Background Image

...

I Call My Mom From The Car. I Tell Her That Neutral Milk Hotel Is Playing At The Hideout And She Says, "who? What? You're Hiding Out?" And Then I Hum A Few Bars Of One Of Their Songs And Mom Says, "oh, I Know That Song. It's On The Mix You Made Me," And I Say, "right," And She Says, "well You Have To Be Back By Eleven," And I Say, "mom This Is A Historical Event. History Doesn't Have A Curfew," And She Says, "back By Eleven," And I Say, "fine. Jesus," And Then She Has To Go Cut Cancer Out Of Someone.

-John Green

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Call My Mom

John Green

...

I Call My Mom From The Car. I Tell Her That Neutral Milk Hotel Is Playing At The Hideout And She Says, "who? What? You're Hiding Out?" And Then I Hum A Few Bars Of One Of Their Songs And Mom Says, "oh, I Know That Song. It's On The Mix You Made Me," And I Say, "right," And She Says, "well You Have To Be Back By Eleven," And I Say, "mom This Is A Historical Event. History Doesn't Have A Curfew," And She Says, "back By Eleven," And I Say, "fine. Jesus," And Then She Has To Go Cut Cancer Out Of Someone.

Views: 4

Topic

More From John Green

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

... I Didn't Know Whether To Feel Angry At Her For Making Me Part Of Her Suicide Or Just To Feel Angry At Myself For Letting Her Go.

But I Will Say This: When The Scientists Of The Future Show Up At My House With Robot Eyes And They Tell Me To Try Them On, I Will Tell The Scientists To Screw Off, Because I Do Not Want To See A World Without Him.

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

Getting You A Date To Prom Is So Hard That The Hypothetical Idea Itself Is Actually Used To Cut Diamonds. Ben, Getting You A Date To Prom Is So Hard That The American Government Believes The Problem Cannot Be Solved With Diplomacy, But Will Instead Require Force.

I Do Not Say Goodbye. I Believe That's One Of The Bullshitiest Words Ever Invented. It's Not Like You're Given The Choice To Say Bad-bye, Or Awful-bye, Or Couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye. Everytime You Leave, It's Supposed To Be A Good One.

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

I Tried--i Swear I Tried. But You Didn't Want To Hear What I Was Saying, And I Used That As An Excuse To Let It Go On.

He Reached Up T0 Grab One And Came Down With Several, And They Kept Coming, Washing Over Him, Floating All Around Him. Never Have Tampon Strings Seemed So Beautiful As They Rolled Up And Down With The Wind, Landing On The Ground And Then Twirling And Floating Up Again, Falling And Rising And Falling And Rising.

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.

The Labyrinth Blows, But I Choose It.

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

Imagining Things

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

The Ideas Of Directing Attention Outward, Trying To Imagine Other People Complexly, Trying Not To See Myself As The Center Of The Universe - These Concepts Have Become Important To Me, And I Hope They're At Work In My Life On A Minute-by-minute Basis.

Nostalgia Is Inevitably A Yearning For A Past That Never Existed And When I'm Writing, There Are No Bees To Sting Me Out Of My Sentimentality. For Me At Least, Fiction Is The Only Way I Can Even Begin To Twist My Lying Memories Into Something True.

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

You Do Not Immortalize The Lost By Writing About Them. Language Buries, But Does Not Resurrect.

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

He'd Fought Hard, Lida Told Me, As If There Was Another Way To Fight.

Moms Aren’t The Best Audience For Medication Humor.

But Monotony Doesn't Make For Painlessness.

That's What We Should Do, Hazel Grace: We Should Team Up And Be This Disabled Vigilante Duo Roaring Through The World, Righting Wrongs, Defending The Weak, Protecting The Endangered.

I Am A Grenade," I Said Again. "i Just Want To Stay Away From People And Read Books And Think And Be With You Guys Because There's Nothing I Can Do About Hurting You: You're Too Invested, So Just Please Let Me Do That, Okay? "i'm Going To Go To My Room And Read For Awhile, Okay? I'm Fine. I Really Am Fine: I Just Want To Go Read For A While.

You Die In The Middle Of Your Life.

Fault In Our Stars

Sometimes I Don't Get You,' I Said. She Didn't Even Glance At Me. She Just Smiled Toward The Television And Said, 'you Never Get Me. That's The Whole Point.

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

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.

Augustus," I Said. "really. You Don't Have To Do This." "sure I Do," He Said. "i Found My Wish." "god, You're The Best," I Told Him. "i Bet You Say That To All The Boys Who Finance Your International Travel," He Answered.

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

Isn't It Also That On Some Fundamental Level We Find It Difficult To Understand That Other People Are Human Beings In The Same Way That We Are? We Idealize Them As Gods Or Dismiss Them As Animals.

That Doesn't Sound Like My Margo", She Said, And I Thought Of My Margo, And All Of Us Looking At Her Reflection In Different Funhouse Mirrors.

It's Hard To Believe In Coincidence, But It's Even Harder To Believe In Anything Else.

There Is Always The Risk: Something Is Good And Good And Good And Good, Then All At Once It Gets Awkward.

I Know What Happens A The End Of Falling-landing.

Falling In Love

And As We Kept Driving North, The Whole Family In The Care Together, It Got Darker, And Snowier, Until Finally The Road Delivered Us To The One Place That All My Youthful Trips West Never Could: Home.

Indiana,’ He Said. ‘they Steal The Land From The Indians And Leave The Name, Yes?

Because You Are Beautiful. I Enjoy Looking At Beautiful People, And I Decided A While Ago Not To Deny Myself The Simpler Pleasures Of Existence

'cause I'm Just - I Want To Go To Amsterdam, And I Want Him To Tell Me What Happens After The Book Is Over, And I Just Don't Want My Particular Life, And Also The Sky Is Depressing Me, And There Is This Old Swing Set Out Here That My Dad Made For Me When I Was A Kid.' 'i Must See This Old Swing Set Of Tears Immediately,' He Said. 'i'll Be Over In Twenty Minutes.'

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

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

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

He Specialized In The Murder Of Dreams, Hazel Grace.

I Can't Be You. You Can't Be Me. You Can Imagine Another Well—but Never Quite Perfectly, You Know?

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

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

This Is So Much Fun, But I’m So Sleepy. To Be Continued?

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.

My Interest As A Writer Is Not In Reflecting Actual Human Speech, Which, Of Course, Does Not Occur In Sentences And Is Totally Undiagrammable. My Interest Is In Trying To Reflect The Reality Of Experience - How We Feel When We Talk To Each Other, How We Feel When We're Engaging With Questions That Interest 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.

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.

It Looked Like An Old Painting, But Real - Everything Achingly Idyllic In The Morning Light - And I Thought About How Wonderfully Strange It Would Be To Live In A Place Where Almost Everything Had Been Built By The Dead.

The Future Lay Before Him, Inevitable But Invisible.

Grateful To Be A Little Boat, Full Of Water, Still Floating.

He Missed That, Too, And It Hadn't Even Happened.

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!

If You Don't Say The Honest Thing, It Never Becomes True.

"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".

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

I Can't Remember, Because I Never Knew.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson' Is About Two Guys Named Will Grayson Who Live In Different Chicago Suburbs Who Eventually Meet Each Other.

I Don't Know Where People Got The Idea That Characters In Books Are Supposed To Be Likable. Books Are Not In The Business Of Creating Merely Likeable Characters With Whom You Can Have Some Simple Identification With. Books Are In The Business Of Creating Great Stories That Make You're Brain Go Ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr.

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

Dying Is The Last Thing I Would Ever Do!

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Amazing Thing Is That We're Right To Hold Onto Hope. The World May Be Broken But Hope Is Not Crazy.

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

You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth.

Imagining The Future

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

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

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

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

Waffles аrе јust Awesome Bread.

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

Being A Person, I Had Come To Realize, Is A Communal Activity. Dogs Know How To Be Dogs. But People Do Not Know How To Be People Unless And Until They Learn From Other People.

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

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

But Ultimately I Do Not Believe That She Was Only Matter. The Rest Of Her Must Be Recycled, Too. I Believe Now That We Are Greater Than The Sum Of Our Parts. If You Take Alaska's Genetic Code And You Add Her Life Experiences And The Relationships She Had With People, And Then You Take The Size And Shape Of Her Body, You Do Not Get Her. There Is Something Else Entirely. 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

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

She Was Not An Adventure, She Was Not A Fine And Precious Thing. She Was A Girl.

…because Nerds Like Us Are Allowed To Be Unironically Enthusiastic About Stuff… Nerds Are Allowed To Love Stuff, Like Jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself Love It. Hank, When People Call People Nerds, Mostly What They’re Saying Is ‘you Like Stuff.’ Which Is Just Not A Good Insult At All. Like, ‘you Are Too Enthusiastic About The Miracle Of Human Consciousness’.

Love Is The Most Common Miracle.

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.

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.

But Of Course There Is Always A Hamartia And Yours Is That Oh, My God, Even Though You Had Freaking Cancer You Give Money To A Company In Exchange For The Chance To Acquire Yet More Cancer.

Frankly, I Kind Of Want You To Be Haunted By The Unansweredness Of The Question, Because I Think Being Haunted By Such Things Is A Valuable Part Of Being A Person.

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

Augustus: “you Probably Need Some Rest.” Me: “i’m Okay.” Augustus: “okay.” (pause.) “what Are You Thinking About?” Me: “you.” Augustus: “what About Me?” Me: “‘i Do Not Know Which To Prefer, / The Beauty Of Inflections / Or The Beauty Of Innuendos, / The Blackbird Whistling / Or Just After.’” Augustus: “god, You Are Sexy.” Me: “we Could Go To Your Room.” Augustus: “i’ve Heard Worse Ideas.

Like, In General I Think People Have Very Complicated Reasons For Wanting Things, And We Often Have No Idea Whether We’re Actually Motivated By Altruism Or A Desire To Hook Up Or A Search For Answers Or What. I Always Get Annoyed When In Books Or Movies Characters Want Clear Things For Clear Reasons, Because My Experience Of Humanness Is That I Always Want Messy Things For Messy Reasons.

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

I Pointed At The Little Kids Goading Each Other To Jump From Rib Cage To Shoulder And Gus Answered Just Loud Enough For Me To Hear Over The Din, 'last Time, I Imagined Myself As The Kid. This Time, The Skeleton.

Do You Ever Wonder Whether People Would Like You More Or Less If They Could See Inside You?

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

As Much As Life Can Suck, It Always Beats The Alternative.

Dutch Is Not So Much A Language As An Ailment Of The Throat.

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.

We Are As Indestructible As We Believe Ourselves To Be.

I Can't Imagine Us Saying These Things To Each Other Out Loud. But Even If I Can't Imagine Hearing These Words, I Can Imagine Living Them. I Don't Even Picture It. Instead I'm In It. How I Would Feel With Him Here. That Peace. It Would Be So Happy, And It Makes Me Sad Because It Only Exists In Words.

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.

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.

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

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

I Am Still Bowled Over By This Great Young Adult Novel By David Levithan Called 'every Day,' Which Is About A Character With No Gender Or Body Who Wakes Up Every Day In The Body Of A Different Person. It's A Really Impressive Execution Of A Really Great Premise.

According To The Conventions Of The Genre, Augustus Waters Kept His Sense Of Humor Till The End, Did Not For A Moment Waiver In His Courage, And His Spirit Soared Like An Indomitable Eagle Until The World Itself Could Not Contain His Joyous Soul.

Just Move To The Internet, Its Great Here. We Get To Live Inside Where The Weather Is Always Awesome.

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

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.

It's Hard To Get Movie Studios To Pay A Lot Of Money For Movies That Don't Have Robots Or Explosions.

I'd Had Nearly Four Years Of Experience Looking At These Clocks, But Their Sluggishness Never Ceased To Surprise. If I Am Ever Told That I Have One Day To Live, I Will Head Straight To The Hallowed Halls Of Winter Park High School, Where A Day Has Been Known To Last A Thousand Years.

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

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.

[this] Is Very Important To Remember When Reading Or Writing Or Talking Or Whatever: You Are Never, Ever Choosing Whether To Use Symbols. You Are Choosing Which Symbols To Use.

And Yes, Again, That Was It Exactly. A Retyper And Not A Writer. A Prodigy And Not A Genius.

Colin Singleton

Nothing To Be Gained By Worrying Between Now And Then.

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

Even With Everything Broken And Decided Inside Her She Couldn't Quite Allow Herself To Disappear For Good.

The Pleasure Isn't In Doing The Thing, The Pleasure Is In Planning It.

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

Like Everyone, I'm Saddened And Horrified By This. All I'll Say Is That I'm Personally Trying To Pay More Attention To The Victims Than To Their Murderer. I Certainly Will Not Be Mentioning The Murderer. I Don't Think He Warrants Our Attention-particularly Since He So Clearly Wanted It.

Anything That Happens All At Once Is Just As Likely To Unhappen All At Once, You Know?

We Left. We Did Not Say: Don't Drive, You're Drunk. We Did Not Say: We Aren't Letting You In That Car When You Are Upset. We Did Not Say: We Insist On Going With You. We Did Not Say: This Can Wait Until Tomorrow. Anything-everything-can Wait.

You Are Going To Live A Good And Long Life Filled With Great And Terrible Moments That You Cannot Even Imagine Yet.

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.

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia.

Imagining The Future

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.

The Joy You Bring Us Is So Much Greater Than The Sadness We Feel About Your Illness.

It Must Be Some Book," She Said As She Knelt Down Next To The Bed..."did That Boy Give It To You?" She Asked Out Of Nowhere. "by 'it' Do You Mean Herpes?" "you Are Too Much," Mom Said, "the Book, Hazel. I Mean The Book.

The Pleasure Of Remembering Had Been Taken From Me, Because There Was No Longer Anyone To Remember With. It Felt Like Losing Your Co-rememberer Meant Losing The Memory Itself, As If The Things We'd Done Were Less Real And Important Than They Had Been Hours Before.

People Always Get Used To Beauty, Though.” “i Haven’t Gotten Used To You Just Yet,” He Answered, Smiling. I Felt Myself Blushing. “thank You For Coming To Amsterdam,” He Said. “thank You For Letting Me Hijack Your Wish,” I Said. “thank You For Wearing That Dress Which Is Like Whoa

Not That Smart. Not That Hot. Not That Nice. Not That Funny. That's Me: I'm Not That.

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.

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

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

But When It Came Right Down To It, The Skin Of My Wrist Looked So White And Defensless That I Couldn't Do It. It Was As If What I Wanted To Kill Wasn't In That Skin Or The Thin Blue Pulse That Jumped Under My Thumb, But Somewhere Else, Deeper, More Secret, And A Whole Lot Harder To Get." I Know What She's Talking About. The Something Deeper And More Secret. It's Like Cracks Inside Of You. Like There Are These Fault Lines Where Things Don't Meet Up Right.

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

There Will Come A Time, When All Of Us Are Dead. All Of Us. There Will Come A Time When There Are No Human Beings Remaining To Remember That Anyone Ever Existed Or That Our Species Ever Did Anything.

In Those Fifty, The Old Man Made Me Take Religion Seriously. I'd Never Been Religious, But He Told Us That Religion Is Important Whether Or Not We Believed In One, The Same Way That Historical Events Are Important Whether Or Not You Personally Lived Through Them.

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.

You Know Your Problem, Quentin? You Keep Expecting People Not To Be Themselves.

Our Lives Are Composed Of A Finite Set Of Moments That We Choose How To Spend.

Cherish Every Moment

Don't Lie To Anyone, But Particularly Don't Lie To Millennials. They Just Know. They Can Smell It. Be Yourself: If You're Old, Be Old. If You Don't Know Anything About Pop Culture, Don't Pretend To Know Anything About Pop Culture. When You Credit Teenagers With Intelligence And Emotional Sophistication, They Respond Intelligently And With Emotional Sophistication.

Walt Whitman Is Hot! I Mean, That Guy Could Sound His Barbaric Yawps Over The Roofs Of My World Any Time.

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

Nerdighters Make Me Believe In America Again.

I Smiled. She Smiled. I Believed The Smile.

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's Fine," I Repeated. And Whatever. It Was Fine. It Had To Be.

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.

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.

Too Pissed Off To Cry, I Said, 'this Is Only Making Me Hate Her. I Don't Want To Hate Her. And What's The Point, If That's All It's Making Me Do?' Still Refusing To Answer How And Why Questions. Still Insisting On An Aura Of Mystery. I Leaned Forward, Head Between By Knees, And The Colonel Placed A Head On My Upper Back. 'the Point Is That There Are Always Alsweres, Pudge.' And Then He Pushed Air Out Between His Pursed Lips And I Could Hear The Angry Quiver In His Voice As He Repeated, 'there Are Always Answers. We Just Have To Be Smart Enough.' ~miles/pudge And Chip/the Colonel, Pg 168

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.

But A Lot Of Times, People Die How They Live. And So Last Words Tell Me A Lot About Who People Were, And Why They Became The Sort Of People Biographies Get Written About.

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.

Some People Have Lives; Some People Have Music.

We Had To Forgive To Survive The Labyrinth

The Consequences Of Being Un-cool Feel So Big That A Lot Of Times You End Of Not Finding Ways To Have Open And Honest Conversations.

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.

Maybe There Is Something You're Afraid To Say, Or Someone You're Afraid To Love, Or Somewhere You're Afraid To Go. It's Gonna Hurt. It's Gonna Hurt Because It Matters.

Pain Is Like Fabric: The Stronger It Is, The More It’s Worth.

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.

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

Long Week. Long Month. Long Life.

Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities.

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.

By Saying You Don’t Care If The World Falls Apart, In Some Small Way You’re Saying You Want It To Stay Together, On Your Own Terms.

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.

You Listen To People So That You Can Imagine Them, And You Hear All The Terrible And Wonderful Things People Do To Themselves And To One Another, But In The End The Listening Exposes You Even More Than It Exposes The People You're Trying To Listen To.

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

"you Are Fairly Smart," I Said After A While. "you Are Fairly Good At Compliments," He Answered.

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.

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

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

And Then Something Invisible Snapped Insider Her, And That Which Had Come Together Commenced To Fall Apart.

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.

You Can't Just Make Me Different And Then Leave. You Can't. You Can't Change Me And Make My Whole Life Centered Around You, Then Leave.

Have You Really Read All Those Books In Your Room?” Alaska Laughing- “oh God No. I’ve Maybe Read A Third Of ‘em. But I’m Going To Read Them All. I Call It My Life’s Library. Every Summer Since I Was Little, I’ve Gone To Garage Sales And Bought All The Books That Looked Interesting. So I Always Have Something To Read.

What Matters To You Defines Your Mattering.

Something Invisible Snapped Inside Her.

Shouldn't Letting Go Be Painless If You've Never Learned How To Hold On?

So I Walked Back To My Room And Collapsed On The Bottom Bunk, Thinking That If People Were Rain, I Was Drizzle And She Was A Hurricane.

Unrequited Love

But Even If We Survive The Collapse Of Our Sun, We Will Not Survive Forever.

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

I Think When You're 16, If You Have Good Parents, They Generally Just Fade In The Background. I Had Great Parents, And Because They Were Great, I Thought Very Little About Them In High School.

The Pleasure Of Remembering Had Been Taken From Me, There Was No Longer Anyone To Remember With.

But Mothers Lie. It's In The Job Description.

Getting A Life’ Is Something Only A Complete Idiot Could Believe. Like You Can Just Drive To A Store And Get A Life. See It In Its Shiny Box And Look Inside The Plastic Window And Catch A Glimpse Of Yourself In A New Life And Say, ‘wow, I Look Much Happier — I Think This Is The Life I Need To Get!’, Take It To The Counter, Ring It Up, Put It On Your Credit Card. If Getting A Life Was That Easy, We’d Be One Blissed-out Race.

I Don't Really Care How People Read. I Care If People Read.

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

It Is So Hard To Leave-until You Leave.

My Responsibility Is To Try To Tell True Stories. To Me A True Story Is Always Hopeful, But Never Simply, Uncomplicatedly Happy.

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.

This Was The First Time In My Life That So Many Things Would Never Happen Again.

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

A Paper Town For A Paper Girl.

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.

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

See, Popularity Is Complicated. You Have To Spend A Lot Of Time Thinking About Liking; You Have To Really Like Being Liked, And Also Sort Like Being Disliked.

Trending Author

Category