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All Along — Not Only Since She Left, But For A Decade Before — I Had Been Imagining Her Without Listening, Without Knowing That She Made As A Poor A Window As I Did. And So I Could Not Imagine Her As A Person Who Could Feel Fear, Who Could Feel Isolated In A Roomful Of People, Who Could Be Shy About Her Record Collection Because It Was Too Personal To Share. Someone Who Might Have Read Travel Books To Escape Having To Live In The Town That So Many People Escape To. Someone Who — Because No One Thought She Was A Person — Had No One To Really Talk To.

-John Green

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All Along — Not

John Green

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All Along — Not Only Since She Left, But For A Decade Before — I Had Been Imagining Her Without Listening, Without Knowing That She Made As A Poor A Window As I Did. And So I Could Not Imagine Her As A Person Who Could Feel Fear, Who Could Feel Isolated In A Roomful Of People, Who Could Be Shy About Her Record Collection Because It Was Too Personal To Share. Someone Who Might Have Read Travel Books To Escape Having To Live In The Town That So Many People Escape To. Someone Who — Because No One Thought She Was A Person — Had No One To Really Talk To.

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I Know So Many Last Words. But I Will Never Know Hers.

You Could Drive Past It Without Noticing And From What I Understand, You Ought To.

He Took A Long Drink, Then Grimaced. “i Do Not Have A Drinking Problem,” He Announced, His Voice Needlessly Loud. “i Have A Churchillian Relationship With Alcohol: I Can Crack Jokes And Govern England And Do Anything I Want To Do. Except Not Drink.

Ya Gotta Live Somewhere, But Also You Get To Live Somewhere.

Everybody Was So Kind. Strong, Too. In The Darkest Days, The Lord Puts The Best People Into Your Life." "quick, Give Me A Throw Pillow And Some Thread Because That Needs To Be An Encouragement.

Don't Make Fun Of Her," The Duke Said. "she Needs Gentle Encouragement. Carla, Baby, We Love You. You Are Such A Good Car. And We Believe In You One Hundred Percent." ... "don't Listen To Him, Carla. You're Gonna Do This." ... "i Love You, Carla. You Know That, Don't You? I Wake Up Every Morning And The First Thing I Think Is That I Love Tobin's Mom's Car. I Know That's Weird, Baby, But I Do. I Love You. And I Know You Can Do This." ... "carla," The Duke Said, "it's Time To Tell You The Truth. I'm In Love With You. I Want To Be With You, Carla. I've Never Felt This Way About A C-

I Don't Really Want To Be The Costar Of Anyone's Life.

We Live In A Universe Devoted To The Creation, And Eradication, Of Awareness. Augustus Waters Did Not Die After A Lengthy Battle With Cancer. He Died After A Lengthy Battle With Human Consciousness, A Victim - As You Will Be - Of The Universe's Need To Make And Unmake All That Is Possible.

We Acknowledge That Being The Person God Made You Cannot Separate You From God's Love.

Bro, It's Dark. You Can't Go To A Strange Building With A Mysterious Address In The Dark. Haven't You Ever Seen A Horror Movie?

You Can't Just Make Me Different, And The Leave. Because I Was Fine Before.

But As For Me: I Must Ask The Wounded Man Where He Is Hurt, Because I Cannot Become The Wounded Man. The Only Wounded Man I Can Be Is Me.

Idiotically, It Occurred To Me That My Pink Underwear Didn’t Match My Purple Bra, As If Boys Even Notice Such Things.

Colin Had Always Preferred Baths; One Of His General Policies In Life Was Never To Do Anything Standing Up That Could Just As Easily Be Done Lying Down

The Urge To Make Art Or Contemplate Philosophy Does Not Go Away When You Are Sick. Those Urges Just Become Transfigured By Illness.

You're Amazing, And I So Want To Be Your Boyfriend, Because Of What You Just Said, And Also Because That Shirt Makes Me Want To Take You Home And Do Unspeakable Things While We Watch Live-action Sailor Moon Videos

Nerd Girls Are The World's Greatest Under-utilized Romantic Resource.

Dude, You're Such A Geek. And That's Coming From An Overweight Star Trek Fan Who Scored A 5 On The Ap Calculus Test. So You Know Your Condition Is Grave

Peeing Is Like A Good Book In That It Is Very, Very Hard To Stop Once You Start.

It Was Not Enough To Be The Last Guy She Kissed. I Wanted To Be The Last One She Loved. And I Knew I Wasn’t. I Knew It, And I Hated Her For It. I Hated Her For Not Caring About Me. I Hated Her For Leaving That Night, And I Hated Myself , Too, Not Only Because I Let Her Go But Because If I Had Been Enough For Her, She Wouldn’t Have Even Wanted To Leave. She Would Have Just Lain With Me And Talked And Cried, And I Would Have Listened And Kissed At Her Tears As They Pooled In Her Eyes.

The Things I Would Do To That Boy. I Mean, Not Now That I Know You're Interested In Him. But, Oh, Sweet Holy Lord, I Would Ride That One-legged Pony All The Way Around The Corral." "kaitlyn," I Said. "sorry. Do You Think You'd Have To Be On Top?" "kaitlyn," I Said.

Don't Swear In The Literal Heart Of Jesus.

Do You Know What Your Problem Is? You Can't Live With The Idea That Someone Might Leave.

It Is Very Sad To Me That Some People Are So Intent On Leaving Their Mark On The World That They Don’t Care If That Mark Is A Scar.

My Thoughts Are Stars I Cannot Fathom Into Constellations.

There Was Quite A Lot Of Competitiveness About It, With Everybody Wanting To Beat Not Only Cancer Itself, But Also The Other People In The Room. Like, I Realize That This Is Irrational, But When They Tell You That You Have, Say, A 20 Percent Chance Of Living Five Years, The Math Kicks In And You Figure That’s One In Five . . . So You Look Around And Think, As Any Healthy Person Would: I Gotta Outlast Four Of These Bastards.

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

How Can You Seperate Those Things Though? The People Are The Place Is The People.

I Figured Something Out. The Future Is Unpredictable.

I Laughed And Pointed Out That "hash Browns Mean Nothing Without You" Was A Pretty Good Name For A Band. "or A Song," The Duke Said, And Then She Started Singing All Glam Rock, A Glove Up To Her Face Holding An Imaginary Mic As She Rocked Out An A Cappella Power Ballad. "oh, I Deep Fried For You / But Now I Weep 'n' Cry For You / Oh, Babe, This Meal Was Made For Two / And These Hash Browns Mean Nothing, Oh These Hash Browns Mean Nothing, Yeah These Hash Browns Mean Nothin' Without You.

Sometimes It's Okay To Cheat On Things - But Don't Ever Cheat On People. Because Once You Start, It's Very Hard To Stop. You Find Out How Easy It Is To Do.

All Good American Literature Is Always Interested In People Who Are Ambiguously Heroic, Like Gatsby.

I Felt Tired For The First Time, And I Thought Of Us Lying Down On Some Grassy Patch Of Seaworld Together, Me On My Back And She On Her Side With Her Arm Draped Against Me, Her Head On My Shoulder, Facing Me. Not Doing Anything--just Lying There Together Beneath The Sky, The Night Here So Well Lit That It Drowns Out The Stars. And Maybe I Could Feel Her Breathe Against My Neck, And Maybe We Could Just Stay There Until Morning And Then The People Would Walk Past Us As They Came Into The Park, And They Would See Us And Think That We Were Tourists, Too, And We Could Just Disappear Into Them.

One Of The Others Shouted A Translation: "the Beautiful Couple Is Beautiful.

I Find It Really Offensive When People Say That The Emotional Experiences Of Teenagers Are Less Real Or Less Important Than Those Of Adults. I Am An Adult, And I Used To Be A Teenager, And So I Can Tell You With Some Authority That My Feelings Then Were As Real As My Feelings Are Now.

At Least For Tonight. In Sickness And In Health. In Good Times And In Bad. For Richer, For Poorer. 'till Dawn Do Us Part.

The Existence Of Broccoli Does Not In Any Way Affect The Taste Of Chocolate

You Can't Not Like "the Great Gatsby." It's Got The Best Sentences In, Like, Ever.

We Play The Broken String Of Our Instruments One Last Time

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It's Not Fair," I Said. "it's Just So Goddamned Unfair." "the World," He Said, "is Not A Wishgranting Factory.

I Feel Like, Like, How You Matter Is Defined By The Things That Matter To You. You Matter As Much As The Things That Matter To You.

Things That Matter

I'm Interested In Internet Cultures. I'm Interested In What The Teenagers Who Drive The Internet Culture Are Passionate About. I Follow Their Lead - They Go To Tumblr, I Go To Tumblr.

We Kiss. Her Hands Are Freezing On My Face, And She Tastes Like Coffee And The Smell Of The Onion Is Still Stuck In My Nose, And My Lips Are All Dry From The Endless Winter. And It's Awesome.

I Didn't Want To Look At Them, So I Looked Away, And To Look Away Was To Look At Augustus.

If People Could See Me The Way I See Myself - If They Could Live In My Memories - Would Anyone Love Me?

We Have To Live With Ambiguity. We Have To Give Ourselves Over To It. The Question Is: How? How Are We Going To Live In A Universe Where Important Questions Will Always Go Unanswered?

Nothing Is As Boring As Other People's Dreams.

The Red Wheelbarrow" By William Carlos Williams. So Much Depends Upom A Red Wheel Barrow Glazed With Rain Water Beside The White Chickens.

There Are Infinite Numbers Between 0 And 1.

You Are A Side Effect," Van Houten Continued, "of An Evolutionary Process That Cares Little For Individual Lives. You Are A Failed Experiment In Mutation.

The Point Is That There Are Always Answers.

One Of The Things I Like About Making Stuff In The Age Of The Internet, Is That People Make Stuff In Response To It. You Can See People Respond To Your Work Visually Or Musically Or With Writing.

I Know He's Been Looking Forward To This--and I Know That I've Been Looking Forward To This. But Now I Have To Stop Looking Forward And Start Looking At Where I Am. It's Hard.

Looking Forward

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Gus Knew. Gus Knows. I Will Not Tell You Our Love Story, Because—like All Real Love Stories—it Will Die With Us, As It Should. I'd Hoped That He'd Be Eulogizing Me.

Let Me Just Acknowlege That The Function Of Grammar Is To Make Language As Efficent And Clear And Transparent As Possible. But If We’re All Constantly Correcting Each Other’s Grammar And Being Really Snotty About It, Then People Stop Talking Because They Start To Be Petrified That They’re Going To Make Some Sort Of Terrible Grammatical Error And That’s Precisely The Opposite Of What Grammar Is Supposed To Do, Which Is To Facilitate Clear Communication.

I'm Starting To Realize That People Lack Good Mirrors. It's So Hard For Anyone To Show Us How We Look, & So Hard For Us To Show Anyone How We Feel.

Easy Comfort Isn't Comforting

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As Lives Go, I'll Take The Quietly Desperate Over The Radically Bipolar.

By Far The Best Cure For Hangovers Is Not Drinking Excessively The Night Before.this Cure Has A 100% Success Rate, And As You Save The Cost Of The Drinks You Would Have Otherwise Drunk, It Is Cheaper Than Free.

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Study Broadly And Without Fear.

Could The Two People Who Are Making Out Please Be Quiet?" The Colonel Asked Loudly From His Sleeping Bag. "those Of Us Who Are Not Making Out Are Drunk And Tired.

Compromise Is When You Do What I Tell You And I Do What I Want. ~tiny Cooper

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Stop Thinking About The Landing, Because It's All About Falling.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

The Prospect Of A World That Contains Neither Humans Nor Z's Is Not So Terrifying. Nature Will Take Its World Back. Animals Will Frolic And Fight. There Will Be No Lord Of The Manor, Which Is Not Such A Bad Thing, Because It Seems To Me That People Have Done A Pretty Poor Job Of Guiding The Biosphere For The Last Few Thousand Years.

You Can't Dingleberry That! That's A Flagrant Misuse Of The Dingleberry!

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.

Right. I'd Forgotten About Her.' He Shook His Head. 'that Keeps Happening.

Reading It The Night Before, I'd Wondered If It Would Be Like That For Me-if In One Moment, I Would Finally Understand Her, Know Her, And Understand The Role I'd Played In Her Dying. But I Wasn't Convinced Enlightenment Struck Like Lightining.

I Ran Like A Cheetah - Well, Like A Cheetah That Smoked Too Much.

Everything That Comes Together Falls Apart.

Do You Guys Remember That Time When We Were All Definitely Going To Die And Then Ben Grabbed The Steering Wheel And Dodged A Ginormous Freaking Cow And Spun The Car Like The Teacups At Disney World And We Didn't Die?

These Are All Direct Quotes, Except Every Time They Use A Curse Word, I'm Going To Use The Name Of A Famous American Poet: 'you Walt Whitman-ing, Edna St. Vincent Millay! Go Emily Dickinson Your Mom!' 'thanks For The Advice, You Pathetic Piece Of E.e. Cummings, But I Think I'm Gonna Pass.' 'you Robert Frost-ing Nikki Giovanni! Get A Life, Nerd. You're A Virgin.' 'hey Bro, You Need To Go Outside And Get Some Fresh Air Into You. Or A Girlfriend.' I Need To Get A Girlfriend Into Me? I Think That Shows A Fundamental Lack Of Comprehension About How Babies Are Made.

Finally, I Decided That The Proper Strategy Was To Stare Back. Boys Do Not Have A Monopoly On The Staring Business.

She Is Close Enough To Me That I Can See Her, Because Even Now There Is The Outward Sign Of Visible Light, Even At Night In This Parking Lot On The Outskirts Of Algoe. After We Kiss, Our Foreheads Touch As We Stare At Each Other. Yes, I Can See Her Almost Perfectly In This Cracked Darkness.

When We Read The Right Book Generously, It Can Change The Way Think About The World Around Us.

And I Wrote My Way Out Of The Labyrinth.

Tiny Cooper Is Splayed Out Across The Thin Carpet, Using His Backpack As A Pillow. He’s Wearing Skinny Jeans, Which Look Very Much Like Denim Sausage Casings.

The Tales Of Our Exploits Will Survive As Long As The Human Voice Itself,' He Said. 'and Even After That, When The Robots Recall The Human Absurdities Of Sacrifice And Compassion, They Will Remember Us.

It's Just That Most Really Good-looking People Are Stupid, So I Exceed Expectations.' 'right, It's Primarily His Hotness,' I Said. 'it Can Be Sort Of Blinding,' He Said. 'it Actually Did Blind Our Friend Isaac,' I Said. 'terrible Tragedy, That. But Can I Help My Own Deadly Beauty?' 'you Cannot.' 'it Is My Burden, This Beautiful Face.' 'not To Mention Your Body.' 'seriously, Don't Even Get Me Started On My Hot Bod. You Don't Want To See Me Naked, Dave. Seeing Me Naked Actually Took Hazel Grace's Breath Away,' He Said, Nodding Toward The Oxygen Tank.

I Was So Frustrated With Him. "i Just Want To Be Enough For You, But I Never Can Be. This Can Never Be Enough For You. But This Is All You Get. You Get Me, And Your Family, And This World. This Is Your Life. I'm Sorry If It Sucks. But You're Not Going To Be The First Man On Mars, And You're Not Going To Be An Nba Star, And You're Not Going To Hunt Nazis.

So Here's My Advice: Study Broadly And Without Fear. Learn A Language If You Can, Because That Will Make Your Life More Interesting. Read A Little Bit Every Day. But More Importantly, Surround Yourself With People Who You Like And Make Cool Stuff With Them. In The End, What You Do Isn't Going To Be Nearly As Interesting Or Important As Who You Do It With.

As I Recall, You Promised To Call When You Finished The Book, Not Text.

It Was Nice - In The Dark And The Quiet... And Her Eyes Looking Back, Like There Was Something In Me Worth Seeing.

That's How Writing Works, At Least For Me: Even The Stuff That Doesn't Work Out Gets Funneled Into The Stuff That Does Work Out.

And Then I Was Asleep. That Deep, Can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth Sleep, That Sleep That Is Not Particularly Restful But Difficult To Wake Up From All The Same.

Margo Always Loved Mysteries. And In Everything That Came Afterward, I Could Never Stop Thinking That Maybe She Loved Mysteries So Much That She Became One.

Once You Think A Thought, It Is Extremely Difficult To Unthink It.

What Do You Mean By Meant? Given The Final Futility Of Our Struggle, Is The Fleeting Jolt Of Meaning That Art Gives Us Valuable? Or Is It The Only Value Passing Time As Comfortably As Possible?

Caroline Was Always Moody And Miserable, But I Liked It. I Liked Feeling As If She Had Chosen Me As The Only Person In The World Not To Hate, And So We Spent All This Time Together Just Ragging On Everyone, You Know?

I Like To Know The Places I Write About. I Feel Like It Helps Me Ground The Novel. My Novels Are 'realistic Novels,' But They Can Also Be Fantastical, So It's Nice To Have A Setting That Grounds Them A Little Bit.

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.

"patience, Grasshopper," I Counseled. "you Don't Want To Seem Overeager." "right, That's Why I Said Tomorrow," He Said. "i Want To See You Again Tonight. But I'm Willing To Wait All Night And Much Of Tomorrow." I Rolled My Eyes. "i'm Serious," He Said."you Don't Even Know Me," I Said. I Grabbed The Book From The Center Console. "how About I Call You When I Finish This?""but You Don't Even Have My Phone Number," He Said."i Strongly Suspect You Wrote It In This Book."he Broke Out Into That Goofy Smile. "and You Say We Don't Know Each Other."

At Some Point, You Gotta Stop Looking Up At The Sky, Or One Of These Days You'll Look Back Down And See That You Floated Away, Too.

My Heart Is Really Pounding," I Said. "that's How You Know You're Having Fun," Margo Said.

Whenever You Read A Cancer Booklet Or Website Or Whatever, They Always List Depression Among The Side Effects Of Cancer. But, In Fact, Depression Is Not A Side Effect Of Cancer. Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying.

Muhammad Brought The Promise That Anyone Could Find Fulfillment And Everlasting Life Through Allegiance To The One True God. The Buddah Held Out Hope That The Suffering Could Be Transcended. Jesus Brought The Message That Even The Last Shall Be First, That Even The Tax Collectors And Lepers - The Outcasts - Had Cause For Hope. And So That Is The Question I Leave You With In This Final: What Is Your Cause For Hope.

The Part I Enjoy Most Is Not The Doing, But The Noticing.

The Times That Were Most Fun Seemed Always To Be Followed By Sadness Now, Because It Was When Life Started To Feel Like It Did When She Was With Us That We Realized How Utterly Gone She Was.

Even If It’s A Dumb Story, Telling It Changes People Just The Slightest Little Bit, Just As Living The Story Changes Me. An Infinitesimal Change. And That Infinetisimal Change Ripples Outward —ever Smaller But Everlasting. I Will Get Forgotten, But The Stories Will Last. And So We All Matter —maybe Less Than A Lot, But Always More Than None.

You Can't Just Make Me Different, And Then Leave. Because I Was Fine Before, Alaska. I Was Just Fine With Me And Last Words And School Friends, And You Can't Just Make Me Different And Then Die.

Okay, Maybe I'm Not Such A Shitty Writer. But I Can't Pull My Ideas Together, Van Houten. My Thoughts Are Stars I Can't Fathom Into Constellations.

It Seems To Me That The Great Pleasure Of Human Life Is Not In Having An Opinion, But Rather In Learning All The Ways You Are Wrong, And All The Nuances You Failed To Account For, And All The Truths That Turned Out To Be Not As Simple As You Once Believed. And It Seems To Me That One Of The Central Pleasures Of Attending School Is That You Get To Read With Really Well-informed People Who Can Help Welcome You Into A Complex World Stuffed With Rich And Maddening Ambiguity.

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.

I Would Always Love Alaska Young, My Crooked Neighbor, With All My Crooked Heart.

Alaska Decided To Go Help Dolores With Dinner. She Said That It Was Sexist To Leave The Cooking To The Women, But Better To Have Good Sexist Food Than Crappy Boy-prepared Food.

The Colonel Explained To Me That 1. This Was Alaska's Room, And That 2. She Had A Single Room Because The Girl Who Was Supposed To Be Her Roommate Got Kicked Out At The End Of Last Year, And That 3. Alaska Had Cigarettes, Although The Colonel Neglected To Ask Whether 4. I Smoked, Which 5. I Didn't.

So Why Don't You Go Home For Vacations?' I Asked Her. I'm Just Scared Of Ghosts, Pudge. And Home Is Full Of Them.

The World May Be Broken, But Hope Is Not Crazy.

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

I'm On A Roller Coaster That Only Goes Up," He Said. "and It Is My Privilege And My Responsibility To Ride All The Way Up With You," I Said.

He Missed His Imagined Future.

To Be Human Is To Catch The Falling Person.

I Love You Present Tense.

Like The Way The Sun Is Right Now, With The Long Shadows, And That Kind Of Bright, Soft Light You Get When The Sun Isn't Quite Setting? That's The Light That Makes Everything Better, Everything Prettier, And Today, Everything Just Seemed To Be In That Light.

They Like Their Coffee Like They Like Their Ex-boyfriends: Bitter.

Something Invisible Snapped Inside Her.

“i Thought We Were In A Church Basement, But We Are Literally In The Heart Of Jesus.” “someone Should Tell Jesus,” I Said. “i Mean, It's Gotta Be Dangerous, Storing Children With Cancer In Your Heart.” “i Would Tell Him Myself.” Augustus Said, “but Unfortunately I Am Literally Stuck Inside Of His Heart, So He Won't Be Able To Hear Me.”

Books Are Seldom Useful Unless They Are Also Beautiful.

Always' Was A Promise! How Can You Just Break The Promise?" "sometimes People Don't Always Understand The Promises They're Making When They Make Them," I Said. Isaac Shot Me A Look. "right, Of Course. But You Keep The Promise Anyway. That's What Love Is. Love Is Keeping The Promise Anyway. Don't You Believe In True Love?" I Didn't Answer. I Didn't Have An Answer. But I Thought That If True Love Did Exist, That Was A Pretty Good Definition Of It.

Teenagers Have More Intense Reading Experiences Because They've Had Fewer Of Them. It's Like The First Time You Fall In Love. You Have A Connection To That First Person You Fell In Love With Because It Was So Intense And Unprecedented.

Falling In Love

But I Had To Kill You, Because The Only Other Possible Ending Was Us Doing It, Which I Wasn't Really Emotionally Ready To Write About At Ten.' 'fair Enough,' I Say. 'but In The Revision, I Want To Get Some Action.

So I Wasn't Lying, Exactly. I Was Just Choosing Among Truths.

I Came Here Looking For A Great Perhaps, For Real Friends And A More-than-minor Life.

Labyrinth Looking For Alaska

Every Time I Try To Set Something In Chicago, I Get Intimidated By 'augie March.' It's Easy To Set Something In Indianapolis - We Don't Have 'augie March' Here. But I Love Writing About Chicago, And I Love Being There And Imagining Lives In Chicago. I Hope To Set Something There In The Future, But It's Intimidating.

What Happened?" "during The Kiss?" "no, With You And Caroline." "oh," He Said. And Then After A Second, "caroline Is No Longer Suffering From Personhood.

You Are So Busy Being You That You Have No Idea How Utterly Unprecedented You Are.

Tuesday—we Had School For The First Time. Madame O’malley Had A Moment Of Silence At The Beginning Of French Class, A Class That Was Always Punctuated With Long Moments Of Silence, And Then Asked Us How We Were Feeling. “awful,” A Girl Said. “en Français,” Madame O’malley Replied. “en Français.

I Can't Remember, Because I Never Knew.

Thank You For Wearing That Dress Which Is Like Whoa.

Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?

More Than Anything, I Felt The Unfairness Of It, The Inarguable Injustice Of Loving Someone Who Might Have Loved You Back But Can't Due To Deadness, And Then I Leaned Forward, My Forehead Against The Back Of Takumi's Headrest, And I Cried, Whimpering, And I Didn't Even Feel Sadness So Much As Pain.

Does My Eye Look Okay To You?

Shame About How We’re Gonna Die Here, Though. I Mean, Seriously. An Arab And A Half-jew Enter A Store In Tennessee. It’s The Beginning Of A Joke, And The Punch Line Is “sodomy’’.

There Are Always Answers. We Just Have To Be Smart Enough.

People Believed In An Afterlife Because They Couldn't Bear Not To.

I Wasn't Disappointed. My Expectations Had Been Met.

You Realize That Trying To Keep Your Distance From Me Will Not Lessen My Affection For You. All Efforts To Save Me From You Will Fail.

She Taught Me Everything I Knew About Crawfish And Kissing And Pink Wine And Poetry. She Made Me Different.

That Is The Fear: I Have Lost Something Important, And I Cannot Find It, And I Need It. It Is Fear Like If Someone Lost His Glasses And Went To The Glasses Store And They Told Him That The World Had Run Out Of Glasses And He Would Just Have To Do Without.

What A Treacherous Thing To Believe That A Person Is More Than A Person.

And The Moral Of The Story Is That You Don't Remember What Happened. What You Remember Becomes What Happened. And The Second Moral Of The Story, If A Story Can Have Multiple Morals, Is That Dumpers Are Not Inherently Worse Than Dumpees - Breaking Up Isn't Something That Gets Done To You; It's Something That Happens With You.

Moral Of The Story

You’re Joining Us For Dinner, I Hope?” Asked His Mom. She Was Small And Brunette And Vaguely Mousy. “i Guess?” I Said. “i Have To Be Home By Ten. Also I Don’t, Um, Eat Meat?” “no Problem. We’ll Vegetarianize Some,” She Said. “animals Are Just Too Cute?” Gus Asked. “i Want To Minimize The Number Of Deaths I Am Responsible For,” I Said. Gus Opened His Mouth To Respond But Then Stopped Himself.

Love Is Just A Shout In The Void.

I Believe In Hope, In What Is Something Called ”radical Hope.” I Believe There Is Hope For All Of Us, Even Amid The Suffering. And That’s Why I Write Fiction, Probaby. It’s My Attempt To Keep That Fragile Strand Of Radical Hope, To Buld A Fire In The Darkness.r

When It Works, Anticipation Is Far More Fulfilling Than Surprise, Because We Are Reminded That A Sunrise Is Precisely As Magnificent As It Is Inevitable.

Some Tourists Think Amsterdam Is A City Of Sin, But In Truth It Is A City Of Freedom. And In Freedom, Most People Find Sin.

But I Believe In True Love, You Know? I Don't Believe That Everybody Gets To Keep Their Eyes Or Not Get Sick Or Whatever, But Everybody Should Have True Love, And It Should Last At Least As Long As Your Life Does.

Does He Have Ugly Hands? Sometimes Beautiful People Have Ugly Hands." "no He Has Kind Of Amazing Hands.

You Should See It. V For Vendetta I Mean. "i'll Look It Up." No. With Me. At My House. Now

There Is No Try. There Is Only Do.

Lacey Shrugged Bashfully. “do You Think I’m Superficial?” “well, Yeah.” I Thought Of Myself Standing Outside Becca’s Bedroom, Hoping She’d Take Her Shirt Off. “but So Am I,” I Added. “so Is Everyone.

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.

I Opened The Door. He Looked Down At My Shirt And Smiled. "funny," He Said. "don't Call My Boobs Funny," I Answered.

Imagining Isn't Perfect. You Can't Get All The Way Inside Someone Else...but Imagining Being Someone Else, Or The World Being Something Else, Is The Only Way In. It Is The Machine That Kills Fascists.

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

Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

That While The World Wasn't Built For Humans, We Were Built For The World.

Whether The Author Intended A Symbolic Resonance To Exist In Her Book Is Irrelevant. All That Matters Is Whether It's There. Because The Book Does Not Exist For The Benefit Of The Author, The Book Exists For The Benefit Of You. If We As Readers Can Have A Bigger And Richer Experience With The World As A Result Of Reading A Symbol And That Symbol Wasn't Intended By The Author, We Still Win.

Truth Defies Simplicity.

He Lit A Cigarette And Handed It To Me. I Inhaled. Coughed. Wheezed. Gasped For Breath. Coughed Again. Considered Vomiting. Grabbed The Swinging Bench, Head Spinning, And Threw The Cigarette To The Ground And Stomped On It, Convinced My Great Perhaps Did Not Involve Cigarettes.

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.

You Can't Just Make Yourself Matter And Then Die, Alaska, Because Now I Am Irretrievably Different.

10-5 Space 16-5-14-19-5 Space 17-21-5 Space 10-5 Space 20-1-9-13-5.

Isaac Out Of Surgery. It Went Well. He's Officially Nec. Nec Meant "no Evidence Of Cancer." A Second Text Came A Few Seconds Later. I Mean, He's Blind. So That's Unfortunate.

One Day, You’re 17 And You’re Planning For Someday. And Then Quietly, Without You Ever Really Noticing, Someday Is Today. And Then Someday Is Yesterday. And This Is Your Life.

Great Books Help You Understand, And They Help You Feel Understood.

The Idea Is That For Ten Minutes, We Forget That We Have Feelings. And We Forget About Protecting Ourselves Or Other People And We Just Say The Truth. For Ten Minutes. And Then We Can Go Back To Being Lame.

I Mean, I Am Pretty Fabulous. Am I Not?' 'you're A Pillar Of Fabulosity In The Community,' I Tell Him.

There Is Always The Risk: Something Is Good And Good And Good And Good, And Then All At Once It Gets Awkward. All At Once, She Sees You Looking At Her, And Then She Doesn't Want To Joke Around With You Anymore, Because She Doesn't Want To Seem Flirty, Because She Doesn't Want You To Think She Likes You. It's Such A Disaster, Whenever, In The Course Of Human Relationships, Someone Begins To Chisel Away At The Wall Of Separation Between Friendship And Kissing.

She Left Me Enough To Rediscover The Great Perhaps.

After All This Time, It Seems To Me Like Straight And Fast Is The Only Way Out- But I Choose The Labyrinth. The Labyrinth Blows, But I Choose It.

I Am Crying, He Thought, Opening His Eyes To Stare Through The Soapy, Stinging Water. I Feel Like Crying, So I Must Be Crying, But It's Impossible To Tell Because I'm Underwater. But He Wasn't Crying. Curiously, He Felt Too Depressed To Cry. Too Hurt. It Felt As If She'd Taken The Part Of Him That Cried.

I'm Sorry. I Know You Loved Her. It Was Hard Not To.

The Act Of Leaning In To Kiss Someone, Or Asking Them, Is Fraught With The Possibility Of Rejection, So The Person Least Likely To Get Rejected Should Do The Leaning In Or The Asking.

Youth Is Counted Sweetest By Those Who Are No Longer Young.

Books—they Weren't Ladders Out Of The Abyss, But They Were Companions.

The Sky Is Like A Monochromatic Contemporay Painting, Drawing Me In Its Illusion Of Depth, Pulling Me Up.

I'm Not Interested In Writing For Adults. I Like Them As People! I Don't Like The Way They Publish Books In That World. Nothing Ever Gets A Chance.

You Can Pick Your Friends, And You Can Pick Your Nose, But You Can’t Pick Your Friend’s Nose.

Jesus, I'm Not Going To Be One Of Those People Who Sits Around Talking About What They're Going To Do. I'm Just Going To Do It.

I Like To Build Places Online Where Readers Can Have Productive Conversations About Books.

Dumpers May Not Always Be The Heartbreakers, And The Dumpees May Not Always Be The Heartbroken. But Everyone Has A Tendency.

I Hated Hurting Him. Most Of The Time, I Could Forget About It, But The Inexorable Truth Is This: They Might Be Glad To Have Me Around, But I Was The Alpha And The Omega Of My Parents' Suffering.

You Don't Want Romantic Advice From Me, You Want Romantic Advice From Edward Cullen. I Completely Understand But He Is Completely Unavailable Right Now And I'll Tell You Why. He Doesn't Exist.

All Salvation Is Temporary," Augustus Shot Back. "i Bought Them A Minute. Maybe That's The Minute That Buys Them An Hour, Which Is The Hour That Buys Them A Year. No One's Gonna Buy Them Forever, Hazel Grace, But My Life Bought Them A Minute. And That's Not Nothing.

Francois Rabelais. He Was A Poet. And His Last Words Were "i Go To Seek A Great Perhaps." That's Why I'm Going. So I Don't Have To Wait Until I Die To Start Seeking A Great Perhaps.

As He Read, I Fell In Love The Way You Fall Asleep: Slowly, And Then All At Once.

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John Philpot Curran

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