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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.

-John Green

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No, I Don’t Think

John Green

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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.

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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.

I Tore Open The Closet Door And Began Feverishly Sorting Through The Shirts Piled On The Floor In The Vain Hope That Inside That Pile There Might Be Some Wondrously Perfect Shirt Down There, A Nice And Tough But I'm Also A Surprisingly Good Listener With A True And Abiding Passion For Cheers And Those Who Lead Them.

I Told Him They Built A Statue Of Schultz, And Then He Said That A Monument Is Cold Comfort To A Dead Man, And Then I Said That The Statue Was Built Not For Schultz, But For Us--to Remind Us How To Be Human.

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

I'm Not Interested In Dating A Girl I'm Not Gonna Marry

Does He Have Ugly Hands? Sometimes Beautiful People Have Ugly Hands." "no He Has Kind Of Amazing Hands.

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.

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.

She Cannot Possibly Be Dead, People Do Not Just Die

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?

Mental Health Days Only Exist For People Who Have The Luxury Of Saying 'i Don't Want To Deal With Things Today' And Then Can Take The Whole Day Off, While The Rest Of Us Are Stuck Fighting The Fights We Always Fight, With No One Really Caring One Way Or Another, Unless...

That's What I Realized: If I Did Get Her Back Somehow, She Wouldn't Fill The Hole That Losing Her Created.

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

Cherish Every Moment

How Do You Just Stop Being Terrified Of Getting Left Behind And Ending Up By Yourself Forever And Not Meaning Anything To The World?

I Don't Think You're Dying," I Said. "i Think You've Just Got A Touch Of Cancer. He Smiled. Gallows Humor.

That Was The Worst Part About Having Cancer, Sometimes: The Physical Evidence Of Disease Separates You From Other People.

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

Nothing Really Mattered That Much, Not The Good Things And Not The Bad Ones. We Were In The Business Of Mutual Amusement, And We Were Reasonably Prosperous.

Wow,” I Said. “are You Making This Up?” “hazel Grace, Could I, With My Meager Intellectual Capacities, Make Up A Letter From Peter Van Houten Featuring Phrases Like ‘our Triumphantly Digitized Contemporaneity’?” “you Could Not,” I Allowed. “can I, Can I Have The Email Address?” “of Course,” Augustus Said, Like It Was Not The Best Gift Ever.

Don’t Make Stuff Because You Want To Make Money - It Will Never Make You Enough Money. And Don’t Make Stuff Because You Want To Get Famous - Because You Will Never Feel Famous Enough. Make Gifts For People - And Work Hard On Making Those Gifts In The Hope That Those People Will Notice And Like The Gifts.

Chicago Is The Great American City, And It Was Really Great To Live There During A Time Of Economic Expansion And Opportunity And Growth. I Felt Like I Was Living At The Center Of The World. Unlike New York, No One Expects You To Be A Professional Writer.

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

That Feeling Of Finishedness Does Not Come All At Once, And It Is Not Easily Won, But I Think Once You Get There It Is Hard To Go Back.

The Real Heroes Anyway Aren't The People Doing Things; The Real Heroes Are The People Noticing Things, Paying Attention. The Guy Who Invented The Smallpox Vaccine Didn't Actually Invent Anything. He Just Noticed That People With Cowpox Didn't Get Smallpox.

"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."

People Believed In An Afterlife Because They Couldn't Bear Not To.

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.

I Thought Of The One Thing About Home That I Missed, My Dad's Study With Its Built-in, Floor-to-ceiling Shelves Sagging With Thick Biographies And The Black Leather Chair That Kept Me Just Uncomfortable Enough To Keep From Feeling Sleepy As I Read.

She’s The Kind Of Person Who Either Dies Tragically At Twenty-seven, Like Jimi Hendrix And Janis Joplin, Or Else Grows Up To Win, Like, The First-ever Nobel Prize For Awesome.

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.

I Think People Who Are Religious Are More Likely To Want One Around, But It's A Very Secular Position.

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.

I Hated Sports. I Hated Sports, And I Hated People Who Played Them, And I Hated People Who Watched Them, And I Hated People Who Didn't Hate People Who Watched Or Played Them.

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

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.

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.)

And The Moral Of The Story Is That You Don't Remember What Happened. What You Remember Becomes What Happened. And The Second Moral Of The Story, If A Story Can Have Multiple Morals, Is That Dumpers Are Not Inherently Worse Than Dumpees - Breaking Up Isn't Something That Gets Done To You; It's Something That Happens With You.

Moral Of The Story

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.

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.

I Didn't Want To Look At Them, So I Looked Away, And To Look Away Was To Look At Augustus.

Congratulations! You're A Woman. Now Die.

Congratulations

Cancer Diagnosis

You Can Love Someone So Much...but You Can Never Love People As Much As You Can Miss Them.

There Was Quite A Lot Of Competitiveness About It, With Everybody Wanting To Beat Not Only Cancer Itself, But Also The Other People In The Room. Like, I Realize That This Is Irrational, But When They Tell You That You Have, Say, A 20 Percent Chance Of Living Five Years, The Math Kicks In And You Figure That’s One In Five . . . So You Look Around And Think, As Any Healthy Person Would: I Gotta Outlast Four Of These Bastards.

I Leaned In Toward Her, Suddenly Overwhelmed With The Feeling That We Must Kiss.

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

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.

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

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

Hazel Grace!” He Shouted. “you Did Not Use Your One Dying Wish To Go To Disney World With Your Parents.” “also Epcot Center,” I Mumbled. “oh, My God,” Augustus Said. “i Can’t Believe I Have A Crush On A Girl With Such Cliché Wishes.

Lies Are Attempts To Hide The Truth By Willfully Denying Facts. Fiction, On The Other Hand, Is An Attempt To Reveal The Truth By Ignoring Facts.

And People Are Moody, Dude. You Gotta Get Used To Living With People.

There Are At Least Two Distinct Meanings Of 'hot': There Is The, Like, Normal Human Definition Which Is That 'this Individual Seems Suitable For Mating'. And Then There's The Weird, Culturally Constructed Definition Of 'hot' Which Means, 'that Individual Is Malnourished And Has Probably Had Plastic Bags Inserted Into Her Breasts'. Like, I Think If You Went Back To The 18th Century And Asked A 15-year-old Boy, 'would You Like To Marry A Woman Who Has Had Plastic Bags Needlessly Inserted Into Her Breasts?' That 15-year-old Boy Would Probably Be Like ... 'what's Plastic?'

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.

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

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

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

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.

Breaking Down That Wall Is The Kind Of Story That Might Have A Happy Middle - Oh, Look, We Broke Down This Wall, I'm Going To Look At You Like A Girl And You're Going To Look At Me Like A Boy, And We're Going To Play A Fun Game Called Can I Put My Hand There What About There What About There.

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

The True Ninja Doesn't Make A Splash At All.

But What Could I Lose By Continuing That Had Not Already Been Lost?

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

The Colonel Explained To Me That 1. This Was Alaska's Room, And That 2. She Had A Single Room Because The Girl Who Was Supposed To Be Her Roommate Got Kicked Out At The End Of Last Year, And That 3. Alaska Had Cigarettes, Although The Colonel Neglected To Ask Whether 4. I Smoked, Which 5. I Didn't.

"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".

...it Sounded Like A Dragon Breathing In Time With Me, Like I Had This Pet Dragon Who Was Cuddled Up Next To Me And Cared Enough About Me To Time His Breaths To Mine.

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.

Long Week. Long Month. Long Life.

It Felt Like Everything Was Rising Up In Me, Like I Was Drowning In This Weirdly Painful Joy, But I Couldn't Say It Back. I Just Looked At Him And Let Him Look At Me Until He Nodded, Lips Pursed And Turned Away, Placing The Side Of His Head Against The Window.

The World Went On, As It Does, Without My Full Participation, And I Only Woke Up From The Reverie When Someone Said My Name.

Suffering Is Universal.

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

Keeping Promises

You Could Drive Past It Without Noticing And From What I Understand, You Ought To.

If We Restructure Things To See That The Hero's Journey Is A Degree In Astrophysics Rather Than A Journey To Star In A Reality Show, That's A Better World.

I Hate The Rich Snots Here With A Fervent Passion I Usually Reserve Only For Dental Work And My Father.

It's Easy To Like Someone From A Distance. But When She Stopped Being This Amazing Unattainable Thing Or Whatever, And Started Being, Like, Just A Regular Girl With A Weird Relationship With Food And Frequent Crankiness Wh's Kind Of Bossy--then I Had To Basically Start Liking A While Different Person.

There Is Only One Things In This World Shittier Than Biting It From Cancer When You're Sixteen, And That's Having A Kid Who Bites It From Cancer.

Because You're My Friend, Wingnut.

I Change My Keyboard Between Every Book. I Usually Shop Around. I'm Very Passionate About The Physical Feel Of Pressing The Keys. It's Got To Have The Right Springiness. I Tend To Find The Built-in Keys Very Unsatisfying, The Keys Are Low-profile And Don't Really Do Anything - I Want It To Feel Like I'm Typing.

I Ran Like A Cheetah - Well, Like A Cheetah That Smoked Too Much.

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

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

This Is The Homosexuality Is An Abomination Club, Right?

I Got My Wish, I Suppose. I Left My Scar.

But It Was Sure A Privilege To Love Him, Huh?" I Nodded Into His Shirt. "gives You An Idea How I Feel About You," He Said. My Old Man. He Always Knew Just What To Say.

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.

I Figured Something Out," He Said Aloud. "the Future Is Unpredictable." Hassan Said, "sometimes The Kafir Likes To Say Massively Obvious Things In A Really Profound Voice.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

So Here's My Advice: Study Broadly And Without Fear. Learn A Language If You Can, Because That Will Make Your Life More Interesting. Read A Little Bit Every Day. But More Importantly, Surround Yourself With People Who You Like And Make Cool Stuff With Them. In The End, What You Do Isn't Going To Be Nearly As Interesting Or Important As Who You Do It With.

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

Miles, As In 'to Go Before I Sleep'?

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.

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.

You Could Hold Me And I Could Hold You. And It Would Be So Peaceful. Completely Peaceful. Like The Feeling Of Sleep, But Awake In It Together.

For She Had Embodied The Great Perhaps--she Had Proved To Me That It Was Worth It To Leave Behind My Minor Life For Grander Maybes, And Now She Was Gone And With Her My Faith In Perhaps.

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

I Can Almost Imagine A Happiness Without Her, The Ability To Let Her Go, To Feel Our Roots Are Connected Even If I Never See That Leaf Of Grass Again.'

Leaves Of Grass

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

She Did Not Need To Fold Into Herself And Self-destruct. Those Awful Things Are Survivable, Because We Are As Indestructible As We Believe Ourselves To Be. When Adults Say, "teenagers Think The Hate 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.

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.

We Need Never Be Hopeless Because We Can Never Be Irreperably Broken.

I Think If You Keep The Box Closed Long Enough You Do Kill The Cat, Actually.

As I Followed Margo's Directions Through The Maze Of One-way Streets, We Saw A Few People Sleeping On The Sidewalk Or Sitting On Benches, But Nobody Was Moving. Margo Rolled Down The Window, And I Felt The Thick Air Blow Across My Face, Warmer Than Night Ought To Be. I Glanced Over And Saw Strands Of Her Hair Blowing All Around Her Face. Even Though I Could See Her There, I Felt Entirely Alone Among These Big And Empty Buildings, Like I'd Survived The Apocalypse And The World Had Been Given To Me, This Whole And Amazing And Endless World, Mine For The Exploring.

I Don't Decide Where I Live. My Wife Decides. She's A Curator Of Contemporary Art, And She Works At An Art Museum, So We Go Wherever She Has A Job. All Basements Look The Same, So I Can Write From Whatever Basement I Happen To Be Living In.

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

He Specialized In The Murder Of Dreams, Hazel Grace.

I Think That Most Of Us [writers] Would Rather Have An Audience Than Countless Riches. If We Wanted To Be Rich, We'd Be Doing Smething Else.

Night Falls Fast. Today Is The Past.

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

No Headboards Were Broken.

I Just Want To Do Something That Matters. Or Be Something That Matters. I Just Want To Matter.

He Took A Long Drink, Then Grimaced. “i Do Not Have A Drinking Problem,” He Announced, His Voice Needlessly Loud. “i Have A Churchillian Relationship With Alcohol: I Can Crack Jokes And Govern England And Do Anything I Want To Do. Except Not Drink.

Nerd Girls Are The World's Greatest Under-utilized Romantic Resource.

Whatever. Great Day. Today. Best Day Of My Life.

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia.

Imagining The Future

My Thoughts Are Stars I Cannot Fathom Into Constellations.

I Mean, I Am Pretty Fabulous. Am I Not?' 'you're A Pillar Of Fabulosity In The Community,' I Tell Him.

Let Us Go, Through Certain Half-deserted Streets, / The Muttering Retreats / Of Restless Nights In One-night Cheap Hotels / And Sawdust Restaurants With Oyster-shells: / Streets That Follow Like A Tedious Argument / Of Insidious Intent / To Lead You To An Overwhelming Question.../ Oh, Do Not Ask, 'what Is It?' / Let Us Go And Make Our Visit"' 'i'm In Love With You,' He Said Quietly.

I Tried To Tell Myself That It Could Be Worse, That The World Was Not A Wish-granting Factory, That I Was Living With Cancer Not Dying Of It, That I Mustn't Let It Kill Me Before It Kills Me.

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.

I Realize That They Giggle And I Actually Laugh, That They Show Their Cleavage And I Have None To Show, But Just So You Know, I Am Also A Girl. I'm One Of The Three Wise Men. And It's Gay To Think That James Bond Is Hot.

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.

You're Not A Little Kid Anymore. You Need To Make Friends, Get Out Of The House, And Live Your Life.

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?

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

Tiny, The Next Time That You Try To Set Me Up With A Girl With A Secret Boyfriend Can You At Least Inform Me That She Has A Secret Boyfriend? Also, If You Don't Call Me Back Within Five Minutes, I'm Going To Assume You Found A Way Back To Evanston. Furthermore, You Are An Asshat. That Is All.

Nothing Has Ever Looked Like That Ever In All Of Human History.

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.

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

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

She Said 'i Love You' As If It Were A Secret, And An Immense One.

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

Like All Sick Children,' He Answered Dispassionately, 'you Say You Don't Want Pity, But Your Very Existence Depends Upon It.

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

Imagine Others Complexly.

I Try To Live Life So That I Can Live With Myself.

Pg. 231-232: They'd Given Me A Minivan. They Could Have Picked Any Car And They Picked A Minivan. A Minivan. O God Of The Vehicular Justice, Why Dost Thou Mock Me? Minivan, You Albatross Around My Neck! You Mark Of Cain! You Wretched Beast High Ceilings And Few Horsepower!

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.

Every Paper Girl Needs At Least One String.

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.

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.)

Can I Ask You About Caroline Mathers?" "and You Say There's No Afterlife.

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

In The First Century Ce, Roman Authorities Punished St. Apollonia By Crushing Her Teeth One By One With Pliers. Colin Often Thought About This In Relationship To The Monotony Of Dumping: We Have Thirty-two Teeth. After A While, Having Each Tooth Individually Destroyed Probably Gets Repetitive, Even Dull. But It Never Stops Hurting.

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.

Such Is Life. We Grow Up. Planets Like Tiny Get New Moons. Moons Like Me Get New Planets.

I Realized It In Waves And We Held On To Each Other Crying And I Thought, God We Must Look So Lame, But It Doesn't Matter Much When You Have Just Now Realized, All The Time Later, That You Are Still Alive.

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

I Do Love You And What Else Matters But That

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.

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

Grief Does Not Change You, Hazel. It Reveals You.

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.

It Is So Hard To Leave-until You Leave.

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

I Mean, It’s Stupid To Miss Someone You Didn’t Even Get Along With. But I Don’t Know, It Was Nice, You Know, Having Someone You Could Always Fight With.

Missing Someone

It Turns Out That, Somehow, There Are A Tremendous Number Of Things To Be Optimistic About.

Let's Make A Deal: You Figure Out What The Labyrinth Is And How To Get Out Of It, And I'll Get You Laid. -alaska Young

We Got Off At The Next Exit, Quietly, And, Switching Drivers, We Walked In Front Of The Car. We Met And I Held Him, My Hands Balled Into Tight Fists Around His Shoulders, And He Wrapped His Short Arms Around Me And Squeezed Tight, So That I Felt The Heaves Of His Chest As We Realized Over And Over Again That We Were Still Alive. I Realized It In Waves And We Held On To Each Other Crying And I Thought, 'god We Must Look So Lame,' But It Doesn't Matter When You Have Just Now Realized, All The Time Later, That You Are Still Alive.

Eternity Bids Thee To Forget.

Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying. (almost Everything Is, Really).

Funerals...are For The Living.

And I Vaguely Remember Her Smiling At Me From The Door Way The Glittering Ambiguity Of A Girls Smile, Which Seems To Promise An Answer To The Question, But Never Gives It. The Question, The One We’ve All Been Asking Since Girls Stopped Being Gross, The Question That Is To Simple To Be Uncomplicated: Does She Like Me Or Does She Like Me?

I'm Not Sure If I'm Depressed. I Mean, I'm Not Exactly Sad. But I'm Not Exactly Happy Either. I Can Laugh And Joke And Smile During The Day, But Sometimes When I'm Alone At Night I Forget How To Feel.

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.

The Red Wheelbarrow" By William Carlos Williams. So Much Depends Upom A Red Wheel Barrow Glazed With Rain Water Beside The White Chickens.

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

Why Don’t We Break Up? I Guess I Stay With Her Because She Stays With Me. And That’s Not An Easy Thing To Do.

I Spy With My Little Eye A Great Story.

You Realize That Trying To Keep Your Distance From Me Will Not Lessen My Affection For You. All Efforts To Save Me From You Will Fail.

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

If You Don’t Know About Tumblr Then You Are Not Supposed To Know About Tumblr. It’s Like Fight Club.

Truth Resists Simplicity.

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.

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

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

The Times That Were Most Fun Seemed Always To Be Followed By Sadness Now, Because It Was When Life Started To Feel Like It Did When She Was With Us That We Realized How Utterly Gone She Was.

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.

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

I'm Not Interested In Writing For Adults. I Like Them As People! I Don't Like The Way They Publish Books In That World. Nothing Ever Gets A Chance.

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

Maybe We're Grass—our Roots So Interdependent That No One Is Dead As Long As Someone Is Still Alive.

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.

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

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

She's Just Playing A Trick On Us. This Is Just An Alaska Young Prank Extraordinaire. It's Alaska Being Alaska, Funny And Playful And Not Knowing When Or How To Put On The Brakes.

I Didn't Want To See Them Lower Him Into The Ground In The Spot He'd Picked Out With His Dad, And I Didn't Want To See His Parents Sink To Their Knees In The Dew-wet Grass And Moan In Pain.

…god, It’s Over. Takumi, You Gotta Stop Stealing Other People’s Problems And Get Some Of Your Own.

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

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

Life Works Best When We Think Of People As People.

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.

You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth.

Imagining The Future

Read A Lot. Read Broadly... Tell Stories To Your Friends, And Pay Attention To When They Get Bored... Write A Lot.

We Imagine People As Animals Or Gods. -but She Was Just A Person, A Girl.

From The Front Rdar Announces, "don't You Go Talking Bad About Gofast Bars. Do You Want Me To Stop This Car?" "whenever I Eat A Gofast Bar," Ben Says, "i'm Always Like, 'so This Is What Blood Tastes Like To Mosquitoes.

Where Do You Come Up With These Zingers, Clint? Do You Own Some Kind Of Joke Factory In Indonesia Where You've Got Eight-year-olds Working Ninety Hours A Week To Deliver You That Kind Of Top-quality Witticism? There Are Boy Bands With More Original Material.

I Never Liked Writing Concluding Paragraphs To Papers - Where You Repeat What You've Already Said With Phrases Like 'in Summation', And 'to Conclude'.

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.

You're Not Going To Impose The Patriarchal Paradigm On Me.

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

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