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And As Paralyzing And Upsetting As All The Never Agains Were, The Final Leaving Felt Perfect. Pure. The Most Distilled Possible Form Of Liberation.

-John Green

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And As Paralyzing And

John Green

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And As Paralyzing And Upsetting As All The Never Agains Were, The Final Leaving Felt Perfect. Pure. The Most Distilled Possible Form Of Liberation.

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I Write About Broken People Who Need Other People In Order To Go On. But Those Are The Only Kind Of People I Know To Exist. We Are All Broken.

The Pure And Simple Truth Is Rarely Pure And Never Simple. What's A Boy To Do When Lies And Truth Are Both Sinful?

The Catholic Hierarchy Has Become More Conservative. What We Don't Know Is Whether [catholic Voters] Will Become Increasingly Conservative, Or .. Stay Swing Voters.

That's Why People Grow Weary Of Listening To Dumpees Obsess Over Their Troubles: Getting Dumped Is Predictable, Repetitive, And Boring. They Want To Stay Friends; They Feel Smothered; It's Always Them And It's Never You; And Afterward, You're Devastated And Their Relieved; It's Over For Them And Just Starting For You.

I Don't Think You Can Ever Fill The Empty Space With The Thing You Lost.

Waffles Are Just Awesome Bread.

There Comes A Time When We Realize That Our Parents Cannot Save Themselves Or Save Us, That Everyone Who Wades Through Time Eventually Gets Dragged Out To Sea By The Undertow- That, In Short, We Are All Going.

I Told Augustus The Broad Outline Of My Miracle: Diagnosed With Stage Iv Thyroid Cancer When I Was Thirteen. (i Didn’t Tell Him That The Diagnosis Came Three Months After I Got My First Period. Like: Congratulations! You’re A Woman. Now Die.)

Congratulations

She Left Me Enough To Rediscover The Great Perhaps.

What I Really Want - And What I Never Get - Is To Be Appreciated. Do You Know What It’s Like To Work So Hard To Make Sure Everyone’s Happy, And To Have Not A Single Person Recognize It

I Went On Spouting Bullshit Encouragements As Gus's Parents, Arm In Arm, Hugged Each Other And Nodded At Every Word. Funerals, I Had Decided, Are For The Living.

But If You Consider All The Unlikely Things Together, At Least One Of Them Will Probably Happen To Each Of Us.

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

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

No, I Don’t Think You’re Gonna Be Single Forever, And Also I Don’t Understand Your Obsession With Romantic Love. There Are Other Ways To Have Fulfilling Relationships That Can Sustain You And Make Your Life Great And Fun Other Than Having A Sexualized Relationship. It’s Not The Only Kind Of Fulfilling Human Interaction. So, Even If You Are Single Forever, That Doesn’t Mean That You’ve Had Some Kind Of Failed Life.

That's Always Seemed So Ridiculous To Me, That People Want To Be Around Someone Because They're Pretty. It's Like Picking Your Breakfeast Cereals Based On Color Instead Of Taste.

One Swing Set, Well Worn But Structurally Sound, Seeks New Home. Make Memories With Your Kid Or Kids So That Someday He Or She Or They Will Look Into The Backyard And Feel The Ache Of Sentimentality As Desperately As I Did This Afternoon. It's All Fragile And Fleeting, Dear Reader, But With This Swing Set, Your Child(ren) Will Be Introduced To The Ups And Downs Of Human Life Gently And Safely, And May Also Learn The Most Important Lesson Of All: No Matter How Hard You Kick, No Matter How High You Get, You Can't Go All The Way Around.

I Thought Of The One Thing About Home That I Missed, My Dad's Study With Its Built-in, Floor-to-ceiling Shelves Sagging With Thick Biographies And The Black Leather Chair That Kept Me Just Uncomfortable Enough To Keep From Feeling Sleepy As I Read.

Read A Lot. Read Broadly... Tell Stories To Your Friends, And Pay Attention To When They Get Bored... Write A Lot.

Don’t Make Stuff Because You Want To Make Money - It Will Never Make You Enough Money. And Don’t Make Stuff Because You Want To Get Famous - Because You Will Never Feel Famous Enough. Make Gifts For People - And Work Hard On Making Those Gifts In The Hope That Those People Will Notice And Like The Gifts.

You See How Fake It All Is. It's Not Even Hard Enough To Be Made Out Of Plastic. It's A Paper Town.

I Will Play Out The String. I Will Not Betray Your Trust. I Will Find You.

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.

In General, Watching Children's Television Is A Dark And Surreal Descent Into Madness Where The Characters On The Screen Talk Directly To You.

While I Did Not Fancy Myself A Particularly Good Person, I Never Thought My First Real Sexual Action Would Be Prostitutional.

It Is Worth It To Leave Behing My Minor Life For Grander Maybes.

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

The Abbreviated Exam Week Meant That Wednesday Was The Last Day Of School For Us. And All Day Long, It Was Hard Not To Walk Around, Thinking About The Lastness Of It All.

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.

Nothing Really Ever Happens Like You Imagine It Will.

Headline?" He Asked. "'swing Set Needs Home,'" I Said. "'desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'" He Said. "'lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks The Butts Of Children,'" I Said.

I Don't Believe In Prom,' I Reminded Her As She Rounded A Corner. I Expertly Angled My Raisin Bran To Accomodate The G-forces. I'd Done This Before.

You Know What Ambrosia Tastes Like? It Tastes Like All The Things You Can't Eat On Weight Watchers. Cheeseburgers, Sugar Cookies, Regular Freaking Ice Cream Instead Of, Like, Ice Cream That's Made Out Of Air And Human Hope.

Weight Watchers

A Margo For Each Of Us--and Each More Mirror Than Window.

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

Sometimes, You Read A Book And It Fills You With This Weird Evangelical Zeal, And You Become Convinced That The Shattered World Will Never Be Put Back Together Unless And Until All Living Humans Read The Book.

Just A Word Of Advice. Whenever You're Furious With Your Parents Or You Think They're Terrible, Just Remember, You Vomited On Them And They Kept You.

We Imagine People As Animals Or Gods. -but She Was Just A Person, A Girl.

Before I Got Here, I Thought For A Long Time That The Way Out Of The Labyrinth Was To Pretend That It Did Not Exist, To Build A Small, Self-sufficient World In The Back Corner Of The Endless Maze And To Pretend That I Was Not Lost, But Home.

I Kind Of Conned You Into Believing You Were Falling In Love With A Healthy Person.

Falling In Love

It Was Kind Of A Beautiful Day, Finally Real Summer In Indianapolis, Warm And Humid - The Kind Of Weather That Reminds You After A Long Winter That While The World Wasn't Built For Humans, We Were Built For The World.

Chicago Is The Great American City, And It Was Really Great To Live There During A Time Of Economic Expansion And Opportunity And Growth. I Felt Like I Was Living At The Center Of The World. Unlike New York, No One Expects You To Be A Professional Writer.

I Feel Like My Life Is So Scattered Right Now. Like It's All The Small Pieces Of Paper And Someone's Turned On The Fan. But, Talking To You Makes Me Feel Like The Fan's Been Turned Off For A Little Bit. Like Things Could Actually Make Sense. You Completely Unscatter Me, And I Appreciate That So Much.

Life Has Become The Future. Every Moment Of Your Life Is Lived For The Future.

Oh, I Wouldn't Mind, Hazel Grace. It Would Be A Privilege To Have My Heart Broken By You.

That Tastes Like Hope Feels.

And I Don't Really Have Anyone Upon Whom I Want To Rain Down My Wrath," I Said, Because In Truth I Didn't. I Always Felt Like You Had To Be Important To Have Enemies. Example: Historically, Germany Has Had More Enemies Than Luxembourg, Margo Roth Spiegelman Was Germany. And Great Britain. And The United States. And Czarist Russia. Me, I'm Luxembourg. Just Sitting Around, Tending Sheep, And Yodeling.

The Weird Thing About Houses Is That They Almost Always Look Like Nothing Is Happening Inside Of Them, Even Though They Contain Most Of Our Lives. I Wondered If That Was Sort Of The Point Of Architecture.

I'm A Big Believer In Pairing Classics With Contemporary Literature, So Students Have The Opportunity To See That Literature Is Not A Cold, Dead Thing That Happened Once But Instead A Vibrant Mode Of Storytelling That's Been With Us A Long Time - And Will Be With Us, I Hope, For A Long Time To Come.

Radar Revs The Engine As To Say Hustle, And We Are Running Through The Parking Lot, Ben's Robe Flowing In The Wind So That He Looks Vaguely Like A Dark Wizard, Except That His Pale Skinny Legs Are Visible, And His Arms Hug Plastic Bags. I Can See The Back Of Lacey's Legs Beneath Her Dress, Her Calves Tight In Midstride. I Don't Know How I Look, But I Know How I Feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

We’re As Likely To Hurt The Universe As We Are To Help It, And We’re Not Likely To Do Either.

She Had This Dark Cancer Water Dripping Out Of Her Chest. Eyes Closed. Intubated. But Her Hand Was Still Her Hand, Still Warm And The Nails Painted This Almost Black Dark Blue And I Just Held Her Hand And Tried To Imagine The World Without Us And For About One Second I Was A Good Enough Person To Hope She Died So She Would Never Know That I Was Going, Too. But Then I Wanted More Time So We Could Fall In Love. I Got My Wish, I Suppose. I Left My Scar.

Falling In Love

Why Are Breakfast Foods Breakfast Foods?

As A Reader, I Don't Feel A Story Has An Obligation To Make Me Happy. I Want Stories To Show Me A Bigger World Than The One I Know.

The Way We Still Essentializ, We're Constantly Essentializing People As Merely Poor, Or Merely Other, And In The End You Can't Have A Relationship With People. I Think The Biggest Job Of Adulthood Is To Learn To Imagine Other People Complexly.

This Squirrel Is Inadequately Afraid Of Humans! Squirrel, I Am A Threat To You! We Are Enemies! Please Get Off My Bench! Oh, God! Oh, God! Don't Touch Me—oh, God!

She Smiled With All The Delight Of A Kid On Christmas Morning And Said, "y'all Smoke To Enjoy It. I Smoke To Die." - Alaska

Like All Sick Children,' He Answered Dispassionately, 'you Say You Don't Want Pity, But Your Very Existence Depends Upon It.

Sometimes People Don't Understand The Promises They're Making When They Make Them.

Keeping Promises

He Called Out To His Fellow Monks,'come Quickly I Am Tasting Stars.

Miles, As In 'to Go Before I Sleep'?

Her Primary Reason For Living And My Primary Reason For Living Were Awfully Entangled.

Every Paper Girl Needs At Least One String.

I Realized It In Waves And We Held On To Each Other Crying And I Thought, God We Must Look So Lame, But It Doesn't Matter Much When You Have Just Now Realized, All The Time Later, That You Are Still Alive.

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.

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.

Funerals...are For The Living.

When I Think About [characters], I Like To Think Of Them In Their Relationships To Each Other. In The Same Way, I Think That's How Humans Are Ultimately Defined. We Are Our Relationships To One Another. And A Lot Of What's Interesting About Us Happens In The Context Of Other People.

I Wondered If There Would Ever Be A Day When I Didn't Think About Alaska, Wondered Whether I Should Hope For A Time When She Would Be A Distant Memory - Recalled Only On The Anniversary Of Her Death, Or Maybe A Couple Of Weeks After, Remembering Only After Having Forgotten.

Night Falls Fast. Today Is The Past.

Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?' This Is An Old Argument In The Field Of Thinking About Suffering And Its Stupidity And Lack Of Sophistication Could Be Plumbed For Centuries But Suffice It To Say That The Existence Of Broccoli Does Not, In Any Way, Affect The Taste Of Chocolate.

You Know, Like When You Look In The Mirror And The Thing You See Is Not The Thing As It Really Is.

I Was Thinking About The Universe Wanting To Be Noticed, And How I Had To Notice It As Best I Could. I Felt That I Owed A Debt To The Universe That Only My Attention Could Repay, And Also That I Owed A Debt To Everybody Who Didn’t Get To Be A Person Anymore And Everyone Who Hadn’t Gotten To Be A Person Yet.

High School Made Me Realize That The People Who Say They Will Never Change, Are Always The Ones Who Change The Most.

And Yet Still I Worried. I Like Being A Person. I Wanted To Keep At It. Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

At Some Point, I Realized I Was Kaitlyning The Encounter, So I Decided To Text Kaitlyn And Ask For Some Advice.

I Liked That He Was A Tenured Professor In The Department Of Slightly Crooked Smiles With A Dual Appointments In The Department Of Having A Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.

When It Comes To Girls (and In Colin's Case, It So Often Did), Everyone Has A Type. Colin Singleton's Type Was Not Physical But Linguistic: He Liked Katherines. And Not Katies Or Kats Or Kitties Or Cathys Or Rynns Or Trinas Or Kays Or Kates Or, God Forbid, Catherines. K-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e. He Had Dated 19 Girls. All Of Them Had Been Named Katherine. And All Of Them- Every Single Solitary One- Had Dumped Him.

One Of Those Moments He Knew He'd Remember And Look Back On, One Of Those Moments That He'd Try To Capture In The Stories He Told. Nothing Was Happening, Really, But The Moment Was Thick With Mattering.

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

The Truth Hurts Because It's Real. It Hurts Because It Mattered. And That's An Important Thing To Acknowledge To Yourself.

How Can You Read And Talk At The Same Time?” I Asked. “well, I Usually Can’t, But Neither The Book Nor The Conversation Is Particularly Intellectually Challenging.

It Hurts Because It Mattered.

I Don't See A Future Where We're All Taught By Robots. The Real Life, Physical Experience Of Being In A Classroom And Having Conversations With Knowledgeable People Is Immeasurably Valuable And Irreplaceable.

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

Miscalculations

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

I Needed, I Decided, To Really Know Her, Because I Needed More To Remember. Before I Could Begin The Shameful Process Of Forgetting The How And The Why Of Her Living And Dying, I Needed To Learn It: How. Why. When. Where. What.

I Love Making Youtube Videos. I Love Tumblr, I Love Twitter. I Love Talking With People I Find Interesting About Stuff I Find Interesting, And The Internet Is A Great Way To Do That.

You May Choose Your Song, But Know This: Tiny. Cooper. Hates. Over. The. Rainbow.

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.

Patients Are Almost Always Preceded By Their Parents, Because No Matter How Fast An Ambulance Can Drive, Terrified Parents Can Drive Faster.

"nothing," I Said. "i’m Just…" I Couldn’t Finish The Sentence, Didn’t Know How To. "i’m Just Very, Very Fond Of You."

Did I Help You To A Fate You Didn't Want?

I Fear Oblivion. I Fear It Like The Proverbial Blind Man Who's Afraid Of The Dark.

Truth Defies Simplicity.

Look, Let Me Just Say It: He Was Hot. A Nonhot Boy Stares At You Relentlessly And It Is, At Best, Awkward And, At Worst, A Form Of Assault. But A Hot Boy . . . Well.

The Nature Of Impending Fatherhood Is That You Are Doing Something That You're Unqualified To Do, And Then You Become Qualified While Doing It.

I Really Think That Reading Is Just As Important As Writing When You're Trying To Be A Writer Because It's The Only Apprenticeship We Have, It's The Only Way Of Learning How To Write A Story.

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

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

According To Maslow, I Was Stuck On The Second Level Of The Pyramid, Unable To Feel Secure In My Health And Therefore Unable To Reach For Love And Respect And Art And Whatever Else, Which Is, Utter Horseshit: The Urge To Make Art Or Contemplate Philosophy Does Not Go Away When You Are Sick. Those Urges Just Become Transfigured By Illness. Maslow's Pyramid Seemed To Imply I Was Less Human Than Other People, And Most People Seemed To Agree With Him.

Go Spit In The Face Of Our Inevitable Obsolescence And Finish Your @#$&ng Novel.

The Food Was So Good That With Each Passing Course, Our Conversation Devolved Further Into Fragmented Celebrations Of Its Deliciousness: 'i Want This Dragon Carrot Risotto To Become A Person So I Can Take It To Las Vegas And Marry It.

I Kept It For Myself Like A Keepsake, As If Sharing The Memory Might Lead To Its Dissipation.

The Punch Connected, But (1) Colin Forgot To Close His Fist, So He Was Slapping Not Hitting, And (2) Instead Of Slapping Toc, He Ended Up Slapping Hassan Flush Across The Cheek, Whereupon Hassan Finally Succeeded In Falling Down.

So Dawn Goes Down Today... Nothing Gold Can Stay. -- Robert Frost

The True Ninja Doesn't Make A Splash At All.

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.

You Live For Pretentious Metaphors.

It Turns Out That, Somehow, There Are A Tremendous Number Of Things To Be Optimistic About.

Also, I Feel That Crying Is Almost--like, Aside From Deaths Of Relatives Or Whatever-- Totally Avoidable If You Follow Two Very Simple Rules: 1.don't Care Too Much. 2. Shut Up. Everything Unfortunate That Has Ever Happened To Me Has Stemmed From Failure To Follow One Of The Rules.

Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying. (almost Everything Is, Really).

"nothing Ever Happens Like You Imagine It Will," She Says. The Sky Is Like A Monochromatic Contemporary Painting, Drawing Me In With Its Illusion Of Depth, Pulling Me Up. "yeah, That's True," I Say. But Then After I Think About It For A Second, I Add, "but Then Again, If You Don't Imagine, Nothing Ever Happens At All."

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.

This Is It. I Can't Even Not Smoke Anymore

She's Cute, I Thought, But You Don't Need To Like A Girl Who Treats You Like You're Ten: You've Already Got A Mom.

In The First Century Ce, Roman Authorities Punished St. Apollonia By Crushing Her Teeth One By One With Pliers. Colin Often Thought About This In Relationship To The Monotony Of Dumping: We Have Thirty-two Teeth. After A While, Having Each Tooth Individually Destroyed Probably Gets Repetitive, Even Dull. But It Never Stops Hurting.

Sorry," I Said To The Duke. "eh, It's Not Your Fault. It's Carla's Fault. You Were Turning The Wheel. Carla Just Wasn't Listening. I Knew I Shouldn't Have Loved Her. She's Like All The Others, Tobin; As Soon As I Confess My Love, She Abandons Me." I Laughed. "i Never Abandoned You," I Said Patting On Her Back. "yeah, Well, (a.) I Never Confessed My Love To You, And (b.) I'm Not Even Female To You.

I'm Not Asexual. I'm Arelationshipal.

You're Funny, And You're Smart, And You May Show Up Late, But You Always Show Up Eventually.

Thank You For Explaining That My Eye Cancer Isn't Going To Make Me Deaf. I Feel So Fortunate That An Intellectual Giant Like Yourself Would Deign To Operate On Me.

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

We Have This Weird Thing In The World Where You Don't Get Insulted For What You Do, You Get Insulted For Who You Are.

And Then We Were Kissing.....the Space Around Us Evaporated, And For A Weird Moment I Rally Like My Body; This Cancer-ruined Thing I'd Spent Years Dragging Around Suddenly Seemed Worth The Struggle.

Amsterdam Is Like The Rings Of A Tree: It Gets Older As You Get Closer To The Center.

This One's For Alaska Young!

Failing To Grapple With Complexity Actually Turns Out To Be A Pretty Bad Life Strategy.

He Liked The Idea Of Coffee Quite A Lot—a Warm Drink That Gave You Energy And Had Been For Centuries Associated With Sophisticates And Intellectuals. But Coffee Itself Tasted To Him Like Caffeinated Stomach Bile.

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.

Agustus Asked If I Wanted To Go With Him To Support Group, But I Was Really Tired From My Busy Day Of Having Cancer, So I Passed.

We're Professional Worriers. You're Constantly Imagining Things That Could Go Wrong And Then Writing About Them.

Imagining Things

That's The Mystery, Isn't It? Is The Labyrinth Living Or Dying? Which Is He Trying To Escape---the World Or The End Of It?

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

The Whole Pleasure Of Being In A State Of Unknowing Is That As Long As You Don’t Know, All Possible Outcomes Feel As If They Are Happening.

If You Act Out Of A Paranoid Fear Of Something Happening, You Will Always Make That Thing Happen.

I Tore Open The Closet Door And Began Feverishly Sorting Through The Shirts Piled On The Floor In The Vain Hope That Inside That Pile There Might Be Some Wondrously Perfect Shirt Down There, A Nice And Tough But I'm Also A Surprisingly Good Listener With A True And Abiding Passion For Cheers And Those Who Lead Them.

One Of The Reasons That Metaphor And Symbolism Are Important In Books Is Because They Are Also Important To Life. Like, For Example Say You're In High School And You're A Boy And You Say To A Girl: "do You Like Anyone Right Now?" - That's Not The Question You're Asking. The Question You're Asking Is, "do You Like Me Right Now."

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

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

Only Now That I Loved A Grenade Did I Understand The Foolishness Of Trying To Save Others From My Own Impending Fragmentation: I Couldn’t Unlove Augustus Waters. And I Didn’t Want To.

Cold One Day, Sweet The Next; Irresistibly Flirty One Moment, Resistibly Obnoxious The Next.

She Had The Kind Of Fingers You Want To Interlace With Your Own.

You Gave Me A Forever Within The Numbered Days, And I'm Grateful.

I Fear Your Faith Has Been Mis- Placed—but Then, Faith Usually Is.

I Think Forever Is An Incorrect Concept.

The Colonel Led All The Cheers. Cornbread!" He Screamed. Chicken!" The Crowd Responded. Rice!" Peas!" And Then, All Together: "we Got Higher Sats." Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" The Colonel Cried. You'll Be Workin' For Us Someday!

It Is So Hard To Leave—until You Leave. And Then It Is The Easiest Goddamned Thing In The World.

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

Random Questions Are The Least Random Of All Questions.

I Was Not Religious, But I Liked Rituals. I Liked The Idea Of Connecting An Action With Remembering.

I Know It's Impossible For You To See Your Peers This Way, But When You're Older, You Start To See Them--the Bad Kids And The Good Kids And All Kids--as People. They're Just People, Who Deserve To Be Cared For.

“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.”

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.

Because So Many People Use Goodreads, It Is An Amazingly Good—and Amazingly Underutilized—resource For Understanding What People Read, Why, And How They Feel About Their Reading Experiences.

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.

And Then It Was The Kind Of Dark Your Eyes Never Adjust To.

You Know How We Make A Scotch And Water In This Home?" "no, Sir," Gus Said. "we Pour Scotch Into A Glass And Then Call To Mind Thoughts Of Water, And Then We Mix The Actual Scotch With The Abstracted Idea Of Water.

He Told Me This While Ripping Through His Duffel Bag, Throwing Clothes Into Drawers With Reckless Abandon. Chip Did Not Believe In Having A Sock Drawer Or A T-shirt Drawer. He Believed That All Drawers Were Created Equal And Filled Each With Whatever Fit. My Mother Would Have Died.

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

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.

Right, Well, He'd Been Sick For A While And His Nurse Said To Him, 'you Seem To Be Feeling Better This Morning,' And Isben Looked At Her And Said, 'on The Contrary,' And Then He Died.

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia.

Imagining The Future

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

That's Who You Really Like. The People You Can Think Out Loud In Front Of.

No Woman Should Ever Lie About Another Woman. You've Violated The Sacred Covenant Between Women! How Will Stabbing One Another In The Back Help Women To Rise Above Patriarchal Oppression?

If We Restructure Things To See That The Hero's Journey Is A Degree In Astrophysics Rather Than A Journey To Star In A Reality Show, That's A Better World.

This Is What Happens: Somebody—girl Usually—got A Free Spirit, Doesn't Get On Too Good With Her Parents. These Kids, They're Like Tied-down Helium Balloons. They Strain Against The String And Strain Against It, And Then Something Happens, And That String Gets Cut, And They Just Float Away. And Maybe You Never See The Balloon Again . . . Or Maybe Three Or Four Years From Now, Or Three Or Four Days From Now, The Prevailing Winds Take The Balloon Back Home . . . But Listen, Kid, That String Gets Cut All The Time.

But In Aia, Anna Decides That Being A Person With Cancer Who Starts A Cancer Charity Is A Bit Narcissistic, So She Starts A Charity Called The Anna Foundation For People With Cancer Who Want To Cure Cholera.

So Often We Try To Make Other People Feel Better By Minimizing Their Pain, By Telling Them That It Will Get Better (which It Will) Or That There Are Worse Things In The World (which There Are). But That's Not What I Actually Needed. What I Actually Needed Was For Someone To Tell Me That It Hurt Because It Mattered. I Have Found This Very Useful To Think About Over The Years, And I Find That It Is A Lot Easier And More Bearable To Be Sad When You Aren't Constantly Berating Yourself For Being Sad.

Reading A Good Book Helps Us To Feel Un-alone.

I Dislike The Phrase ‘internet Friends,’ Because It Implies That People You Know Online Aren’t Really Your Friends, That Somehow The Friendship Is Less Real Or Meaningful To You Because It Happens Through Skype Or Text Messages. The Measure Of A Friendship Is Not Its Physicality But Its Significance.

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.

Ergo: Girls Should Always Make The First Move, Because (a) They Are, On The Whole, Less Likely To Be Rejected Than Guys, (b) That Way, Girls Will Never Get Kissed Unless They Want To Be Kissed.

Maybe This Time She Wanted To Be Found, And To Be Found By Me.

Osteosarcoma Sometimes Takes A Limb To Check You Out. The, If It Like You, It Takes The Rest.

Reading With An Eye Towards Metaphor Allows Us To Become The Person We’re Reading About, While Reading About Them. That’s Why There Is Symbols In Books And Why Your English Teacher Deserves Your Attention. Ultimately, It Doesn’t Matter If The Author Intended The Symbol To Be There Because The Job Of Reading Is Not To Understand The Author’s Intent. The Job Of Reading Is To Use Stories As A Way Into Seeing Other People As A We Ourselves.

Tiny Cooper Is Not The World's Gayest Person, And He Is Not The World's Largest Person, But I Believe He May Be The World's Largest Person Who Is Really, Really Gay, And Also The World's Gayest Person Who Is Really, Really Large.

Cold,” He Said, Pressing A Finger To My Pale Wrist. “not Cold So Much As Underoxygenated,” I Said. “i Love It When You Talk Medical To Me,” He Said. He Stood, And Pulled Me Up With Him, And Did Not Let Go Of My Hand Until We Reached The Stairs.

But What Could I Lose By Continuing That Had Not Already Been Lost?

We Are Engaged Here In The Most Important Pusuit In History. The Search For Meaning. What Is What Is The Nature Of Being A Person? What Is The Best Way To Go About Being A Person?how Did We Come To Be, And Wha Will Become Of Us When We Are No Longer? In Short: What Are The Rules This Game, And How Might We Best Play It?

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?

We Did A Few Things Worth Remembering, And I Wish For Someone To Remember Them.

I Didn’t Need You, You Idiot. I Picked You. And Then You Picked Me Back.

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.

I Tried To Tell Myself That It Could Be Worse, That The World Was Not A Wish-granting Factory, That I Was Living With Cancer Not Dying Of It, That I Mustn't Let It Kill Me Before It Kills Me.

You're Not A Little Kid Anymore. You Need To Make Friends, Get Out Of The House, And Live Your Life.

Here's My Answer To The Very Real Existential Crisis That Grips Me Midway Through Everything I've Ever Tried To Do: I Think Stories Help Us Fight The Nihilistic Urges That Constantly Threaten To Consume Us.

The Nature Of The Labyrinth, I Scribbled Into My Spiral Notebook, And The Way Out Of It. This Teacher Rocked. I Hated Discussion Classes. I Hated Talking, And I Hated Listening To Everyone Else Stumble On Their Words And Try To Phrase Things In The Vaguest Possible Way So They Wouldn't Sound Dumb, And I Hated How It Was All Just A Game Of Trying To Figure Out What The Teacher Wanted To Hear And Then Saying It. I'm In Class, So Teach Me.

And People Are Moody, Dude. You Gotta Get Used To Living With People.

I Kept Waiting For That Loneliness And Nervousness To Make Me Want To Go Back. But It Never Did.

...kaitlyn Never Wore Open-toed Shoes On Account Of How She Hated Her Feet Because She Felt Her Second Toes Were Too Long, As If The Second Toe Was A Window Into The Soul Or Something.

There Is A Part Of Her Greater Than The Sum Of Her Knowable Parts. And That Part Has To Go Somewhere, Because It Cannot Be Destroyed.

The French Verb Aimer Has Two Meanings. And That’s Why He Liked Her, And Loved Her. She Spoke To Him In A Language That, No Matter How Hard You Studied It, Could Not Be Completely Understood.

We Are Now As I Wished We Could Be Then.

You Shall Love Your Neighbour With Your Crooked Heart, It Says So Much About Love And Brokenness -- It's Perfect.

Well, But You Can Eat Grandma's Cookies. They're Not Bad For You. They Were Made By Grandma. Grandma Wouldn't Hurt You.

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

But Before We Can Radically Reshape The World, We Need To Shop.

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.

Were She Better Or You Sicker, Then The Stars Would Not Be So Terribly Crossed, But It Is The Nature Of The Stars To Cross.

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