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Her Underwear, Her Jeans, The Comforter, My Corduroys And My Boxers Between Us, I Thought. Five Layers, And Yet I Felt It, The Nervous Warmth Of Touching – A Pale Reflection Of The Fireworks Of One Mouth On Another, But A Reflection Nonetheless. And In The Almostness Of The Moment, I Cared At Least Enough. I Wasn’t Sure Whether I Liked Her, And Doubted Whether I Could Trust Her, But I Cared At Least Enough To Try To Find Out. Her On My Bed, Wide Green Eyes Staring Down At Me. The Enduring Mystery Of Her Sly, Almost Smirking, Smile. Five Layers Between Us.

-John Green

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Her Underwear, Her Jeans,

John Green

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Her Underwear, Her Jeans, The Comforter, My Corduroys And My Boxers Between Us, I Thought. Five Layers, And Yet I Felt It, The Nervous Warmth Of Touching – A Pale Reflection Of The Fireworks Of One Mouth On Another, But A Reflection Nonetheless. And In The Almostness Of The Moment, I Cared At Least Enough. I Wasn’t Sure Whether I Liked Her, And Doubted Whether I Could Trust Her, But I Cared At Least Enough To Try To Find Out. Her On My Bed, Wide Green Eyes Staring Down At Me. The Enduring Mystery Of Her Sly, Almost Smirking, Smile. Five Layers Between Us.

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The Vast Majority Of Us Imagine Ourselves As Like Literature People Or Math People. But The Truth Is That The Massive Processor Known As The Human Brain Is Neither A Literature Organ Or A Math Organ. It Is Both And More.

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

But It Is A Pipe." "no, It's Not," I Said. It's A Drawing Of A Pipe. Get It? All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract. It's Very Clever.

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.

Thank You," I Say, Pounding His Back Probably Too Hard. "that Was The Best Damned Passenger-seat Driving I've Ever Seen In My Life." He Pats My Uninjured Cheek With His Greasy Hand. "i Did It To Save Myself, Not You," He Says. "believe Me When I Say That You Did Not Once Cross My Mind. " I Laugh. "nor You Mine," I Say.

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.

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

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.

Dying Is The Last Thing I Would Ever Do!

I Thought You Hung The Moon.

Becoming A Father Made Me Much More Interested In The Parent Character In My Novels. I've Never Found Parents That Interesting.

If My Public Existence Does Anything Worthwhile, Hopefully It At Least Demystifies The Author A Bit, Because I Know When I Was Younger I Felt Like Authors Were Like Wizards Or Something. Turns Out They're Total Muggles.

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.

What Happens In The Band Room Stays In The Band Room.

Half-drunk On Well-creamed Gas Station Coffee And The Exhilarating Loneliness Of A Freeway In Nighttime.

There's A Stark Difference Between The Words 'prodigy' And 'genius.' Prodigies Can Very Quickly Learn What Other People Have Already Figured Out; Geniuses Discover That Which No One Has Ever Previously Discovered. Prodigies Learn; Geniuses Do.

You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth.

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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.

Does My Eye Look Okay To You?

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

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

"i Think Forever Is An Incorrect Concept," I Answered. He Smirked. "you're An Incorrect Concept." "i Know. That's Why I'm Being Taken Out Of The Rotation".

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

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.

And Then I Screwed Up And The Colonel Screwed Up And Takumi Screwed Up And She Slipped Through Our Fingers.

Labyrinth Looking For Alaska

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

Keeping Promises

Being In A Relationship, That's Something You Choose. Being Friends, That's Something You Just Are.

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

We Cannot Be Born, And We Cannot Die. Like All Energy, We Can Only Change Shapes And Sizes And Manifestations.

Because There Is No Glory In Illness. There Is No Meaning To It. There Is No Honor In Dying Of.

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

The Book Was Turned To The Page With Anne Frank's Name, But What Got Me About It Was The Fact That Right Beneath Her Name There Were Four Aron Franks. Four. Four Aron Franks Without Museums, Without Historical Markers, Without Anyone To Mourn Them. I Silently Resolved To Remember And Pray For The Four Aron Franks As Long As I Was Around.

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I Would Argue That Stupidity Is Born Out Of Bad Reading, Bad Teaching And Bad Thinking!

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You Will Not Kill My Girlfriend Today, International Terrorists Of Ambiguous Nationality!

I Was Born Into Bolívar's Labyrinth, And So I Must Believe In The Hope Of Rabelais' Great Perhaps.

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At The End, We Brought Her To New York, Where I Was Living, For A Series Of Experimental Tortures That Increased The Misery Of Her Days Without Increasing The Number Of Them.

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So I Let Her Go, Too. And I'm Sorry.

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I Inherited That Penchant For Intellectualism, A Character Flaw That These Days Can Only Be Thoroughly Eradicated By Getting Z’ed Up.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is No Shortage Of Fault To Be Found Amid Our Stars

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.

Scared Isn't A Good Excuse. Scared Is The Excuse Everyone Has Always Used.

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

Augustus Waters Died Eight Days After His Prefuneral, At Memorial, In The Icu, When The Cancer, Which Was Made Of Him, Finally Stopped His Heart, Which Was Also Made Of Him.

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.

The Phrase Booze And Mischief Left Me Worrying I'd Stumbled Into What My Mother Referred To As "the Wrong Crowd," But For The Wrong Crowd, They Both Seemed Awfully Smart.

As The Tide Washed In, The Dutch Tulip Man Faced The Ocean: "conjoiner Rejoinder Poisoner Concealer Revelator. Look At It, Rising Up And Rising Down, Taking Everything With It." "what’s That?" Anna Asked. "water," The Dutchman Said. "well, And Time.

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I Feel Like Crying, So I Must Be Crying, But It's Impossible To Tell Because I'm Underwater.

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We're Going To Get Gored To Death By A Feral Fugging Hog And Your Best Strategy Is To Pretend It's A Grizzly Bear?

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

Whenever I'm Asked What Advice I Have For Young Writers, I Always Say That The First Thing Is To Read, And To Read A Lot. The Second Thing Is To Write. And The Third Thing, Which I Think Is Absolutely Vital, Is To Tell Stories And Listen Closely To The Stories You're Being Told.

I Just Want The Pleasure Of Noticing These Things At A Safe Distance.

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I Want To See You Again Tonight. But I'm Willing To Wait All Night And Much Of Tomorrow.

The Z’s Will Kill Us All, And Then The Z’s Will Die Out And In Sixty Years There Will Be No One To Remember Our Silly War, Caroline’s Wasted Ammunition, My Year Of Zombic Survivalism, Rene Descartes’s Musings, Or Michelangelo’s Sculptures. And That Is Really Only The Sadness Here As I Drink A Thousand-dollar Bottle Of Wine Down Here In The Cellar: We Did A Few Things Worth Remembering, And I Wish For Someone To Remember Them.

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.

But That Wasn't Quite Right. I Called It A Nine Because I Was Saving My Ten. And Here It Was, The Great And Terrible Ten, Slamming Me Again And Again As I Lay Still And Alone In My Bed Staring At The Ceiling, The Waves Tossing Me Against The Rocks Then Pulling Me Back Out To Sea So They Could Launch Me Again Into The Jagged Face Of The Cliff, Leaving Me Floating Faceup On The Water, Undrowned.

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The Light Filtered Throught The Leaves And Pine Needles Above As If Through Lace, The Ground Spotted In Shadow.

I Have Guts, Just Not When It Counts.

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

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.

Dad Had A Sign Of His Own. My Beautiful Family, It Read, And Then Underneath That (and Gus).

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

I'm At The Eye Doctor. I'm Always At The Eye Doctor. It's Like This Is My Profession. I Am No Longer A Writer, I'm Now An Optomoligical Patient. By The Way, This Job Doesn't Pay Well.

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.)

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.

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I Have A Great Affection For People Who Are Intellectually Engaged With The World, And Who Don't Treat Everything Superficially. And I Think, When People Talk About Nerdiness, What They're Really Talking About Is Smart People Who Who Are Trying To Think Hard About The World. And I Don't Think That's An Insult, I Think That's A Great Thing.

You Could Hear The Wind In The Leaves, And On That Wind Traveled The Screams Of The Kids On The Playground In The Distance, Little Kids Figuring Out How To Be Alive, How To Navigate A World That Wasn't Made For Them By Navigating A Playground That Was.

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

She Said, "it's Not Life Or Death, The Labyrinth." "um, Okay. So What Is It?" "suffering," She Said. "doing Wrong And Having Wrong Things Happen To You. That's The Problem. Bolivar Was Talking About The Pain, Not About The Living Or Dying. How Do You Get Out Of The Labyrinth Of Suffering?... Nothing's Wrong. But There's Always Suffering, Pudge. Homework Or Malaria Or Having A Boyfriend Who Lives Far Away When There's A Good-looking Boy Lying Next To You. Suffering Is Universal. It's The One Thing Buddhists, Christians, And Muslims Are All Worried About."

I Had A Moral Opposition To Eating Before Dawn On The Grounds That I Was Not A Nineteenth-century Russian Peasant Fortifying Myself For A Day In The Fields.

The Not Knowing Would Not Keep Me From Caring.

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

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.

That Deep, Can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth Sleep.

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

I Do My Precalc Homework, And Then When I'm Done I Actually Sit With The Textbook For Like Three Hours And Try To Understand What I Just Did. That's The Kind Of Weekend It Is--the Kind Where You Have So Much Time You Go Past The Answers And Start Looking Into The Ideas.

Every Paper Girl Needs At Least One String.

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.

Her Hair Is Ridiculous," I Said. "i Know. That Was The Only Thing I Said About Her That Was True. When You Say Nasty Things About People, You Should Never Say The True Ones, Because You Can't Really Fully And Honestly Take Those Back, You Know? I Mean, There Are Highlights. And There Are Streaks. And Then There Are Skunk Stripes.

...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.

Whatever, Bro. We Both Had A Long Day. Too Much Drama. I'll Ttys." I Wanted To Ridicule Him For Using Chatspeak Irl, But I Found Myself Lacking The Energy.

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

But You Want To See Shapes; You Want To See Stories, So You Pick Them Out Of The Sky.

And As Paralyzing And Upsetting As All The Never Agains Were, The Final Leaving Felt Perfect. Pure. The Most Distilled Possible Form Of Liberation. Everything That Mattered Except One Lousy Picture Was In The Trash, But It Felt So Great. I Started Jogging, Wanting To Put Even More Distance Between Myself And School. It Is So Hard To Leave—until You Leave. And Then It Is The Easiest Goddamned Thing In The World.

What About The Rest Of Your Life?" She Shrugged. "what About It?" "aren't You Worried About, Like, Forever?" "forever Is Composed Of Nows," She Says.

Rest Of Your Life

Weltschmerz: Its The Depression You Feel When The World As It Is Does Not Line Up With The World As You Think It Should Be.

Incidentally, Did You Know That The Whole Eight Glasses A Day Thing Is Complete Bullshit And Has No Scientific Basis? So Many Things Are Like That. Everyone Just Assumes They're True, Because People Are Basically Lazy And Incurious, Which Incidentally Is One Of Those Words That Sounds Like It Wouldn't Be A Word But Is.

He Missed Her Like Crazycakes.

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

The World Is Not A Wish-granting Factory.

When You Say Nasty Things About People, You Should Never Say The True Ones, Because You Can't Really Fully And Honestly Take Those Back.

And So That Is The Question I Leave You With In This Final: What Is Your Cause For Hope?

Everlasting Life

Ben Starling, You Better Not Have Bought Your Token Black Friend A Racist Shirt

The World Is Broken, And All Our Attempts To Fix It Will Inevitably Fail, And Some Day All Life Will Be Extinguished From The Planet And There Will Be No One To Remember That Any Of Us Ever Did Anything. But This Fact, Strangely, Does Not Delegitimize Hope, Because Every Now And Again We Find Evidence That Hope Is Helpful. This Evidence, In My Opinion, Should Be Celebrated-even As We Lament And Fight The Devastation.

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

In My Opinion, Actual Heroism, Like Actual Love, Is A Messy, Painful, Vulnerable Business—and I Wanted To Try To Reflect That.

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

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

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 The Book.” He Broke Out Into That Goofy Smile. “a Nd You Say We Don’t Know Each Other.

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

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

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.

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

Long Week. Long Month. Long Life.

How Are The Eyes?' 'oh, Excellent,' He Said. 'i Mean, They're Not In My Head Is The Only Problem.

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

People Always Get Used To Beauty Though.

For The Longest Time, It Felt Kind Of Like My Chest Was Cracking Open, But Not Precisely In An Unpleasant Way.

There Is No Try. There Is Only Do.

I Realized During My Time As A Chaplain That I Didn't Want To Be A Minister.

The Darkest Nights Produce The Brightest Stars.

Different Authors Write Different Ways, Have Different Relationships With Their Audiences, And Those Are All Legitimate.

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

I'm Not Asexual. I'm Arelationshipal.

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

I Expertly Angled My Raison Bran To Accomodate The G-forces.

I've Gotten Really Hot Since You Went Blind.

This Is The Homosexuality Is An Abomination Club, Right?

He Flipped Himself Onto His Side And Kissed Me. "you're So Hot," I Said, My Hand Still On His Leg. "i'm Starting To Think You Have An Amputee Fetish," He Answered, Still Kissing Me. I Laughed. "i Have An Augustus Waters Fetish," I Explained.

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.

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

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

And I Agreed, But Still, She Owed Us An Explanation. If She Was Up There, Down There, Out There, Somewhere, Maybe She Would Laugh.

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.

If I'm Too Old To Be Emo, How Do You Account For The Very Emo And Very Old Edgar Allan Poe? Checkmate!

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