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I Found Myself Thinking About President William Mckinley, The Third American President To Be Assassinated. He Lived For Several Days After He Was Shot, And Towards The End, His Wife Started Crying And Screaming, "i Want To Go Too! I Want To Go Too!" And With His Last Measure Of Strength, Mckinley Turned To Her And Spoke His Last Words: "we Are All Going.

-John Green

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I Found Myself Thinking

John Green

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I Found Myself Thinking About President William Mckinley, The Third American President To Be Assassinated. He Lived For Several Days After He Was Shot, And Towards The End, His Wife Started Crying And Screaming, "i Want To Go Too! I Want To Go Too!" And With His Last Measure Of Strength, Mckinley Turned To Her And Spoke His Last Words: "we Are All Going.

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I'm In Love With You," He Said Quietly. "augustus," I Said. "i Am," He Said. He Was Staring At Me, And I Could See The Corners Of His Eyes Crinkling. "i'm In Love With You, And I'm Not In The Business Of Denying Myself The Simple Pleasure Of Saying True Things. I'm In Love With You, And I Know That Love Is Just A Shout Into The Void, And That Oblivion Is Inevitable, And That We're All Doomed And That There Will Come A Day When All Our Labor Has Been Returned To Dust, And I Know The Sun Will Swallow The Only Earth We'll Ever Have, And I Am In Love With You.

It Is A Good Life, Hazel Grace.

Still, What Could I Say? That I Didn't Just Feel Depressed - Instead, It Was Like The Depression Was The Core Of Me, Of Every Part Of Me, From My Mind To My Bones? That If He Got Blue, I Got Black? That I Hated Those Pills So Much, Because I Knew How Much I Relied On Them To Live?

So She Became Impulsive, Scared By Her Inaction Into Perpetual Action.

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

That's Why Those Tapes We Made Are Going To Be So Great One Day, Because They'll Tell Stories That Time Has Swallowed Up Or Distorted Or Whatever.

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.

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.

The Dead Are Visible Only In The Terrible Lidless Eye Of Memory.

There's Not A Lot Of Room For Un-ironic Emotion In Contemporary Culture. I Think That Irony Is An Important Tool In Dealing With The World As We Find It. It's A Tool Of Protection, But It Can Also Be A Tool Of Incision To Get To Some Truth. But Along The Way Maybe We've Lost Some Of What I Think Of As The Power Of Straightforward Emotion And Earnestness And Seriousness.

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

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

He Took A Bite, Swallowed. "god. If Asparagus Tasted Like That All The Time, I'd Be Vegetarian, Too." Some People In A Lacquered Wooden Boat Approached Us On The Canal Below. One Of Them, A Woman With Curly Blond Hair, Maybe Thirty, Drank From A Beer Then Raised Her Glass Towards Us And Shouted Something. "we Don't Speak Dutch," Gus Shouted Back. One Of The Others Shouted A Translation: "the Beautiful Couple Is Beautiful.

And I Wondered If Hurdlers Ever Thought, You Know, 'this Would Go Faster If We Just Got Rid Of The Hurdles.

I Shaved This Morning For Precisely That Reason. I Was Like, 'well, You Never Know When Someone Is Going To Clamp Down On Your Calf And Try To Suck Out The Snake Poison.

And He Found Himself Thinking That Maybe Stories Don't Just Make Us Matter To Each Other - Maybe They're Also The Only Way To The Infinite Mattering He'd Been After For So Long.

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.

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Crying Adds Something: Crying Is You, Plus Tears. But The Feeling Colin Had Was Some Horrible Opposite Of Crying. It Was You, Minus Something. He Kept Thinking About One Word - Forever - And Felt The Burning Ache Just Beneath His Rib Cage.

If I Could Do It All Over Again," He Said, His Speech Slow And Vaguely Mangled By His Massive Lower Lip, "i'd Just Let Myself Be Trampled To Death By The Satan Pig.

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...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.

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Oh, God, Alaska, I Love You. I Love You,' And The Colonel Whispered, 'i'm So Sorry, Pudge. I Know You Did,' And I Said, 'no. Not Past Tense.

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And So Much Depends, I Told Augustus, Upon A Blue Sky Cut Open By The Branches Of The Trees Above. So Much Depends Upon The Transparent G-tube Erupting From The Gut Of The Blue-lipped Boy. So Much Depends Upon The Observer Of The Universe.

Could The Two People Who Are Making Out Please Be Quiet?" The Colonel Asked Loudly From His Sleeping Bag. "those Of Us Who Are Not Making Out Are Drunk And Tired.

She Taught Me Everything I Knew About Crawfish And Kissing And Pink Wine And Poetry. She Made Me Different.

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

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

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It Is So Hard To Leave-until You Leave.

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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.

I Hated Hurting Him. Most Of The Time, I Could Forget About It, But The Inexorable Truth Is This: They Might Be Glad To Have Me Around, But I Was The Alpha And The Omega Of My Parents' Suffering.

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

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

You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth.

Imagining The Future

When You're Walking Home At Night, Do You Even Get Creeped Out And Even Though It's Silly And Embarrassing You Just Want To Run Home?" It Seemed Too Secret And Personal To Admit To Virtual Stranger, But I Told Her, "yeah, Totally." For A Moment, She Was Quiet. Then She Grabbed My Hand, Whispered, "run Run Run Run Run," And Took Off, Pulling Me Behind Her.

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

History Doesn't Have A Curfew.

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

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

You Completely Unscatter Me, And I Appreciate That Too Much.

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.

... She Called It A Paper Town. Like, You Know, Everything So Fake And Flimsy.

If I Had A Nervous Breakdown Every Time Something Awful Happened In The World, I'd Be Crazier Than A Shithouse Rat.

I Think If You Went Back To The Eighteenth Century And You Asked A Fifteen Year Old Boy, 'would You Like To Marry A Woman Who Has Had Plastic Bags Needlessly Inserted Into Her Breasts?', That Fifteen Year Old Boy Would Probably Be Like, 'what's Plastic?'.

The Marks Humans Leave Are Too Often Scars. You Build A Hideous Minimall Or Start A Coup Or Try To Become A Rock Star And You'll Think "they'll Remember Me Now," But (a) They Don't Remember You, And (b) All You Leave Behind Are More Scars. Your Coup Becomes A Dictatorship. Your Minimall Becomes A Lesion.

Isaac Out Of Surgery. It Went Well. He's Officially Nec. Nec Meant "no Evidence Of Cancer." A Second Text Came A Few Seconds Later. I Mean, He's Blind. So That's Unfortunate.

When We Think Of Death, We Often Imagine It As Happening In Degrees: We Think Of A Sick Person Becoming Less And Less Alive Until Finally They Are Gone.

All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract.

If You Don't Imagine, Nothing Ever Happens At All.

Books Belong To Their Readers.

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

I Kept Thinking There Were Two Kinds Of Adults: There Were...miserable Creatures Who Scoured The Earth In Search Of Something To Hurt. And Then There Were People Like My Parents, Who Walked Around Zombically, Doing Whatever They Had To Do To Keep Walking Around.

He May Be A Malevolent Sorcerer, But Tiny Cooper Is His Own Goddamned Man, And If He Wants To Be A Gigantic Skipper, Then That's His Right As A Huge American.

Muhammad Brought The Promise That Anyone Could Find Fulfillment And Everlasting Life Through Allegiance To The One True God. The Buddah Held Out Hope That The Suffering Could Be Transcended. Jesus Brought The Message That Even The Last Shall Be First, That Even The Tax Collectors And Lepers - The Outcasts - Had Cause For Hope. And So That Is The Question I Leave You With In This Final: What Is Your Cause For Hope.

Moms Aren’t The Best Audience For Medication Humor.

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.

I Was So Tired Of Her Getting Upset For No Reason. The Way She Would Get Sulky And Make References To The Freaking Oppressive Nature Of Tragedy Or Whatever But Then Never Said What Was Wrong, Never Have Any Goddamned Reason To Be Sad. And I Just Think You Ought To Have A Reason. My Girlfriend Dumped Me, So I'm Sad. I Got Caught Smoking, So I'm Pissed Off. My Head Hurts, So I'm Cranky. She Never Had A Reason, Pudge. I Was Just So Tired Of Putting Up With Her Drama. And I Just Let Her Go. Christ.

But Monotony Doesn't Make For Painlessness.

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.

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.

I Did Some Research On This A Couple Years Ago," Augustus Continued. "i Was Wondering If Everybody Could Be Remembered. Like, If We Got Organized, And Assigned A Certain Number Of Corpses To Each Living Person, Would There Be Enough Living People To Remember All The Dead People?" "and Are There?" "sure, Anyone Can Name Fourteen Dead People. But We're Disorganized Mourners, So A Lot Of People End Up Remembering Shakespeare And No One Ends Up Remembering The Person He Wrote Sonnet Fifty-five About

Nothing's Wrong. Everything's Right. Things Couldn't Be Righter. Things Could Be Less Tired. They Could Be Less Busy. They Could Be Less Caffeinated. But They Couldn't Be Righter.

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

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.

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

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?

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

Love Is The Most Common Miracle.

Because No One Can Catch The Motherfucking Fox.

Looking For Alaska Book

His Every Syllable Flirted. Honestly, He Kind Of Turned Me On. I Didn't Even Know That Guys Could Turn Me On-not, Like, In Real Life

All Salvation Is Temporary

Just Deleting Vandalism On The Chuck Norris Page," Radar Said. "for Instance, While I Do Think That Chuck Norris Specializes In The Roundhouse Kick, I Don't Think It's Accurate To Say, 'chuck Norris's Tears Can Cure Cancer, But Unfortunately He Has Never Cried.

Lonley, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks The Butts Of Children.

I Hope You Didn't Bring The Asian Kid Along Thinking He's A Computer Genius. Because I'm Not," Takumi Said.

We Play The Broken String Of Our Instruments One Last Time

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

I Wanted To, You Know, Get My Story Out In The World, Which, It Turns Out, Is A Very Misguided Notion.

I Like The Strings. I Always Have. Because That's How It Feels. But The Strings Make Pain Seem More Fatal Than It Is, I Think. We're Not As Frail As The Strings Would Make Us Believe. And I Like The Grass, Too. The Grass Got Me To You, Helped Me To Imagine You As An Actual Person. But We're Not Different Sprouts From The Same Plant. I Can't Be You. You Can't Be Me. You Can Imagine Another Well – But Never Quite Perfectly, You Know?

To Be Abandoned Like That! Shut Out When You Most Need To Be Loved.

Me: You Know What Sucks About Love? O.w.g.: What? Me: That It's So Tied To The Truth. I Know It Sucks, But In A Way, It's Good....love And Truth Being Tied Together, I Mean. They Make Each Other Possible, You Know?

Life Has Become The Future.

But As For Me: I Must Ask The Wounded Man Where He Is Hurt, Because I Cannot Become The Wounded Man. The Only Wounded Man I Can Be Is Me.

Leaving Feels Too Good, Once You Leave.

You're Amazing, And I So Want To Be Your Boyfriend, Because Of What You Just Said, And Also Because That Shirt Makes Me Want To Take You Home And Do Unspeakable Things While We Watch Live-action Sailor Moon Videos

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

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.

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

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

There's A Place In The Brain For Knowing What Cannot Be Remembered.

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.

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.

My Head Was Level With Hers As We Stared At Each Other From Opposite Sides Of The Glass. I Don't Remember How It Ended - If I Went To Bed Or She Did. In My Memory, It Doesn't End. We Just Stay There, Looking At Each Other, Forever.

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.

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.

By Far The Best Cure For Hangovers Is Not Drinking Excessively The Night Before.this Cure Has A 100% Success Rate, And As You Save The Cost Of The Drinks You Would Have Otherwise Drunk, It Is Cheaper Than Free.

So She Became Impulsive, Scared By Her Inaction Into Perpetual Action. When The Eagle Confronted Her With The Expulsion, Maybe She Blurted Out Marya's Name Because It Was The First That Came To Mind, Because In That Moment She Didn't Want To Get Expelled And She Couldn't Think Past That Moment. She Was Scared, Sure. But More Importantly, Maybe She'd Been Scared Of Being Paralyzed By Fear Again. ~miles/pudge On Alaska, Pg 120-121

I Don’t Know A Perfect Person. I Only Know Flawed People Who Are Still Worth Loving.

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.)

When I Was In College, I Remember Fearing That The Dreary Grind Of Adulthood Would Feature Infinitely More Existential Dread Than Frat Parties Had, But The Opposite Has Been True For Me. I'm Much Less Likely To Feel That Gnawing Fear Of Aimlessness And Nihilism Than I Used To Be And That's Partly Because Education Gave Me Job Opportunities, But It's Mostly Because Education Gave Me Perspective And Context.

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.

As Far As I Can Tell, There Are Two Basic (kissing) Rules: 1. Don't Bite Anything Without Permission. 2. The Human Tongue Is Like Wasabi: It's Very Powerful, And Should Be Used Sparingly.

Love Is Just A Shout In The Void.

Dear Teens At Starbucks Wearing 'abstain From Sex 2 Attain Ur Goals' T-shirts: Doesn't It Depend On What My Goals Are?

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

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

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

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.

I Don't Have A Favourite Book, I Have Hundreds.

The Snow May Be Falling In The Winter Of My Discontent, But At Least I've Got Sarcastic Company.

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.

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

I'm Not Asexual. I'm Arelationshipal.

The Right Story Needs The Right Telling.

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