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Margo Says, "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.

-John Green

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Margo Says, "i Know

John Green

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Margo Says, "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.

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No," I Said. And Maybe It Was Only Because Alaska Couldn't Hit The Brakes And I Couldn't Hit The Accelerator.

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.

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

Dating You Would Be Like A Series Of Unnecessary Root Canals Interspersed With Occasional Makeout Sessions.

Late In The Winter Of My Seventeenth Year, My Mother Decided I Was Depressed, Presumably Because I Rarely Left The House, Spent Quite A Lot Of Time In Bed, Read The Same Book Over And Over, Ate Infrequently, And Devoted Quite A Bit Of My Abundant Free Time To Thinking About Death.

Do The Thing You're Good At. Not Many People Are Lucky Enough To Be So Good At Something.

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

Home Is Where The Heart Is, Good Friends Are Hard To Find And Impossible To Forget. True Love Is Born From Hard Times.

Of Course, Sweetie," His Mom Said. "we'll Be Here All Day. You Just Come Down Whenever You Want And We Love You And You're So So Special, Colin, And You Can't Possibly Let This Girl Make You Think Otherwise Because You Are The Most Magnificent, Brilliant Boy-" And Right Then, The Most Special, Magnificent, Brilliant Boy Bolted Into His Bathroom And Puked His Guts Out. An Explosion, Sort Of.

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

If You Were To Go, And Hopefully Someday You Will, You Would See A Lot Of Paintings Of Dead People. You'd See Jesus On The Cross, And You'd See A Dude Get Stabbed In The Neck, And You'd See People Dying At Sea And In Battle And A Parade Of Martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody Biting It From The Plague Or Smallpox Or Yellow Fever Or Whatever, Because There Is No Glory In Illness. There Is No Meaning To It. There Is No Honor In Dying Of.

The Thing About That Guy Is A Gigolo,' Radar Says, 'i Mean, The Thing About It As A Game, Is That In The End It Reveals A Lot More About The Person Doing The Imagining Than It Does About The Person Being Imagined.

One Day, You’re 17 And You’re Planning For Someday. And Then Quietly, Without You Ever Really Noticing, Someday Is Today. And Then Someday Is Yesterday. And This Is Your Life.

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

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

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia. (...) You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth, Thinking About How You'll Escape It One Day, And How Awesome It Will Be, And Imagining That Future Keeps You Going, But You Never Do It. You Just Use The Future To Escape The Present.

I Hadn’t Read A Real Series Like That Since I Was A Kid, And It Was Exciting To Live Again In An Infinite Fiction.

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

In The End, I Had To Call Myself A Faggot, Which Really Annoyed Me, Because 1. I Don't Think That Word Should Ever Be Used By Anyone, Let Alone Me, And 2. As It Happens, I Am Not Gay, And Furthermore, 3. Chuck Parson Made It Out Like Calling Yourself A Faggot Was The Ultimate Humiliation, Even Though There's Nothing At All Embarrassing About Being Gay.

The Easiest Way To Solve A Mystery Is To Decide That There Is No Mystery To Solve.

A Taste So Profound And Complex That It Can't Even Be Compared To Other Tastes, Only To Emotions. Cheesy Waffles, I Was Thinking, Tastes Like Love Without The Fear Of Love's Dissolution.

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

Memories Fall Apart Too.

I Don't Think We Should See The World Of Books As Fundamentally Separate From The World Of The Internet. Yes, The Internet Contains A Lot Of Videos Of Squirrels Riding Skateboards, But It Can Also Be A Place That Facilitates Big Conversations About Books.

I Think Inspiration Is Always Around; It's Just A Question Of Whether Or Not You're Noticing It.

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.

What's Your Name ? Hazel . No , Your Full Name . Um , Hazel Grace Lancaster .

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

I Think Teenagers Bring A Lot Of Intellectual Sophistication. They're Wrestling With Big Questions. It's Just That, A Lot Of Times They Do That Separately From Adults.

You Get All These Friends Just When You Don’t Need Friends Anymore.

It Always Shocked Me When I Realized That I Wasn’t The Only Person In The World Who Thought And Felt Such Strange And Awful Things.

Is That What Relationships Become? A Reduced Version Of The Hurt, Nothing Else Let In. It Was More Than That. I Know It Was More Than That.

It's Hard As Hell To Hold On To Your Dignity When The Risen Sun Is Too Bright In Your Losing Eyes, And That's What I Was Thinking About As We Hunted For Bad Guys Through The Ruins Of A City That Didn't Exist.

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

Stop Thinking About The Landing, Because It's All About Falling.

That's The Great Thing About Being In The Third Grade. If You've Got One Polysyllabic Adjective, Everyone Thinks You're A Genius.

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

When You Stopped Wishing Things Wouldn't Fall Apart, You'd Stop Suffering When They Did.

Almost Everyone Is Obsessed With Leaving A Mark Upon The World. Bequeathing A Legacy. Outlasting Death. We All Want To Be Remembered. I Do, Too. That’s What Bothers Me Most, Is Being Another Unremembered Casualty In The Ancient And Inglorious War Against Disease.

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

Oh, My God," Augustus Said. "i Can't Believe I Have A Crush On A Girl With Such Cliché Wishes." "i Was Thirteen," I Said Again, Although Of Course I Was Only Thinking "crush Crush Crush Crush Crush". I Was Flattered But Changed The Subject Immediately.

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.

Was It Animal Pee Or Human Pee? Someone Asked. How Would I Know? What, Am I An Expert In The Study Of Pee?

..there She Is, And I Am Watching Her Through Plexiglass, And She Looks Like Margo Roth Spiegelman, This Girl I Have Known Since I Was Two–this Girl Who Was An Idea That I Loved. And It Is Only Now, When She Closes Her Notebook And Places It Inside A Backpack Next To Her And Then Stands Up And Walks Toward Us, That I Realize That The Idea Is Not Only Wrong By Dangerous. What A Treacherous Thing It Is To Believe That A Person Is More Than A Person.

The Point Is That There Are Always Answers.

We All Want To Do Something To Mitigate The Pain Of Loss Or To Turn Grief Into Something Positive, To Find A Silver Lining In The Clouds. But I Believe There Is Real Value In Just Standing There, Being Still, Being Sad.

How Strange And How Lovely It Is To Be Anything At All.

Does My Eye Look Okay To You?

I Laughed And Pointed Out That "hash Browns Mean Nothing Without You" Was A Pretty Good Name For A Band. "or A Song," The Duke Said, And Then She Started Singing All Glam Rock, A Glove Up To Her Face Holding An Imaginary Mic As She Rocked Out An A Cappella Power Ballad. "oh, I Deep Fried For You / But Now I Weep 'n' Cry For You / Oh, Babe, This Meal Was Made For Two / And These Hash Browns Mean Nothing, Oh These Hash Browns Mean Nothing, Yeah These Hash Browns Mean Nothin' Without You.

He Knew He Couldn't Tell Stories, That He Always Included Extraneous Details & Tangents That Interested Only Him.

People Always Get Used To Beauty Though.

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.

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

I Wouldn't Have Cared If My Girlfriend Was A Jaguar-driving Cyclops With A Beard - I'd Have Been Grateful Just To Have Someone To Make Out With.

Need Is Never A Good Basis For Any Relationship.

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

They Love Their Hair Because They're Not Smart Enough To Love Something More Interesting.

Because No One Thought She Was A Person, She Had No One To Really Talk To.

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.

Most Loves Don't Last. But Some Do.

Good Friends Are Hard To Find And Impossible To Forget.

Impossible To Forget

Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus.

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

She Raised One Leg And Gave Me All Her Weight As A I Dipped Her. She Either Trusted Me Or Wanted To Fall.

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

The Beautiful Thing About Driving Was That It Stole Just Enough Of His Attention - Car Parked On The Side, Maybe A Cop, Slow To Speed Limit, Time To Pass This Sixteen-wheeler, Turn Signal, Check Rearview, Crane Neck To Check Blind Spot And Yes, Okay, Left Lane.

It Seems To Me That The Great Pleasure Of Human Life Is Not In Having An Opinion, But Rather In Learning All The Ways You Are Wrong, And All The Nuances You Failed To Account For, And All The Truths That Turned Out To Be Not As Simple As You Once Believed. And It Seems To Me That One Of The Central Pleasures Of Attending School Is That You Get To Read With Really Well-informed People Who Can Help Welcome You Into A Complex World Stuffed With Rich And Maddening Ambiguity.

Life Has Become The Future.

…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’.

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

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

I Know He's Been Looking Forward To This--and I Know That I've Been Looking Forward To This. But Now I Have To Stop Looking Forward And Start Looking At Where I Am. It's Hard.

Looking Forward

...and In Freedom, Most People Find Sin.

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

...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.

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

You Can Say A Lot Of Bad Things About Alabama, But You Can't Say That Alabamans As A People Are Duly Afraid Of Deep Fryers.

You Had Been A Paper Boy To Me All These Years - Two Dimensions As A Character On The Page And Two Different, But Still Flat, Dimensions As A Person. But That Night You Turned Out To Be Real.

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.

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

I Hated Cranberry Sauce, But For Some Reason My Mom Persisted In Her Lifelong Belief That It Was My Very Favorite Food, Even Though Every Single Thanksgiving I Politely Declined To Include It On My Plate.

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.

She Waited For Me To Play Out The String, To Find The Place Where She Had Stopped And Was Waiting For Me, To Follow The Breadcrumb Tail Until It Dead-ended Into Her.

In Retrospect Hank I Don't Know Why I Spent Four Years Writing This Book When I Could Have Just Made A Hit Sing-a-ma-jig Album.

The Fourth Way To Get A Boy To Like You Is To Be Yourself. Now, I Am Contractually Obligated As An Adult To Give That Advice, Even Though It Doesn't Work. But Yeah, Be Yourself, Even Though No One Has Any Idea What It Means To Be Yourself. Like Whose Self Would I Otherwise Be Being?

Only Now That I Loved A Grenade Did I Understand The Foolishness Of Trying To Save Others From My Own Impending Fragmentation: I Couldn’t Unlove Augustus Waters. And I Didn’t Want To.

The Only Way Out Of The Labyrinth Of Suffering Is To Forgive.

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.

I Have Two Kinds Of Facebook Friends: Those Who Know What 'dftba' Means, And Those Who Don't.

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

There Is No Them. There Are Only Facets Of Us.

She Said Robert Joyner Had Killed Himself With A Gun. And Then I Asked Why, And Then She Told Me That He Was Getting A Divorce And Was Sad About It.' 'lots Of People Get Divorces And Don't Kill Themselves,' I Said. 'i Know,' She Said, Excitement In Her Voice. 'that's What I Told Her.

You Say Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours.

There Were Five Others Before They Got To Him. He Smiled A Little When His Turn Came. His Voice Was Low, Smoky, And Dead Sexy. “my Name Is Augustus Waters,” He Said. “i’m Seventeen. I Had A Little Touch Of Osteosarcoma A Year And A Half Ago, But I’m Just Here Today At Isaac’s Request.” “and How Are You Feeling?” Asked Patrick. “oh, I’m Grand.” Augustus Waters Smiled With A Corner Of His Mouth. “i’m On A Roller Coaster That Only Goes Up, My Friend.

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

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

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

I Spent Your Wish On That Doucheface,” I Said Into His Chest. “hazel Grace. No. I Will Grant You That You Did Spend My One And Only Wish, But You Did Not Spend It On Him. You Spent It On Us.

My One And Only

I Found His Last Words Without Too Much Searching. Captured By The Bolivian Army, Guevara Said, 'shoot, Coward. You Are Only Going To Kill A Man.

I Liked Augustus Waters. I Really, Really Really Liked Him. I Liked The Way His Story Ended With Someone Else. I Liked His Voice. I Liked That He Took Existentially-fraught Free Throws.

And As Paralyzing And Upsetting As All The Never Agains Were, The Final Leaving Felt Perfect. Pure. The Most Distilled Possible Form Of Liberation.

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

And I Put The Latte Down On A Table, Awash In The Happy Middle Of My Greatest Adventure.

Colin Had Always Preferred Baths; One Of His General Policies In Life Was Never To Do Anything Standing Up That Could Just As Easily Be Done Lying Down

The Only Thing Worse Than Having A Party That No One Attends Is Having A Party Attended Only By Two Vastly, Deeply Uninteresting People.

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

Because It's Kind Of Great, Being An Idea That Everybody Likes. But I Could Never Be The Idea To Myself, Not All The Way. And Agloe Is A Place Where A Paper Creation Became Real. A Dot On The Map Became A Real Place, More Real Than The People Who Created The Dot Could Never Have Imagined. I Thought Maybe The Paper Cutout Of A Girl Could Start Becoming Real Here Also. And It Seemed Like A Way To Tell That Paper Girl Who Cared About Popularity And Clothes And Everything Else: 'you Are Going To The Paper Towns. And You Are Never Coming Back.

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

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

We Fell. We Got Up. We Ran.

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 Adults Say, "teenagers Think They Are Invincible" With That Sly, Stupid Smile On Their Faces, They Don't Know How Right They Are. We Need Never Be Hopeless, Because We Can Never Be Irreparably Broken. We Think That We Are Invincible Because We Are. We Cannot Be Born, And We Cannot Die. Like All Energy, We Can Only Change Shapes And Sizes And Manifestations. They Forget That When They Get Old. They Get Scared Of Losing And Failing. But That Part Of Us Greater Than The Sum Of Our Parts Cannot Begin And Cannot End, And So It Cannot Fail.

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

Caring Doesn't Sometimes Lead To Misery. It Always Does.

The Future Lay Before Him, Inevitable But Invisible.

To Be Human Is To Catch The Falling Person.

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

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

This Is What I Love About Novels - Both Reading Them And Writing Them. They Jump Into The Abyss To Be With You Where You Are.

I Choose The Labyrinth.

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

He Missed Her Like Crazycakes.

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

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.

Uh-uh, Dude. I Tried It Your Way With The Dating And The Girls And The Kissing And The Drama, And Man, I Didn't Like It. Plus, My Best Friend Is A Walking Cautionary Tale Of What Happens To You When Romantic Relationships Don't Involve Marriage. Like You Always Say, Kafir, Everything Ends In Breakup, Divorce, Or Death. I Want To Narrow My Misery Options To Divorce Or Death - That's All.

Every Time I Try To Set Something In Chicago, I Get Intimidated By 'augie March.' It's Easy To Set Something In Indianapolis - We Don't Have 'augie March' Here. But I Love Writing About Chicago, And I Love Being There And Imagining Lives In Chicago. I Hope To Set Something There In The Future, But It's Intimidating.

I Don't Know Why Boys Expect Us To Like Boy Movies. We Don't Expect Them To Like Girl Movies.

I Wish I Knew How To Quit You, Tumblr.

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

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

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

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

Augustus, Perhaps You’d Like To Share Your Fears With The Group.” “my Fears?” “yes.” “i Fear Oblivion,” He Said Without A Moment’s Pause. “i Fear It Like The Proverbial Blind Man Who’s Afraid Of The Dark.” “too Soon,” Isaac Said, Cracking A Smile. “was That Insensitive?” Augustus Asked. “i Can Be Pretty Blind To Other People’s Feelings.

She Never Liked Me Much, But She Sure Loved Me

All Salvation Is Temporary

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

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

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

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

Something About Telling That Story Made My Gut Grow Back Together." What?" Oh, Nothing. Just Thinking Out Loud." That's Who You Really Like. The People You Can Think Out Loud In Front Of." The People Who've Been In Your Secret Hiding Places." The People You Bite Your Thumb In Front Of." Hi." Hi." ..." ..." Wow. My First Lindsey." My Second Colin." That Was Fun. Let's Try It Again." Sold." ..." ..." ...".

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

There's No Reason Whatsoever To Drink Eight Glasses Of Water A Day Unless You, For Whatever Reason, Particularly Like The Taste Of Water

Coal Miners Don't Get Coal Miners' Block.

You Can't Dingleberry That! That's A Flagrant Misuse Of The Dingleberry!

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.

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

The Whole Thing Was The Precise Opposite Of What I Figured It Would Be: Slow And Patient And Quiet And Neither Particularly Painful Nor Particularly Ecstatic

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

Keeping Promises

No, I Don’t Think You’re Gonna Be Single Forever, And Also I Don’t Understand Your Obsession With Romantic Love. There Are Other Ways To Have Fulfilling Relationships That Can Sustain You And Make Your Life Great And Fun Other Than Having A Sexualized Relationship. It’s Not The Only Kind Of Fulfilling Human Interaction. So, Even If You Are Single Forever, That Doesn’t Mean That You’ve Had Some Kind Of Failed Life.

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

Radar Revs The Engine As To Say Hustle, And We Are Running Through The Parking Lot, Ben's Robe Flowing In The Wind So That He Looks Vaguely Like A Dark Wizard, Except That His Pale Skinny Legs Are Visible, And His Arms Hug Plastic Bags. I Can See The Back Of Lacey's Legs Beneath Her Dress, Her Calves Tight In Midstride. I Don't Know How I Look, But I Know How I Feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

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

As Lives Go, I'll Take The Quietly Desperate Over The Radically Bipolar.

The Fundamental Mistake I Had Always Made - And That She Had, In Fairness, Always Led Me To Make - Was This: Margo Was Not A Miracle. She Was Not An Adventure. She Was Not A Fine And Precious Thing. She Was A Girl.

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

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.

Imagining Isn't Perfect. You Can't Get All The Way Inside Someone Else...but Imagining Being Someone Else, Or The World Being Something Else, Is The Only Way In. It Is The Machine That Kills Fascists.

"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."

I’ve Always Sort Of Preferred People Who Are Not Entirely Likable.

Writing, Or At Least Good Writing, Is An Outgrowth Of That Urge To Use Language To Communicate Complex Ideas And Experiences Between People. And That's True Whether You're Reading Shakespeare Or Bad Vampire Fiction-reading Is Always An Act Of Empathy. It's Always An Imagining Of What It's Like To Be Someone Else.

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

Books Are Like Tweets, Except Longer.

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.

Great News For Someone Is Always Bad News For Someone Else

I Always Liked Routine. I Suppose I Never Found Boredom Very Boring.

Well," Peter Van Houten Said, Extending His Hand To Me. "it Is At Any Rate A Pleasure To Meet Such Ontologically Improbable Creatures." I Shook His Swollen Hand, And Then He Shook Hands With Augustus. I Was Wondering What Ontologically Meant. Regardless, I Liked It. Augustus And I Were Together In The Improbable Creatures Club: Us And Duck-billed Platypuses.

According To Maslow, I Was Stuck On The Second Level Of The Pyramid, Unable To Feel Secure In My Health And Therefore Unable To Reach For Love And Respect And Art And Whatever Else, Which Is, Utter Horseshit: The Urge To Make Art Or Contemplate Philosophy Does Not Go Away When You Are Sick. Those Urges Just Become Transfigured By Illness. Maslow's Pyramid Seemed To Imply I Was Less Human Than Other People, And Most People Seemed To Agree With Him.

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

It's Just That I Learned A While Ago That The Best Way To Get People To Like You Is Not To Like Them Too Much.

What Do You Mean By Meant? Given The Final Futility Of Our Struggle, Is The Fleeting Jolt Of Meaning That Art Gives Us Valuable? Or Is It The Only Value Passing Time As Comfortably As Possible?

I Wrote My First Novel And My Second Novel In Chicago. It Was The Place Where I Became A Writer. It's My Favorite City.

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.

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.

It Took Me A Sleeve Of Girl Scout Thin Mints And Forty Minutes To Get Over That Boy.

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

Patience, Grasshopper," I Counseled. "you Don't Want To Seem Overeager." "right, That's Why I Said Tomorrow," He Said. "i Want To See You Again Tonight. But I'm Willing To Wait All Night And Much Of Tomorrow.

Boys Are Much More Likely To Objectify Girls Bodies, While Boys Are Seen By Girls As Whole People.

Long Week. Long Month. Long Life.

Facts, Even False Ones, Cannot Be Copyrighted.

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?

We Didn't Talk Much. But We Didn't Need To.

Teenagers Think They Are Invincible

Given The Final Futility Of Our Struggle, Is The Fleeting Jolt Of Meaning That Art Gives Us Valuable? Or Is The Only Value In Passing The Time As Comfortable As Possible? What Should A Story Seek To Emulate, Augustus? A Ringing Alarm? A Call To Arms? A Morphine Drip? Of Course, Like All Interrogation Of The Universe, This Line Of Inquiry Inevitably Reduces Us To Asking What It Means To Be Human And Whether—to Borrow A Phrase From The Angst-encumbered Sixteeen-year-olds You No Doubt Revile—there Is A Point To It All.

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.

How Can You Seperate Those Things Though? The People Are The Place Is The People.

The Right Story Needs The Right Telling.

Nerdighters Make Me Believe In America Again.

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.

The Human Tongue Is Like Wasabi: It's Very Powerful, And Should Be Used Sparingly.

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

Physical Intimacy Isn’t And Can Never Be An Effective Substitute For Emotional Intimacy.

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

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

I Never Really Understood That Massive Collaboration Involving Hundreds Of People Is What Makes Movies Possible, And It's Also Why I Would Agree That Curiosity Is Not The Most Important Human Trait; The Urge To Collaborate Is. Heck . . . Only We Have The Ability To Cooperate To Make Like Online Communities And Space Telescopes And Imaginariums And Movies. So The Great Thrill Of This Whole Experience [my Novel Being Made Into A Movie] For Me Was . .. .seeing Humanity Do What It's Best At, Which Ultimately Is Not Competing But Cooperating.

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

Look, Let Me Just Say It: He Was Hot. A Nonhot Boy Stares At You Relentlessly And It Is, At Best, Awkward And, At Worst, A Form Of Assault. But A Hot Boy . . . Well.

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.

The Job Of Reading Is To Use Stories As A Way Into Seeing Other People As We See Ourselves

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

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Rutherford B. Hayes

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