Quotes From "Challenger Deep" By Neal Shusterman

My artwork isn't evolving, it's deconstructing, and I don't know why. Neal Shusterman

Sometimes the darkness beyond is not glorious at all, it truly is an absolute absence of light. A clawing, needy tar that pulls you down. You drown but you don't. It turns you to lead so you sink faster in its viscous embrace. It robs you of hope and even the memory of hope. It makes you think you've always felt like this, and there's no place to go but down, where it slowly, ravenously digests your will, distilling it into the ebony crude of nightmares. And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation. . Neal Shusterman

When he touches a wall the ooze grows thicker, drawn to his and as if he's become a gravity well for the darkness - and it occurs to me that the dark must be in love with the light. Yet one must always kill the other. Neal Shusterman

And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you're likely to break. Neal Shusterman

She was deemed an unfit mother, in spite of the fact that she goes to the gym every day, ' Hal once told me.. ..Beautiful people are often forgiven for many things--and maybe she's gotten through life that way, but I don't forgive her for anything--and I don't even know what awful things she's done other than showing a lack of parental fitness. Neal Shusterman

We are, however, creatures of containment. We want all things in life packed into boxes that we can label. But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn't mean we really know what's in the box. It's kind of religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we've gotten it right, well, it's all a matter of faith. Neal Shusterman

Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception, Neal Shusterman

While it’s five in the morning here, it’s also five in the evening somewhere in China–proving that incompatible truths make perfect sense when seen with global perspective. Neal Shusterman

I’m evolving, is the thing; I’m a god becoming a constellation.’‘ The constellations are mostly demigods, ’ I point out. ‘And they didn’t get to be constellations until after they died.’ He laughs at that, and says, ‘Death is a small sacrifice to become immortal. Neal Shusterman

What's going on? I'm in the back car of a roller coaster at the top of the climb, with the front rows already giving themselves over to gravity. I can hear those front riders screaming and know my own scream is only seconds away. I'm at the moment you hear the landing gear of a plane grind loudly into place, in that instant before your rational mind tells you it's just the landing gear. I'm leaping off a cliff only to discover I can fly.. and then realizing there's nowhere to land. Ever. That's what's going on. . Neal Shusterman

And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation. . Neal Shusterman

You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees bottomless pit in yours. Neal Shusterman

I suppose even a simple slogan can be twisted into whatever shape we want, like a balloon animal–we can even make it loop back around on itself, becoming a noose. In the end, the measure of who we are can be seen in the shapes of our balloon animals. Neal Shusterman

If you think about it, the public perception of funky brain chemistry has been as varied and weird as the symptoms, historically speaking. If I had been born a Native American in another time, I might have been lauded as a medicine man. My voices would have been seen as the voices of ancestors imparting wisdom. I would have been treated with great mystical regard. If I had lived in biblical times, I might have been seen as a prophet, because, let’s face it, there are really only two possibilities: either prophets were actually hearing God speaking to them, or they were mentally ill. I’m sure if an actual prophet surfaced today, he or she would receive plenty of Haldol injections, until the sky opened up and the doctors were slapped silly by the Hand of God. In the Dark Ages my parents would have sent for an exorcist, because I was clearly possessed by evil spirits, or maybe even the Devil himself. And if I lived in Dickensian England, I would have been thrown into Bedlam, which is more than just a description of madness. It was an actual place–a “madhouse” where the insane were imprisoned in unthinkable conditions. Living in the twenty-first century gives a person a much better prognosis for treatment, but sometimes I wish I’d lived in an age before technology. I would much rather everyone think I was a prophet than some poor sick kid. Neal Shusterman

Centering, however, is easier said than done. This I learned from a ceramics class I once took. The teacher made throwing a pot look easy, but the thing is, it takes lots of precision and skill. You slam the ball of clay down in the absolute center of the pottery wheel, and with steady hands you push your thumb into the middle of it, spreading it wider a fraction of an inch at a time. But every single time I tried to do it, I only got so far before my pot warped out of balance, and every attempt to fix it just made it worse, until the lip shredded, the sides collapsed, and I was left with what the teacher called “a mystery ashtray, ” which got hurled back into the clay bucket. So what happens when your universe begins to get off balance, and you don’t have any experience with bringing it back to center? All you can do is fight a losing battle, waiting for those walls to collapse, and your life to become one huge mystery ashtray. Neal Shusterman

It's kind of like religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we've gotten it right, well, it's all a matter of faith. Neal Shusterman

The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because 'what could have been' is much more highly regarded than 'what should have been.' Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug. Neal Shusterman

You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours. Neal Shusterman

They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not. Neal Shusterman

Everything feels right with the world......and the sad thing is that I know it's a dream. I know it must soon end, and when it does I will be thrust awake into a place where either I'm broken, or the world is broken. Neal Shusterman

I begin to wonder if David was like me. Seeing monsters everywhere and realizing there aren't enough slingshots in the world to get rid of them. Neal Shusterman

The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe. Neal Shusterman

I always take credit for my acts of cruelty. To do otherwise is cowardice. Neal Shusterman