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A Small Olive-skinned Creature Who Had Hit Puberty But Never Hit It Very Hard, Ben Had Been My Best Friend Since Fifth Grade, When We Both Finally Owned Up To The Fact That Neither Of Us Was Likely To Attract Anyone Else As A Best Friend.

-John Green

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A Small Olive-skinned Creature

John Green

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A Small Olive-skinned Creature Who Had Hit Puberty But Never Hit It Very Hard, Ben Had Been My Best Friend Since Fifth Grade, When We Both Finally Owned Up To The Fact That Neither Of Us Was Likely To Attract Anyone Else As A Best Friend.

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You Couldn't Be More Wrong," I Said. "you Are Buying Into The Cross-stitched Sentiments Of Your Parents' Throw Pillows. You're Arguing That The Fragile, Rare Thing Is Beautiful Simply Because It Is Fragile And Rare. But That's A Lie, And You Know It." "you're A Hard Person To Comfort," Augustus Said. "easy Comfort Isn't Comforting," I Said.

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It Was Psychological Trick Called Empathic Listening. You Say What The Person Is Feeling So They Feel Understood.

People Talk About The Courage Of Cancer Patients, And I Do Not Deny That Courage. I Had Been Poked And Stabbed And Poisoned For Years, And Still I Trod On. But Make No Mistake: In That Moment, I Would Have Been Very, Very Happy To Die.

What I Love About The Sculpture Is That It Makes The Bones That We Are Always Walking And Playing On Manifest, Like In A World That So Often Denies The Reality Of Death And The Reality That We Are Surrounded By And Outnumbered By The Dead. Here, Is A Very Playful Way Of Acknowledging That And Acknowledging That And That Always, Whenever We Play, Whenever We Live, We Are Living In Both Literal And Metaphorical Ways On The Memory And Bones Of The Dead.

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A Paper Town For A Paper Girl.

The Whole Thing Was The Precise Opposite Of What I Figured It Would Be: Slow And Patient And Quiet And Neither Particularly Painful Nor Particularly Ecstatic

The Easiest Way To Solve A Mystery Is To Decide That There Is No Mystery To Solve.

We All Matter - Maybe Less Then A Lot But Always More Than None.

I Wondered Whether I Could Find A Great Perhaps Here At All Or Whether I Had Made A Grand Miscalculation.

Miscalculations

I Don't Know Why Boys Expect Us To Like Boy Movies. We Don't Expect Them To Like Girl Movies.

And As We Kept Driving North, The Whole Family In The Care Together, It Got Darker, And Snowier, Until Finally The Road Delivered Us To The One Place That All My Youthful Trips West Never Could: Home.

How Are The Eyes?' 'oh, Excellent,' He Said. 'i Mean, They're Not In My Head Is The Only Problem.' 'awesome, Yeah,' Gus Said. 'not To One-up You Or Anything, But My Body Is Made Out Of Cancer.' 'so I Heard,' Issac Said, Trying Not To Let It Get To Him. He Fumbled Toward Gus's Hand And Found Only His Thigh. 'i'm Taken,' Gus Said.

One Of The Great Rules Of Economics According To John Green If You Are Rich, You Have To Be An Idiot Not To Stay Rich. And If You Are Poor, You Have To Be Really Smart To Get Rich.

He Let His Mind Wander. It Went To A Predictable Place, And He Missed Her

I Said Nothing—i Hadn’t Known Marya, And Anyway, “listening Quietly” Was My General Social Strategy

I Have Never Really Thought Of Him As A Person, Either.... A Guy Whose Strings Were Broken, Who Didn’t Feel The Root Of His Leaves Of Grass Connected To The Field, A Guy Who Was Cracked. Like Me.

I Wanted So Badly To Lie Down Next To Her On The Couch, To Wrap My Arms Around Her And Sleep... Just Sleep Together, In The Most Innocent Sense Of The Phrase. But I Lacked The Courage And She Had A Boyfriend And I Was Gawky And She Was Gorgeous And I Was Boring And She Was Endlessly Fascinating. So I Walked Back To My Room And Collapsed On The Bottom Bunk, Thinking That If People Were Rain, I Was Drizzle And She Was A Hurricane.

I Was A Bit Of A Victorian Lady, Fainting-wise.

Books Are The Ultimate Dumpees: Put Them Down And They’ll Wait For You Forever; Pay Attention To Them And They Always Love You Back.

But There Are A Thousand Ways To Look At It: Maybe The Strings Break, Or Maybe Our Ship S Sink, Or Maybe We're Grass--our Roots So Interdependent That No One Is Dead As Long As Someone Is Still Alive. We Don't Suffer From A Shortage Of Metaphors, Is What I Mean. But You Have To Be Careful Which Metaphor You Choose, Because It Matters.

Some People Don't Understand The Promises They're Making When They Make Them," I Said. "right, Of Course. But You Keep The Promise Anyway. That's What Love Is. Love Is Keeping The Promise Anyway.

Keeping Promises

Like Everyone, I'm Saddened And Horrified By This. All I'll Say Is That I'm Personally Trying To Pay More Attention To The Victims Than To Their Murderer. I Certainly Will Not Be Mentioning The Murderer. I Don't Think He Warrants Our Attention-particularly Since He So Clearly Wanted It.

Real Gangster-ass Nerdfighters Don't Run From Nothing... 'cause Real Gangster-ass Nerdfighters Can't Run Fast.

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When You Stopped Wishing Things Wouldn't Fall Apart, You'd Stop Suffering When They Did.

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Not Following Her Is The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done.

She Left Me Enough To Rediscover The Great Perhaps.

Where Do You Come Up With These Zingers, Clint? Do You Own Some Kind Of Joke Factory In Indonesia Where You've Got Eight-year-olds Working Ninety Hours A Week To Deliver You That Kind Of Top-quality Witticism? There Are Boy Bands With More Original Material.

He May Be A Malevolent Sorcerer, But Tiny Cooper Is His Own Goddamned Man, And If He Wants To Be A Gigantic Skipper, Then That's His Right As A Huge American.

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I'm Not Saying It Was Your Fault. I'm Saying It Wasn't Nice.

At Least It Was Instant. At Least There Wasn't Any Pain." I Knew He Was Only Trying To Help, But He Didn't Get It. There Was Pain. A Dul Endless Pain In My Gut That Wouldn't Go Away Even When I Knelt On The Stingingly Frozen Tile Of The Bathroom, Dry-heaving.

How Strange And How Lovely It Is To Be Anything At All.

I Was Surprised. I'd Always Associated Belief In Heaven With, Frankly, A Kind Of Intellectual Disengagement. But Gus Wasn't Dumb.

We're Not Going To Break Anything. Don't Think Of It As Breaking In To Seaworld. Think Of It As Visiting Seaworld In The Middle Of The Night For Free.

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It Always Shocked Me When I Realized That I Wasn’t The Only Person In The World Who Thought And Felt Such Strange And Awful Things.

I Love You Present Tense.

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Suffering Is Universal. It’s The One Thing Buddhists, Christians, And Muslims Are All Worried About.

All The Characters Are Made Out Of Words. With Reading, I Understand That The People Aren't Real But The Fact That They Are Made Out Of Language And Are Made Out Of Words Is Extremely Powerful To Me. It Becomes Transformative For Me. Different People Have Different Ways Of Trying To Make Stories Using Language.

Random Questions Are The Least Random Of All Questions.

It Seems To Me That All The Things We Keep In Sealed Boxes Are Both Alive And Dead Until We Open The Box, That The Unobserved Is Both There And Not.

It Seemed Like Forever Ago, Like We've Had This Brief But Still Infinite Forever. Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities.

He Knew He Couldn't Tell Stories, That He Always Included Extraneous Details & Tangents That Interested Only Him.

He Loved The Scratching Of Pencil Against Paper When He Was Focused: It Meant Something Was Happening.

You Say Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours.

I Feel Like I Might Start Crying And That I'm Going To Cry Pee.

People Are Supposed To Care. It's Good That People Mean Something To You, That You Miss People When They're Gone.

Love Is Always A Miracle, Everywhere,every Time. But For Us, It's A Little Different. I Don't Want To Say It's More Miraculous,...it Is Though.

Our Role As Humans Is To Recognize The Complexity Of Others.

Maybe She'd Been Scared Of Being Paralyzed By Fear Again.

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You Could Hold Me And I Could Hold You. And It Would Be So Peaceful. Completely Peaceful. Like The Feeling Of Sleep, But Awake In It Together.

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In The End, I Had To Call Myself A Faggot, Which Really Annoyed Me, Because 1. I Don't Think That Word Should Ever Be Used By Anyone, Let Alone Me, And 2. As It Happens, I Am Not Gay, And Furthermore, 3. Chuck Parson Made It Out Like Calling Yourself A Faggot Was The Ultimate Humiliation, Even Though There's Nothing At All Embarrassing About Being Gay.

Television Is A Passivity.

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He Missed His Imagined Future.

The Important Thing Is Not Whatever Nonsense The Voices Are Saying, But What The Voices Are Feeling.

You Can't Just Make Yourself Matter And Then Die, Alaska, Because Now I Am Irretrievably Different, And I'm Sorry I Let You Go, Yes, But You Made The Choice. You Left Me Perhapsless, Stuck In Your Goddamned Labyrinth. And Now I Don't Even Know If You Chose The Straight And Fast Way Out, If You Left Me Like This On Purpose. And So I Never Knew You, Did I? I Can't Remember, Because I Never Knew.

We Are Now As I Wished We Could Be Then.

The Past Feels Distant, Even When It's Near. The Future Feels Assured, Even When It Isn't.

Think For One Minute Of Those Who Have Loved You Up Into This Day.

Oh, My God," Augustus Said. "i Can't Believe I Have A Crush On A Girl With Such Cliché Wishes." "i Was Thirteen," I Said Again, Although Of Course I Was Only Thinking "crush Crush Crush Crush Crush". I Was Flattered But Changed The Subject Immediately.

The Missing Piece In His Stomach Hurt So Much-and Eventually He Stopped Thinking About The Theorem And Wondered Only How Something That Isn't There Can Hurt You.

Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!' He Screamed. 'so That's Sara,' I Said. 'yes.' 'she Seems Nice.

Does My Eye Look Okay To You?

The Right Story Needs The Right Telling.

No," I Said. And Maybe It Was Only Because Alaska Couldn't Hit The Brakes And I Couldn't Hit The Accelerator.

There Is No Them. There Are Only Facets Of Us.

History Reminds Us That Revolutions Are Not Events, So Much That They’re Processes – That For Tens Of Thousands Of Years, People Have Been Making Decisions That Irrevocably Shaped The World That We Live In Today; Just As Today, We Are Making Subtle, Irrevocable Decisions That People Of The Future Will Remember As Revolutions.

We Do An Epically Bad Job Of Acknowledging One Another's Work And Checking Our Sources.

Jp Shouted, "tell Them What You Just Did To Each Other!" "um," I Said. "we Kissed," The Duke Said. "that's Kinda Gay," Keun Said. "i Am A Girl." "yeah, I Know, But So Is Tobin," Keun Said.

...but There's Always Suffering, Pudge. Homework Or Malaria Or Having A Boyfriend Who Lives Far Away When There's A Good-looking Boy Lying Next To You. Suffering Is Universal. It's The One Thing Buddhists, Christians, And Muslims Are All Worried About.

Oh, God, Alaska, I Love You. I Love You,' And The Colonel Whispered, 'i'm So Sorry, Pudge. I Know You Did,' And I Said, 'no. Not Past Tense.

But Mothers Lie. It's In The Job Description.

I Liked Augustus Waters. I Really, Really Really Liked Him. I Liked The Way His Story Ended With Someone Else. I Liked His Voice. I Liked That He Took Existentially-fraught Free Throws.

Too Pissed Off To Cry, I Said, 'this Is Only Making Me Hate Her. I Don't Want To Hate Her. And What's The Point, If That's All It's Making Me Do?' Still Refusing To Answer How And Why Questions. Still Insisting On An Aura Of Mystery. I Leaned Forward, Head Between By Knees, And The Colonel Placed A Head On My Upper Back. 'the Point Is That There Are Always Alsweres, Pudge.' And Then He Pushed Air Out Between His Pursed Lips And I Could Hear The Angry Quiver In His Voice As He Repeated, 'there Are Always Answers. We Just Have To Be Smart Enough.' ~miles/pudge And Chip/the Colonel, Pg 168

Still, What Could I Say? That I Didn't Just Feel Depressed - Instead, It Was Like The Depression Was The Core Of Me, Of Every Part Of Me, From My Mind To My Bones? That If He Got Blue, I Got Black? That I Hated Those Pills So Much, Because I Knew How Much I Relied On Them To Live?

It Felt Like Everything Was Rising Up In Me, Like I Was Drowning In This Weirdly Painful Joy, But I Couldn't Say It Back. I Just Looked At Him And Let Him Look At Me Until He Nodded, Lips Pursed And Turned Away, Placing The Side Of His Head Against The Window.

Adult Librarians Are Like Lazy Bakers: Their Patrons Want A Jelly Doughnut, So They Give Them A Jelly Doughnut. Children’s Librarians Are Ambitious Bakers: 'you Like The Jelly Doughnut? I’ll Get You A Jelly Doughnut. But You Should Try My Cruller, Too. My Cruller Is Gonna Blow Your Mind, Kid.

We All Want To Do Something To Mitigate The Pain Of Loss Or To Turn Grief Into Something Positive, To Find A Silver Lining In The Clouds. But I Believe There Is Real Value In Just Standing There, Being Still, Being Sad.

I Didn't Even Know What The Feeling Was, Really, Just That There Was A Lot Of It.

Q, You're Going To Go To Duke. You're Going To Be A Very Successful Lawyer-or-something And Get Married And Have Babies And Live Your Whole Little Life, And Then You're Going To Die, And In The Last Moments, When You're Chocking On Your Own Bile In The Nursing Home, You'll Say To Yourself:'well, I Wasted My Whole Goddamned Life, But At Least I Broke Into Seaworld With Margo Roth Spiegelman My Senior Year Of High School. At Least I Carpe'd That One Diem.

Without Pain, We Couldn't Know Joy.

Sometimes I Don't Get You,' I Said. She Didn't Even Glance At Me. She Just Smiled Toward The Television And Said, 'you Never Get Me. That's The Whole Point.

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Pope John XXIII

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