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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.

-John Green

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Don’t Make Stuff Because

John Green

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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.

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Nerdfighter Pwns Woot. Everyone Knows That.

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Writing Fiction Is An Inherently Political Activity Because People-even Imaginary Ones-do Not Live In Vacuums... From Twilight To Romeo And Juliet To The Little Mermaid, No Work Of The Imagination Is Truly Apolitical, Because The World And Our Hopes For It Are Always Part Of Our Stories.

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.

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

I'm Not Asexual. I'm Arelationshipal.

Observation: It Would Be Awesome To Fly In A Superfast Airplane That Could Chase The Sunrise Around The World For A While.

I Wanted More Time So We Could Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

But There's So Much To Do: Cigarettes To Smoke, Sex To Have, Swings To Swing On.

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.

Every Second Of Your Definitionally Temporary Consciousness, You Are Choosing How You Spend Something That Will Not Last Forever.

Nerd Girls Are The World’s Most Underutilized Romantic Resource. And Guys, Do Not Tell Me That Nerd Girls Are Not Hot Because That Shows A Paris Hilton-esque Failure To Understand Hotness.

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

There Was Time Before Organisms Experienced Consciousness, And There Will Be Time After. And If The Inevitability Of Human Oblivion Worries You, I Encourage You To Ignore It.

Hazel Grace,” He Said. “hi,” I Said. “how Are You?” “grand,” He Said. “i Have Been Wanting To Call You On A Nearly Minutely Basis, But I Have Been Waiting Until I Could Form A Coherent Thought In Re An Imperial Affliction.” (he Said “in Re.” He Really Did. That Boy.)

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

He Wanted To Draw Out The Moment Before The Moment- Because As Good As Kissing Feels, Nothing Feels As Good As The Anticipation Of It.

Life Works Best When We Think Of People As People.

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.

He Missed Her Like Crazycakes.

What Else? She Is So Beautiful. You Don’t Get Tired Of Looking At Her. You Never Worry If She Is Smarter Than You: You Know She Is. She Is Funny Without Ever Being Mean. I Love Her. I Am So Lucky To Love Her, Van Houten. You Don’t Get To Choose If You Get Hurt In This World, Old Man, But You Do Have Some Say In Who Hurts You. I Like My Choices. I Hope She Likes Hers.

And Then We Were Kissing. My Hand Let Go Of The Oxygen Cart And I Reached Up For His Neck, And He Pulled Me Up By My Waist Onto My Tiptoes. As His Parted Lips Met Mine, I Started To Feel Breathless In A New And Fascinating Way. The Space Around Us Evaporated, And For A Weird Moment I Really Liked My Body, This Cancer-ruined Thing I'd Spent Years Dragging Around Suddenly Seemed Worth The Struggle, Worth The Chest Tubes And Picc Lines And The Ceaseless Bodily Betrayal Of The Tumors.

It Was An Indulgence, Learning Last Words. Other People Had Chocolate; I Had Dying Declarations.

You're Not Boring. You've Got To Stop Saying That, Or People Will Start Believing You.

The Preciousness Of The Moment, Which Should Make It Easier To Talk, Makes It Harder.

Right, Except I'm Not Going To Lie To My Mom, Because What Kind Of (man) Lies To His Own Mother?

Eternity Bids Thee To Forget.

He Wasn't Perfect Or Anything. He Wasn;t Your Fairytale Prince Charming Or Whatever. He Tried To Be Like That Sometimes,but I Liked Him Best When That Stuff Fell Away.

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

Augustus Waters Was The Great Star-crossed Love Of My Life. Ours Was An Epic Love Story, And I Won’t Be Able To Get More Than A Sentence Into It Without Disappearing Into A Puddle Of Tears. 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.

"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."

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia.

Imagining The Future

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.

The Side Effects Of Dying In Your Pants Isn't Really Funny… Alright, It's A Little Funny.

And I Will Forget Her, Yes. That Which Came Together Will Fall Apart Slowly, But She Will Forgive My Forgetting, Just As I Forgive Her For Forgetting Me And The Colonel And Nothing But Herself And Her Mom In Those Last Moments As She Spent As A Person.

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I've Never Known Before What It Feels Like To Want Someone - Not To Want To Hook Up With Them Or Whatever, But To Want Them, To Want Them. And Now I Do. So Maybe I Do Believe In Epiphanies.

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.

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I Mean, He Was Something That Happened To Me, You Know? But Before He Was This Minor Figure In The Drama Of My Life He Was - You Know, The Central Figure In The Drama Of His Own Life.

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.

The Feeling Of Loving Her And Being Loved By Her Welled Up In Him, And He Could Taste The Adrenaline In The Back Of His Throat, And Maybe It Wasn't Over, And Maybe He Could Feel Her Hand In His Again And Hear Her Loud, Brash Voice Contort Itself Into A Whisper To Say I-love-you As If It Were A Secret, And An Immense One.

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She Left Me Enough To Rediscover The Great Perhaps.

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All The Things Paper-thin And Paper-frail, And All The People Too.

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To Be Fair To Monica," I Said, "what You Did To Her Wasn't Very Nice Either." "what'd I Do To Her?" He Asked, Defensive. "you Know, Going Blind And Everything." "but That's Not My Fault," Isaac Said. "i'm Not Saying It Was Your Fault. I'm Saying It Wasn't Nice.

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Witness Also That When We Talk About Literature, We Do So In The Present Tense. When We Speak Of The Dead, We Are Not So Kind.

I'm So Proud Of You That It Makes Me Proud Of Me. I Hope You Know That.

But Once That String Gets Cut, Kid, You Can't Uncut It. Do You Get What I'm Saying?

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March 4th, The Only Day That Is Also A Sentence

Just Spend A Few More Months Playing Video Games. That Hand-eye Coordination Will Come In Handy When You Get To Third Base.

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

You Don't Get To Choose If You Get Hurt In This World...but You Do Have Some Say In Who Hurts You. I Like My Choices.

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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.

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.

You Cannot Invent An Algorithm That Is As Good At Recommending Books As A Good Bookseller, And That's The Secret Weapon Of The Bookstore - Is That No Algorithm Will Ever Understand Readers The Way That Other Readers Can Understand Readers.

So How’s It Going?” “okay. Glad To Be Home, I Guess. Gus Told Me You Were In The Icu?” “yeah,” I Said. “sucks,” He Said. “i’m A Lot Better Now,” I Said. “i’m Going To Amsterdam Tomorrow With Gus.” “i Know. I’m Pretty Well Up-to-date On Your Life, Because Gus Never. Talks. About. Anything. Else.

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.

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

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I Have An Augustus Waters Fetish.

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You Say Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours.

If People Were Like Rain, I Was Like Drizzle And She Was A Hurricane.

Me: "if You Want Me To Be A Teenager, Don't Send Me To Support Group. Buy Me A Fake Id So I Can Go To Clubs, Drink Vodka, And Take Pot." Mom: "you Don't Take Pot, For Starters." Me: "see, That's The Kind Of Thing I'd Know If You Got Me A Fake Id.

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

We Were Sitting There On The Couch Together, And He Pushed Himself Up To Go But Then Fell Back Down Onto The Couch And Sneaked A Kiss Onto My Cheek. “augustus!” I Said. “friendly,” He Said. He Pushed Himself Up Again And Really Stood This Time, Then Took Two Steps Over To My Mom And Said, “always A Pleasure To See You,” And My Mom Opened Her Arms To Hug Him, Whereupon Augustus Leaned In And Kissed My Mom On The Cheek. He Turned Back To Me. “see?” He Asked.

We Don't Suffer From A Shortage Of Metaphors . . . But You Have To Be Careful Which Metaphor You Choose, Because It Matters.

In The Darkest Days, The Lord Puts The Best People Into Your Life." (p. 28)

I’ve Stopped Thinking About It. I Don’t Have Time To Have A Girlfriend. I Have Like A Full-time Job Learning How To Be Blind.

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

We All Use The Future To Escape The Present.

Imagining The Future

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

I Have Guts, Just Not When It Counts.

I Realized That All My Life, My Values Were Based Upon Typical Middle-class American Values: Hard Work, Doing Good, Living Well, Owning Things, Following The Rules & Being The Best I Can Be... But God Clearly Says, "those Are Not My Values. I Value Justice, Mercy & Humility.

Crying Is You, Plus Tears

Y'all Smoke To Enjoy It. I Smoke To Die.

I’m Not Up For Laughing, But Their Laughter Makes The Room Feel Safer, So We Begin To Explore.

Do You Know Why I Left America, Lidewij? So That I Would Never Again Have To Encounter Americans." "but You Are An American." "incurably So, It Seems.

Writing Is Something You Do Alone. It's A Profession For Introverts Who Wanna Tell You A Story But Don't Wanna Make Eye Contact While Telling It

Why Is It Upset? Shouldn't It Be Downset?

As A Child I Was An Inveterate Liar. As Opposed To Now, I Am A Novelist.

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.

Depression Is Not A Side Effect Of Cancer. Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying.

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

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.

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?

There Are Infinite Numbers Between 0 And 1.

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

Maybe Life Is Not About Accomplishing Some Bullshit Markers.

I Really Like Umbrellas. It's Like, I Have A Roof! I Carry It With Me! Umbrellas Always Amuse Me.

Entropy Increases. Things Fall Apart.

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Gelsey Kirkland

Karl Liebknecht

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