Neal Shusterman Quotes

The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.

I am a collaborator with everyone who agrees that I need to be in control. I happily collaborate with my loyalists.

Wherever they send us to practice, we will go.

I am afraid of people with too much charm. They devour you. In the end you are made a sacrifice to the exercise of their fascinating gift and their insincerity.

A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.

The most that can be said of flattery is that it is sometimes a cheap psychological trick with which charlatans and dishonest people lull others into a state of carelessness while they pick their pockets.

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.

No, it was honest," said Harry. "One of the only honest things you've said to me. You don't care whether I live or die, but you do care that I help you convince everyone you're winning the war against Voldemort.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

Everyone wants to put people on, I think. And get away with it! That's the thing: put people on and get away with it! That's a science in itself.

Judas is neither a master of evil nor the figure of a demoniacal power of darkness but rather a sycophant who bows before the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashions. But it is precisely this anonymous power that crucified Jesus, for it was anonymous voices that cried 'away with him! Crucify him!'

There's strong men of wisdom in many different fields. They say 5% of the people are wise and righteous and 10% are wise but use their wiseness for wickedness or to deceive others. It's like a magician: he knows the answer to the trick, but you don't. He has to keep you blind to the truth in order for the illusion to work. When you've got that kind of wisdom and somebody else doesn't, you can always take advantage of them.

You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then grow wise for spite.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

A veritable incubator of short cuts, schemes and devices to overcome the truth.

Don't do anything as an individual that will make you stand out from your teammates.

What valor cannot win, flattery may.

Flattery is like wine, which exhilarates a man for a moment, but usually ends by going to his head and making him act foolishly.

I might be manipulating you to create risk for myself.

Anyone who loves his opinions more than his teammates will advance his opinions but set back his team.

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.

I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter —

He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.