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She Had This Dark Cancer Water Dripping Out Of Her Chest. Eyes Closed. Intubated. But Her Hand Was Still Her Hand, Still Warm And The Nails Painted This Almost Black Dark Blue And I Just Held Her Hand And Tried To Imagine The World Without Us And For About One Second I Was A Good Enough Person To Hope She Died So She Would Never Know That I Was Going, Too. But Then I Wanted More Time So We Could Fall In Love. I Got My Wish, I Suppose. I Left My Scar.

-John Green

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She Had This Dark

John Green

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She Had This Dark Cancer Water Dripping Out Of Her Chest. Eyes Closed. Intubated. But Her Hand Was Still Her Hand, Still Warm And The Nails Painted This Almost Black Dark Blue And I Just Held Her Hand And Tried To Imagine The World Without Us And For About One Second I Was A Good Enough Person To Hope She Died So She Would Never Know That I Was Going, Too. But Then I Wanted More Time So We Could Fall In Love. I Got My Wish, I Suppose. I Left My Scar.

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Falling In Love

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Miscalculations

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

He Wanted To Draw Out The Moment Before The Moment- Because As Good As Kissing Feels, Nothing Feels As Good As The Anticipation Of It.

Collin Singleton Could No More Stay Cool Than A Blue Whale Could Stay Skinny Or Bangladesh Could Stay Rich

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

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

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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.

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When People Have To Choose Between Civilization And Warm Genitals, They Choose Warm Genitals

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Everything That Comes Together Falls Apart.

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

Gus: "it Tastes Like..." Me: "food." Gus: "yes, Precisely. It Tastes Like Food, Excellently Prepared. But It Does Not Taste, How Do I Put This Delicately...?" Me: "it Does Not Taste Like God Himself Cooked Heaven Into A Series Of Five Dishes Which Were Then Served To You Accompanied By Several Luminous Balls Of Fermented, Bubbly Plasma While Actual And Literal Flower Petals Floated Down Around Your Canal-side Dinner Table." Gus: "nicely Phrased." Gus's Father: "our Children Are Weird." My Dad: "nicely Phrased."

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

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Reading Forces You To Be Quiet In A World That No Longer Makes Place For That.

I'm Sorry. I Know You Loved Her. It Was Hard Not To.

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.

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

The Thing About Chameleoning Your Way Through Life Is That It Gets To Where Nothing Is Real.

It's Total Bullshit," He Said. "the Whole Thing. Eighty Percent Survival Rate And He's In The Twenty Percent? Bullshit. He Was Such A Bright Kid. It's Bullshit. I Hate It. But It Was Sure A Privilege To Love Him, Huh?

We Were Just Looking At Ideas Of Each Other.

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

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.

He Specialized In The Murder Of Dreams, Hazel Grace.

I Think One Of The Most Important Differences Between Us Is That You Are Excellent At Living In A Way That Is Commensurate With Your Values, Whereas I Am Not. For Instance, I Didn’t Recycle Until I Watched An Inconvenient Truth And I’m Still Sort Of Iffy On It. And Also, I Didn’t Vote In 2000, Even Though I Could Have Voted In Florida *hits Self On Head Repeatedly* Ahh George Bush! It’s All My Fault! God! So Stupid! *sigh* Let’s Change The Subject. Also, We Have Vastly Different Happy Dances.

Whether The Author Intended A Symbolic Resonance To Exist In Her Book Is Irrelevant. All That Matters Is Whether It's There. Because The Book Does Not Exist For The Benefit Of The Author, The Book Exists For The Benefit Of You. If We As Readers Can Have A Bigger And Richer Experience With The World As A Result Of Reading A Symbol And That Symbol Wasn't Intended By The Author, We Still Win.

All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract.

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

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

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.

Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities.

The Romans Knew It: Quod Me Alit Me Extinguit, They Said: That Which Nourishes Me, Extinguishes Me.

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

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.

Beware Of That Monster Called 'self-loathing'.

Writing Is Something You Do Alone. It's A Profession For Introverts Who Wanna Tell You A Story But Don't Wanna Make Eye Contact While Telling It

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

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

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

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

Maybe She'd Been Scared Of Being Paralyzed By Fear Again.

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

It Is Worth It To Leave Behing My Minor Life For Grander Maybes.

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.

All Those Paper People Living In Their Paper Houses, Burning The Future To Stay Warm.

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

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