Uglies

by

Scott Westerfeld

A young ugly whom Tally meets one night while sneaking out, as they both try to sneak back across the river to Uglyville. Shay has the same birthday as Tally, and since they’re both the youngest of their friends (and therefore they’re alone in Uglyville as all their friends have already undergone pretty surgery), the girls quickly form a strong bond. Shay is an avid hoverboarder and teaches Tally to ride. Shay has almost perfect lips and sleek black hair, but she’s far too skinny. However, Shay doesn’t want to undergo pretty surgery and she makes a point to act and speak in ways that show Tally that Shay thinks they’re both beautiful just the way they are. Shay’s insistence on maintaining her individuality leads to a number of fights with Tally, and culminates in Shay leaving the city for the Smoke without Tally. Though Shay is hurt, she respects Tally’s desire to be pretty. Once Tally arrives in the Smoke on a secret mission to bring Shay back, she’s delighted to see that Shay seems very happy, and that Shay is possibly in a relationship with an ugly named David. Shay forgives Tally for not initially coming with her and she makes a point to help Tally acclimate to life in the Smoke. Though Tally is floored by Shay’s kindness, she also notices that Shay doesn’t want to acknowledge the possibility that Tally is a spy. Shay is understandably hurt when, a few weeks later, David effectively professes his love for Tally. It’s clear that Shay’s feelings for David are real, but David suggests that Shay is too flighty and immature for him. Shay is the only one to connect that Tally is working with Special Circumstances betrayed the Smoke, and the Specials forcibly turn Shay pretty to stop her from resisting. As a pretty, Shay is an entirely different person: she loves parties, hot showers, and brushing her hair. While she once lived for hoverboarding and exploring the world around her, pretty Shay is content to live where she’s supposed to and act how she’s supposed to. Because of this, Shay refuses Maddy’s experimental pills that would cure Shay’s brain lesions and put Shay back in control of her mind.

Shay Quotes in Uglies

The Uglies quotes below are all either spoken by Shay or refer to Shay. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Conformity vs. Individuality Theme Icon
).
Facing the Future Quotes

“You know,” Shay said, “I read that the real Cleopatra wasn’t even that great-looking. She seduced everyone with how clever she was.”

“Yeah, right. And you’ve seen a picture of her?”

“They didn’t have cameras back then, Squint.”

“Duh. So how do you know she was ugly?”

“Because that’s what historians wrote at the time.”

Tally shrugged. “She was probably a classic pretty and they didn’t even know it. Back then, they had weird ideas about beauty. They didn’t know about biology.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:

“Yeah, and people killed each other over stuff like having different skin color.” Tally shook her head. No matter how many times they repeated it at school, she’d never really quite believed that one. “So what if people look more alike now? It’s the only way to make people equal.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Rapids Quotes

“I didn’t know these things weighed so much.”

“Yeah, this is what a board weighs when it’s not hovering. Out here, you find out that the city fools you about how things really work.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Related Symbols: Hoverboards
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rusty Ruins Quotes

On school trips, the teachers always made the Rusties out to be so stupid. You almost couldn’t believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fire with their weapons. But in the moonlight she could imagine people scrambling over flaming cars to escape the crumbling city, panicking in their flight from this untenable pile of metal and stone.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Fight Quotes

“You can’t change it by wishing, or by telling yourself that you’re pretty. That’s why they invented the operation.”

“But it’s a trick, Tally. You’ve only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren’t born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.”

“It’s not programming, it’s just a natural reaction. And more important than that, it’s fair.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Look, Skinny, I’m with you,” Tally said sharply. “Doing tricks is great! Okay? Breaking the rules is fun! But eventually you’ve got to do something besides being a clever little ugly.”

“Like being a vapid, boring pretty?”

“No, like being an adult. Did you ever think that when you’re pretty you might not need to play tricks and mess things up? Maybe just being ugly is why uglies always fight and pick on one another, because they aren’t happy with who they are. Well, I want to be happy, and looking like a real person is the first step.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
Lies Quotes

The boy smiled again. He was an ugly, but he had a nice smile. And his face held a kind of confidence that Tally had never seen in an ugly before. Maybe he was a few years older than she was. Tally had never watched anyone mature naturally past age sixteen. She wondered how much of being ugly was just an awkward age.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
The Model Quotes

“So this is what people looked like before the first pretty? How could anyone stand to open their eyes?”

“Yeah. It’s scary at first. But the weird thing is, if you keep looking at them, you kind of get used to it.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker), The Boss
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Heartthrob Quotes

“Maybe they’re just worried because we’re kids. You know?”

“That’s the problem with the cities, Tally. Everyone’s a kid, pampered and dependent and pretty. Just like they say in school: Big-eyed means vulnerable. Well, like you once told me, you have to grow up sometime.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Suspicion Quotes

The physical beauty of the Smoke also cleared her mind of worries. Every day seemed to change the mountain, the sky, and the surrounding valleys, making them spectacular in a completely new way. Nature, at least, didn’t need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rabbit Pen Quotes

She scanned the captives, looking for Shay and David. The familiar faces in the crowd were haggard, dirty, crumpled by shock and defeat, but Tally realized that she no longer thought of them as ugly. It was the cold expressions of the Specials, beautiful though they were, that seemed horrific to her now.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Getaway Quotes

“Yeah, I know what you mean. But that was all ugly stuff. Crazy love and jealousy and needing to rebel against the city. Every kid’s like that. But you grow up, you know?”

“You grew up because of an operation? Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker), David
Page Number: 376
Explanation and Analysis:
Hippocratic Oath Quotes

“Why did we even have to ask? They didn’t get her permission when they did this to her!”

“That’s the difference between us and them,” Maddy said. “After Az and I found out what the operation really meant, we realized we’d been party to something horrible. People had their minds changed without their knowledge. As doctors, we took an ancient oath never to do anything like that.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Maddy (speaker), Shay, David, Dr. Cable, Az
Page Number: 393-94
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Uglies LitChart as a printable PDF.
Uglies PDF

Shay Quotes in Uglies

The Uglies quotes below are all either spoken by Shay or refer to Shay. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Conformity vs. Individuality Theme Icon
).
Facing the Future Quotes

“You know,” Shay said, “I read that the real Cleopatra wasn’t even that great-looking. She seduced everyone with how clever she was.”

“Yeah, right. And you’ve seen a picture of her?”

“They didn’t have cameras back then, Squint.”

“Duh. So how do you know she was ugly?”

“Because that’s what historians wrote at the time.”

Tally shrugged. “She was probably a classic pretty and they didn’t even know it. Back then, they had weird ideas about beauty. They didn’t know about biology.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:

“Yeah, and people killed each other over stuff like having different skin color.” Tally shook her head. No matter how many times they repeated it at school, she’d never really quite believed that one. “So what if people look more alike now? It’s the only way to make people equal.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Rapids Quotes

“I didn’t know these things weighed so much.”

“Yeah, this is what a board weighs when it’s not hovering. Out here, you find out that the city fools you about how things really work.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Related Symbols: Hoverboards
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rusty Ruins Quotes

On school trips, the teachers always made the Rusties out to be so stupid. You almost couldn’t believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fire with their weapons. But in the moonlight she could imagine people scrambling over flaming cars to escape the crumbling city, panicking in their flight from this untenable pile of metal and stone.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Fight Quotes

“You can’t change it by wishing, or by telling yourself that you’re pretty. That’s why they invented the operation.”

“But it’s a trick, Tally. You’ve only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren’t born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.”

“It’s not programming, it’s just a natural reaction. And more important than that, it’s fair.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Look, Skinny, I’m with you,” Tally said sharply. “Doing tricks is great! Okay? Breaking the rules is fun! But eventually you’ve got to do something besides being a clever little ugly.”

“Like being a vapid, boring pretty?”

“No, like being an adult. Did you ever think that when you’re pretty you might not need to play tricks and mess things up? Maybe just being ugly is why uglies always fight and pick on one another, because they aren’t happy with who they are. Well, I want to be happy, and looking like a real person is the first step.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
Lies Quotes

The boy smiled again. He was an ugly, but he had a nice smile. And his face held a kind of confidence that Tally had never seen in an ugly before. Maybe he was a few years older than she was. Tally had never watched anyone mature naturally past age sixteen. She wondered how much of being ugly was just an awkward age.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
The Model Quotes

“So this is what people looked like before the first pretty? How could anyone stand to open their eyes?”

“Yeah. It’s scary at first. But the weird thing is, if you keep looking at them, you kind of get used to it.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker), The Boss
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Heartthrob Quotes

“Maybe they’re just worried because we’re kids. You know?”

“That’s the problem with the cities, Tally. Everyone’s a kid, pampered and dependent and pretty. Just like they say in school: Big-eyed means vulnerable. Well, like you once told me, you have to grow up sometime.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker)
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Suspicion Quotes

The physical beauty of the Smoke also cleared her mind of worries. Every day seemed to change the mountain, the sky, and the surrounding valleys, making them spectacular in a completely new way. Nature, at least, didn’t need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rabbit Pen Quotes

She scanned the captives, looking for Shay and David. The familiar faces in the crowd were haggard, dirty, crumpled by shock and defeat, but Tally realized that she no longer thought of them as ugly. It was the cold expressions of the Specials, beautiful though they were, that seemed horrific to her now.

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood, Shay, David
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Getaway Quotes

“Yeah, I know what you mean. But that was all ugly stuff. Crazy love and jealousy and needing to rebel against the city. Every kid’s like that. But you grow up, you know?”

“You grew up because of an operation? Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Shay (speaker), David
Page Number: 376
Explanation and Analysis:
Hippocratic Oath Quotes

“Why did we even have to ask? They didn’t get her permission when they did this to her!”

“That’s the difference between us and them,” Maddy said. “After Az and I found out what the operation really meant, we realized we’d been party to something horrible. People had their minds changed without their knowledge. As doctors, we took an ancient oath never to do anything like that.”

Related Characters: Tally Youngblood (speaker), Maddy (speaker), Shay, David, Dr. Cable, Az
Page Number: 393-94
Explanation and Analysis: