Moorehouse CinePlex? I say, Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.

Army, Marriage, the Church, and Baking: the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Fermin Romero de Torres - The Shadow of the Wind.

That's what it's like to be a comedian. You basically stand and stare at the world and hope it craps out cause that's a good year for you. So that's not a pleasant feeling.

My boy is a mean kid. I came home the other day and saw him taping worms to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias. Well, only last Christmas I gave him a B-B gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with a bulls-eye on the back. I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, "So will you."

And I could always set Coach Hedge on fire,” Leo volunteered. “Then he can be fire.” The thought of a blazing satyr screaming, “Die, scumbag!” as he attacked Gaea was almost enough to make Piper laugh— almost.

It was quite impossible to describe. Here is what it looked like. It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.

She's sent the crows out to blind the guests coming for dinner!" What?" She's BLINDING THE GUESTS COMING FOR DINNER!" Well, that's one way to avoid having to dust, I suppose.

I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.

We believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if needs be. Needs be.

in nonsense is strength

Kincaid, evidently exhausted himself, drew a gun, took the safety off, placed it on his chest, and went to sleep too. "It's cute," I whispered to Murphy. "He has a teddy Glock.

...but that was the thing about reality. It didn't need to make sense.

Truth! Freedom! Justice! And a hard-boiled egg!

He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers." - Dad "Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around." - Stafford

I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything. "Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste." "Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.

It felt odd to be laughing during a firefight. Then again, if you can't laugh when you're about to die, when can you?

Jerry Lewis has been married twenty times. He gets married on a Tuesday, they find his wife dead in a swimming pool on Thursday. Maybe if you married someone who's old enough to swim next time, Ok Jerry?

I like when they say a movie is inspired by a true story. That's kind of silly. "Hey, Mitch, did you hear that story about that lady who drove her car into the lake with her kids and they all drowned?" "Yeah, I did, and you know what - that inspires me to write a movie about a gorilla!"

Swing your partner, dosey-do, now clap your hands... uh-oh, that's all the square dance moves I know... I'll bluff the rest. Slap your partner in the face, Write bad checks all over the place, Flirt with strangers, annoy your spouse, Get a divorce and lose your house, ...uh... dosey-do.

What you end up with is outrageousness without the laugh - comedy as electro shock therapy.