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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.

-John Green

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But I Had To

John Green

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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.

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Crying Is You, Plus Tears

But It Was Only Hot Outside, And Generally I Only Walked Outside Between One Air-conditioned Place To Another.

Nothing (at Least That Can Be Done By Humans) Immortalizes Anyone. The Fault In Our Stars Will Hopefully Have A Long And Wonderful Life, But It Will Eventually Go Out Of Print, And Eventually The Last Person Ever To Read It Will Die, And Then The Characters Will No Longer Live In Any Consciousness.also, That Is Okay. That Is Good, Actually. That Is How It Should Be. One Of The Things The Characters In This Novel Have To Grapple With Is The Reality Of Temporaryness. What Gus In Particular Must Reconcile Himself To Is That Being Temporary Does Not Mean Being Unimportant Or Meaningless.

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.

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

We All Miss You So Much. It Just Never Ends. It Feels Like We Were All Wounded In Your Battle, Caroline. I Miss You. I Love You.

It's So Easy To Get Stuck. You Just Get Caught In Being Something, Being Special Or Cool Or Whatever, To The Point Where You Don't Even Know Why You Need It; You Just Think You Do.

Whatever. Great Day. Today. Best Day Of My Life.

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

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.

That's Why I Like You. Do You Realize How Rare It Is To Come Across A Hot Girl Who Creates A Adjectival Version Of The Word Pedophile? You Are So Busy Being You That You Have No Idea How Utterly Unprecedented You Are.

The Darkest Nights Produce The Brightest Stars.

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

Ultimately, It Doesn't Matter If The Author Intended A Symbol To Be There, Because The Job Of Reading Is Not To Understand The Authors Intend. The Job Of Reading Is To See Into Other People As We See Ourselves.

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."

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

Dying Is The Last Thing I Would Ever Do!

Margo's Beauty Was A Kind Of Sealed Vessel Of Perfection--uncracked And Uncrackable.

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

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

3 Whole Catfish, Wrapped Separately Veet (it’s For Shaving Your Legs Only You Don’t Need A Razor. It’s With All The Girly Cosmetic Stuff) Vaseline Six Pack, Mountain Dew One Dozen Tulips One Bottle Of Water Tissues One Can Of Blue Spray Paint

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.

Omnis Cellula E Cellula," He Said Again. "all Cells Come From Cells. Every Cell Is Born Of A Previous Cell, Which Was Born Of A Previous Cell. Life Comes From Life. Life Begets Life Begets Life Begets Life Begets Life.

We Gotta Do Something About This Frigging Swing Set,' He Said. 'i'm Telling You, It's Ninety Percent Of The Problem.

So It’s Your Death Suit.” “correct. Don’t You Have A Death Outfit?” “yeah,” I Said. “it’s A Dress I Bought For My Fifteenth Birthday Party. But I Don’t Wear It On Dates.” His Eyes Lit Up. “we’re On A Date?” He Asked. I Looked Down, Feeling Bashful. “don’t Push It.

Great News For Someone Is Always Bad News For Someone Else

In The End The Listening Exposes You Even More Than It Exposes The People You're Trying To Listen To.

Why Would You Try To Kill This Guy, Kevin? He's A Genius. Nuts To Your Truce.

We Were Very Different, And We Disagreed About A Lot Of Things, But He Was Always So Interesting, You Know?

But To Be Perfectly Frank, This Childish Idea That The Author Of A Novel Has Some Special Insight Into The Characters In The Novel ... It's Ridiculous. That Novel Was Composed Of Scratches On A Page, Dear. The Characters Inhabiting It Have No Life Outside Of Those Scratches. What Happened To Them? They All Ceased To Exist The Moment The Novel Ended.

In Our Hyper-secular World, Worship Is Still Inevitable. But It Is Vital To Remember That Our Gods Don't Choose Us, We Choose Them.

I Think Maybe I Know Why,' She Finally Said. 'why?' 'maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke,' She Said.

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

Hazel Has To Realize That Her Mom Was Wrong When She Said, “i Won’t Be A Mother Anymore.” The Truth Is, After Hazel Dies (assuming She Dies), Her Mom Will Still Be Her Mom, Just As My Grandmother Is Still My Grandmother Even Though She Has Died. As Long As Either Person Is Still Alive, That Relationship Survives. (it Changes, But It Survives.)

I've Lived Here For Eighteen Years And I Have Never Once In My Life Come Across Anyone Who Cares About Anything That Matters.

Oh, Wikipedia, With Your Tension Between Those Who Would Share Knowledge And Those Who Would Destroy It.

Sharing Knowledge

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

What I Eventually Realized Is That The Real Business Of Books Is Not Done By Awards Committees Or People Who Turn Trees Into Paper Or Editors Or Agents Or Even Writers. We're All Just Facilitators. The Real Business Is Done By Readers.

Why Are Breakfast Foods Breakfast Foods?

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.

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

The Future Will Erase Everything--there's No Level Of Fame Or Genius That Allows You To Transcend Oblivion. The Infinite Future Makes That Kind Of Mattering Impossible.

Okay Is Bursting With Sensuality

Everything That Comes Together Falls Apart.

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

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

Something About Me Has Always Liked The Drama And Inconvience Of Bad Weather. The Worse The Better, Really.

Talking To A Drunk Person Was Like Talking To An Extremely Happy, Severely Brain-damaged Three-year-old.

. . . Endlessness Is A Really Strange Idea In A Universe That Is Defined By Its Endings.

I Don't Know How I Look, But I Know How I Feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

The Real Heroes Anyway Aren't The People Doing Things; The Real Heroes Are The People Noticing Things, Paying Attention. The Guy Who Invented The Smallpox Vaccine Didn't Actually Invent Anything. He Just Noticed That People With Cowpox Didn't Get Smallpox.

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.

You Know What I Hate? The Outdoors. I Mean, Generally. I Don't Like Outside. I'm An Inside Person. I'm All About Refrigeration And Indoor Plumbing And Judge Judy.

We Can't Love Our Neighbors Till We Know How Crooked Their Hearts Are.

Books So Special And Rare And Yours That Advertising Your Affection Feels Like A Betrayal.

'do You Know,' He Asked In A Delicious Accent, 'what Dom Pérignon Said After Inventing Champagne?' 'no?' I Said. 'he Called Out To His Fellow Monks, 'come Quickly: I Am Tasting The Stars!'

I Think About How Much Depends Upon A Best Friend. Then You Wake Up In The Morning You Swing Your Legs Out Of Bed And You Put Your Feet On The Ground And You Stand Up. You Don't Scoot To The Edge Of The Bed And Look Down To Make Sure The Floor Is There. The Floor Is Always There. Until It's Not.

Can I Ask You About Caroline Mathers?" "and You Say There's No Afterlife.

My Inner Goddess Is Doing The Merengue With Some Salsa Moves.

In The Contemporary World Where Things Fall Apart, And The Centre Cannot Hold, You Have To Imagine A Community Where There Is No Centre. Hank, At The End Of This Year I Started Thinking That A Lot Of Life Is About Doing Things That Don’t Suck With People Who Don’t Suck.

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.

To Find Margo Roth Spiegelman, You Must Become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I Had Done Many Of The Things She Might Have Done: I Had Engineered A Most Unlikely Prom Coupling. I Had Quieted The Hounds Of Caste Warfare. I Had Come To Feel Comfortable Inside The Rat-infested Haunted House Where She Did Her Best Thinking. I Had Seen. I Had Listened. But I Could Not Yet Become The Wounded Person.

Don't Worry. Worry Is Useless. I Worried Anyway

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.

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.

Sometimes The Way You Think About Someone Isn't The Way They Actually Are.

It's Almost As If The Way You Imagine My Dead Self Says More About You Than It Says About Either The Person I Was Or The Whatever I Am Now.

The World," He Said, "is Not A Wish-granting Factory," And Then He Broke Down, Just For One Moment, His Sob Roaring Impotent Like A Clap Of Thunder Unaccompanied By Lightning, The Terrible Ferocity That Amateurs In The Field Of Suffering Might Mistake For Weakness.

Is It Still Cool To Go To The Mall?' She Asked. 'i Take Quite A Lot Of Pride In Not Knowing What's Cool,' I Answered.

What Can We Do?" Mom Asked Again. I Shrugged. But She Kept Asking, As If There Were Something She Could Do, Until I Just Kind Of Crawled Across The Couch Into Her Lap And My Dad Came Over And Held My Legs Really Tight And I Wrapped My Arms All The Way Around My Mom's Middle And They Held On To Me For Hours While The Tide Rolled In.

All Of Us, Poor & Rich Alike, Have Been Conditioned By Our Upbringings. Impoverished Men & Women May Become Lulled Into A State Of "learned Helplessness" Without Hope To Change Their Lives. Likewise, The Wealthy Can Walk In A State Of "learned Blindness" Ignoring The Desperation Of The Local & Global Poor.

Tell Me My Copy Is Missing The Last Twenty Pages Or Something. Hazel Grace, Tell Me I Have Not Reached The End Of This Book. Oh My God Do They Get Married Or Not Oh My God What Is This?!

The Internet Is Necessarily Public. It Can Be Filtered-public Or Censored-public, But It Necessarily Has To Be Open And Available.

Leaving Feels Good And Pure Only When You Leave Something Important, Something That Mattered To You. Pulling Life Out By The Roots. But You Can't Do That Until Your Life Has Grown Roots.

It Is Not My Fault That My Parents Own The World's Largest Collection Of Black Santas.

They Couldn't Bear The Idea Of Death Being A Big Black Nothing.

This Was What I Liked Most About My Friends: Just Sitting Around & Telling Stories.

The Dead Are Visible Only In The Terrible Lidless Eye Of Memory. The Living, Thank Heaven, Retain The Ability To Surprise And To Disappoint. - Van Houten

Love Is Just A Shout In The Void.

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.

The Funny Thing About Writing Is That Whether You're Doing Well Or Doing It Poorly, It Looks The Exact Same. That's Actually One Of The Main Ways That Writing Is Different From Ballet Dancing.

I Told Myself – As I’ve Told Myself Before – That The Body Shuts Down When The Pain Gets Too Bad, That Consciousness Is Temporary, That This Will Pass. But Just Like Always, I Didn’t Slip Away. I Was Left On The Shore With The Waves Washing Over Me, Unable To Drown.

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.

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.

And On The Last Day, The Bad Days Become So Difficult To Recall, Because One Way Or Another, She Had Made A Life Here, Just As I Had. The Town Was Paper, But The Memories Were Not. All The Things I’d Done Here, All The Love And Pity And Compassion And Violence And Spite, Kept Welling Up Inside Me.

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?

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!

I'm Not Sure If I'm Depressed. I Mean, I'm Not Exactly Sad. But I'm Not Exactly Happy Either. I Can Laugh And Joke And Smile During The Day, But Sometimes When I'm Alone At Night I Forget How To Feel.

I Love You Present Tense,” I Whispered, And Then Put My Hand On The Middle Of His Chest And Said, “it’s Okay, Gus. It’s Okay. It Is. It’s Okay, You Hear Me?” I Had—and Have—absolutely No Confidence That He Could Hear Me. I Leaned Forward And Kissed His Cheek. “okay,” I Said. “okay.

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.

Truth Defies Simplicity.

That Tastes Like Hope Feels.

When You Acknowledge That There Is Nothing Repulsive Or Unforgivable Or Shameful About Yourself, It Becomes Easier To Be That Authentic Person And Feel Like You're Living A Less Performed Life.

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.

When People Call People Nerds, Mostly What They're Saying Is, 'you Like Stuff.' Which Is Not A Good Insult At All, Like, 'you Are Too Enthusiastic About The Miracle Of Human Conscience.

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.

I Believe Humans Have Souls, And I Believe In The Conservation Of Souls.

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.

...whatever You're Worried About, You're Bigger Than The Worries.

But The Fascinating And Unbelievable-but-true Thing About Dr. Jefferson Jeffersonis That He Was Not A Doctor Of Any Kind. He Was Just An Orange Juice Salesman Named Jefferson Jefferson. When He Became Rich And Powerful, He Went To Court, Made "jefferson" His Middle Name, And Then Changed His First Name To "dr." Capital D. Lowercase R. Period.

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

I Could Stand Up And Go To Her And Kiss Her. I Could. But There Is Still Too Much To Be Ruined.

Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

I May Die Young, But At Least I'll Die Smart.

I Spy With My Little Eye A Great Story.

The Miracle And Hope Of Human Consciousness Is That We Can Still Conceive Of Boundlessness.

But You Know What They Say About Gutshot: The Population Never Goes Up And Never Goes Down, Because Every Time A Woman Gets Pregnant, A Man Leaves Town.

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.

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

...all I Have To Do Is Stay In Between The Lines And Make Sure That No One Is Too Close To Me And I Am Not Too Close To Anyone And Keep Leaving. Maybe It Felt Like This For Her, Too, But I Could Never Feel Like This Alone.

Wait, Wait. I Don't Get It.' 'that Is Because You Only Have Eight Functioning Brain Cells.

I Liked Being A Person. I Wanted To Keep At It.

You're Not Going To Impose The Patriarchal Paradigm On Me.

You Could Hear The Wind In The Leaves, And On That Wind Traveled The Screams Of The Kids On The Playground In The Distance, The Little Kids Figuring Out How To Be Alive, How To Navigate A World That Was Not Built For Them By Navigating A Playground That Was. . . Who Am I To Say That These Things Might Not Be Forever? Who Is Pete Van Houten To Assert As Fact The Conjecture That Our Labor Is Temporary? All I Know Of Heaven And All I Know Of Death Is In This Park: An Elegant Universe In Ceaseless Motion, Teeming With Ruined Ruins And Screaming Children.

The World Went On, As It Does, Without My Full Participation, And I Only Woke Up From The Reverie When Someone Said My Name.

My Parents Always Liked It When I Cursed In Front Of Them. I Could See The Pleasure Of It In Their Faces. It Signified That I Trusted Them, That I Was Myself In Front Of Them.

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

Books Belong To Their Readers.

Colin Thought About The Dork Mantra: Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me. What A Dirty Lie.

I Don't Want To Hear Another Negative Word About Cheerleaders. If It Weren't For Cheerleaders, Who Would Tell Us When And How To Be Happy During Athletic Events? If It Weren't For Cheerleaders, How Would America's Prettiest Girls Get The Exercise That's So Vital To A Healthy Life?

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

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.

In General-like Not Just In Fiction But In Life-it Doesn't Work Out Well When Someone Imagines Someone Else As A Manic Pixie Dream Girl Or An Edward Cullen Or Anything Other Than A Full, Complex Human Being. That Said, While I've Tried To Reflect That In My Books, I Don't Think I've Always Succeeded, Because I Am Always Running Up Against My Own Insufficiencies And Biases Etc.

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.

One Of The Pitfalls About Writing About Illness Is That It Is Very Easy To Imagine People With Cancer As Either These Wise-beyond-their-years Creatures Or These Sad-eyed Tragic People. And The Truth Is, People Living With Cancer Are Very Much Like People Who Are Not Living With Cancer. They're Every Bit As Funny And Complex And Diverse As Anyone Else.

Issac:"i Dislike Living In A World Without Augustus Waters." Computer: "i Don't Understand-" Issac: "me Neither. Pause

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.

And Since She Drove To Work Every Morning, I Could Only Use The Car On Weekends. Well, Weekends And The Middle Of The Goddamned Night.

Interesting Capitalization,' I Said. 'yeah. I'm A Big Believer In Random Capitalization. The Rules Of Capitalization Are So Unfair To Words In The Middle.

But Why Alaska?' I Asked Her. 'well, Later, I Found Out What It Means. It's From An Aleut Word, Alyeska. It Means 'that Which The Sea Breaks Against,' And I Love That. But At The Time, I Just Saw Alaska Up There. And It Was Big, Just Like I Wanted To Be.

The Good Times And The Bad Times Both Will Pass. It Will Pass. It Will Get Easier. But The Fact That It Will Get Easier Does Not Mean That It Doesn’t Hurt Now. And When People Try To Minimize Your Pain They Are Doing You A Disservice. And When You Try To Minimize Your Own Pain You’re Doing Yourself A Disservice. Don’t Do That. The Truth Is That It Hurts Because It’s Real. It Hurts Because It Mattered. And That’s An Important Thing To Acknowledge To Yourself. But That Doesn’t Mean That It Won’t End, That It Won’t Get Better. Because It Will.

Ashes To Ashes. Garage Sale To Garage Sale,” I Said.

Whether You're Studying Electrical Engineering Or Poetry, College Is Not About Maximizing Income, It's About Becoming A Better And More Informed Observer Of The Universe. And For Me, At Least, That What's Leads To A More Fulfilling Life.

Maybe Some People Need To Believe In A Proper And Omnipotent God To Pray, But I Don't.

It's Not Life Or Death, The Labyrinth. Suffering. Doing Wrong And Having Wrong Things Happen To You.

From The Front Rdar Announces, "don't You Go Talking Bad About Gofast Bars. Do You Want Me To Stop This Car?" "whenever I Eat A Gofast Bar," Ben Says, "i'm Always Like, 'so This Is What Blood Tastes Like To Mosquitoes.

I Thought You Hung The Moon.

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-

So I Was Ugly. I Was Never Fat, Really, And I Never Wore Headgear Or Had Zits Or Anything. But I Was Ugly. I Don't Even Know How Ugly And Pretty Get Decided - Maybe There's Like A Secret Cabal Of Boys Who Meet In The Locker Room And Decide Who's Ugly And Who's Hot, Because As Far As I Can Remember, There Was No Such Thing As A Hot Fourth-grader. - Lindsey Lee Wells

No Headboards Were Broken.

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

They Were Angry, I Thought. Horrified. These Teenagers, With Their Hormones, Making Out Beneath A Video Broadcasting The Shattered Voice Of A Former Father.

We Look Back To The Most Important Moment In Our History, And That Becomes The Dividing Line Between What We Were And What We Are Now.

I Learned That Myth Doesn’t Mean A Lie; It Means A Traditional Story That Tells You Something About People And Their Worldview And What They Hold Sacred. Interesting.

I Didn't Know What To Say To Her - I Was Caught In A Love Triangle With One Dead Side.

We Have Bottled All The Stars This Evening, My Young Friend.

How Will I Ever Get Out Of This Labyrinth!" In Reality, "how Will I Ever Get Out Of This Labyrinth!" Were Probably Not Simon Bolivar's Last Words (although He Did, Historically, Say Them). His Last Words May Have Been "jose! Bring The Luggage. They Do Not Want Us Here." The Significant Source For "how Will I Ever Get Out Of This Labyrinth!" Is Also Alaska's Source, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General In His Labyrinth.

Boys Do Not Have The Monopoly In Staring Business, After All.

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

I Hate The Rich Snots Here With A Fervent Passion I Usually Reserve Only For Dental Work And My Father.

In The Ensuing Silence, I Have Time To Contemplate The Word Cute— How Dismissive It Is, How It’s The Equivalent Of Calling Someone Little, How It Makes A Person Into A Baby, How The Word Is A Neon Sign Burning Through The Dark Reading, “feel Bad About Yourself.

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.

She Has Enough Black Eyeliner On To Outline A Corpse, And Her Skin's So Pale She Looks Like She's Just Broken Dawn.

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

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.

Because Everybody Who Has Ever Lost Their Way In Life Has Felt The Nagging Insistence Of That Question. At Some Point We All Look Up And Realize We Are Lost In A Maze, And I Dont Want Us To Forget Alaska, And I Don't Want To Forget That Even When The Material We Study Seems Boring, We're Trying To Und3erstand How People Answered That Question And The Question Each Of You Posed In Your Papers--how Different Traditions Have Come To Terms With What Chip, In His Final, Called 'people's Rotten Lots In Life.

I Could Be Worse, You Know." "how?" I Asked, Teasing. "i Mean, I Have A Work Of Calligraphy Over My Toilet That Reads, 'bathe Yourself In The Comfort Of God's Words,' Hazel. I Could Be Way Worse." "sounds Unsanitary," I Said.

What Is The Point Of Being Alive If You Don't At Least Try To Do Something Remarkable?

Collin Singleton Could No More Stay Cool Than A Blue Whale Could Stay Skinny Or Bangladesh Could Stay Rich

Your Friendship With Her-it Sleeps With The Fishes.

Colin Emphatically Pushed The Book Cover Shut When He Finished Reading. "did You Like It?" His Dad Asked. "yup," Colin Said. He Liked All Books, Because He Liked The Mere Act Of Reading, The Magic Of Turning Scratches On A Page Into Words Inside His Head.

The Minister Said, “let Us Pray,” But As Everyone Else Bowed Their Head, I Could Only Stare Slack-jawed At The Sight Of Peter Van Houten. After A Moment, He Whispered, “we Gotta Fake Pray,” And Bowed His Head.

She Had The Kind Of Eyes That Predisposed You To Supporting Her Every Endeavor.

Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?

He Is Both The Source Of My Happiness And The One I Want To Share It With. I Have To Believe That’s A Sign.

By The Power Of The Superglue Beer Sword, I Designate You My Driver!

I Pulled The Oxygen Tubes From My Nostrils And Raised The Tube Up Over My Head, Handing It To Dad. I Wanted It To Be Just Me And Just Him.

I Could Try To Pretend That I Didn't Care Anymore, But It Could Never Be True Again. 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.

We Fell. We Got Up. We Ran.

There Are Times When You Just Have To Let It All Out. All The Anger, All The Pain.

Most Loves Don't Last. But Some Do.

Long Week. Long Month. Long Life.

The Last Time I Was This Scared, I Peed Myself." "the Last Time I Was This Scared," Radar Says, "i Actually Had To Face A Dark Lord In Order To Make The World Safe For Wizards.

Nothing Was Happening, Really, But The Moment Was Thick With Mattering

We Landed, In Fact, Parallel To A Canal, Like There Were Two Runways: One For Us And One For Waterfowl.

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

It Was Not An Eventful Day. I Should Have Done Extraordinary Things. I Should Have Sucked The Marrow Out Of Life. But On That Day, I Slept Eighteen Hours Out Of A Possible Twenty-four.

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

This Is The Fear That Made Fish Crawl Out Onto Dry Land And Evolve Lungs, The Fear That Teaches Us To Run, The Fear That Makes Us Bury Our Dead.

I Mean, It’s Stupid To Miss Someone You Didn’t Even Get Along With. But I Don’t Know, It Was Nice, You Know, Having Someone You Could Always Fight With.

Missing Someone

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.

And Now Life Has Become The Future. Every Moment Of Your Life Is Lived For The Future—you Go To High School So You Can Go To College So You Can Get A Good Job So You Can Get A Nice House So You Can Afford To Send Your Kids To College So They Can Get A Good Job So They Can Get A Nice House So They Can Afford To Send Their Kids To College.

I Want More Numbers Than I’m Likely To Get, And God, I Want More Numbers For Augustus Waters Than He Got. But, Gus, My Love, I Cannot Tell You How Thankful I Am For Our Little Infinity. I Wouldn’t Trade It For The World. You Gave Me A Forever Within The Numbered Days, And I’m Grateful.

Do Not Worry Too Much About Your Lawn. You Will Soon Find If You Haven't Already That Almost Every Adult American Devotes Tremendous Time And Money To The Maintenance Of An Invasive Plant Species Called Turf Grass That We Can't Eat. I Encourage You To Choose Better Obsessions.

That Is, To Me At Least, One Of The Most Helpful And Useful Things Books Do For Us: They Are Generous Enough To Allow Us To Choose What Matters To Us.

It's More Impressive," I Said Out Loud. "from A Distance, I Mean. You Can't See The Wear On Things, You Know? You Can't See The Rust Or The Weeds Or The Paint Cracking. You See The Place As Someone Once Imagined It.

Yeah, So If That Guy Can Make It In Drunk, Surely We Can Make It In Sober. I Mean, We’re Ninjas.' 'well, Maybe You’re A Ninja,' I Said. 'you’re Just A Really Loud, Awkward Ninja,' Margo Said, 'but We Are Both Ninjas.

This One's For Alaska Young!

We Need Never Be Hopeless Because We Can Never Be Irreperably Broken.

But My Miracle Was Different. My Miracle Was This: Out Of All The Houses In All The Subdivisions In All Of Florida, I Ended Up Living Next Door To Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Pudge, My Friend, We Are Indefuckingstructible.

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.

When Was The Last Good Kiss You Had?

Hazel Grace Lancaster

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.

I Love You Present Tense.

I Think It's Crazy, Crazy That Book Tours Lose So Much Money. They Shouldn't. Book Tours Should Be Part Of What Keeps Independent Bookstores Vibrant And Profitable.

The Romans Knew It: Quod Me Alit Me Extinguit, They Said: That Which Nourishes Me, Extinguishes Me.

That's What I Realized: If I Did Get Her Back Somehow, She Wouldn't Fill The Hole That Losing Her Created.

That Smile Could End Wars And Cure Cancer.

C'mon Pudge. I'm Teasing. You Have To Be Tough. I Didn't Know How Bad It Was-- And I'm Sorry, And They'll Regret It-- But You Have To Be Tough.

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