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So Often We Try To Make Other People Feel Better By Minimizing Their Pain, By Telling Them That It Will Get Better (which It Will) Or That There Are Worse Things In The World (which There Are). But That's Not What I Actually Needed. What I Actually Needed Was For Someone To Tell Me That It Hurt Because It Mattered. I Have Found This Very Useful To Think About Over The Years, And I Find That It Is A Lot Easier And More Bearable To Be Sad When You Aren't Constantly Berating Yourself For Being Sad.

-John Green

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So Often We Try

John Green

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So Often We Try To Make Other People Feel Better By Minimizing Their Pain, By Telling Them That It Will Get Better (which It Will) Or That There Are Worse Things In The World (which There Are). But That's Not What I Actually Needed. What I Actually Needed Was For Someone To Tell Me That It Hurt Because It Mattered. I Have Found This Very Useful To Think About Over The Years, And I Find That It Is A Lot Easier And More Bearable To Be Sad When You Aren't Constantly Berating Yourself For Being Sad.

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This Was Not A Place You Go To Live. It Was A Place You Go To Die."- Paper Towns

You Have A Choice In This World, I Believe, About How To Tell Sad Stories, And We Made The Funny Choice.

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.

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.

"please Stop," I Said. "you're Upsetting The Black Santas."

What A Treacherous Thing To Believe That A Person Is More Than A Person.

As The Tide Washed In, The Dutch Tulip Man Faced The Ocean: "conjoiner Rejoinder Poisoner Concealer Revelator. Look At It, Rising Up And Rising Down, Taking Everything With It." "what’s That?" Anna Asked. "water," The Dutchman Said. "well, And Time.

Maybe Some People Need To Believe In A Proper And Omnipotent God To Pray, But I Don't.

But You Know What They Say About Gutshot: The Population Never Goes Up And Never Goes Down, Because Every Time A Woman Gets Pregnant, A Man Leaves Town.

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.

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.

Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus.

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.

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

Nerd Life Is Just So Much Better Than Regular Life.

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

Great Books Help You Understand, And They Help You Feel Understood.

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.

I Feel Like My Life Is So Scattered Right Now. Like It's All The Small Pieces Of Paper And Someone's Turned On The Fan. But, Talking To You Makes Me Feel Like The Fan's Been Turned Off For A Little Bit. Like Things Could Actually Make Sense. You Completely Unscatter Me, And I Appreciate That So Much.

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

No Reason To Be Angry. Anger Just Distracts From The All-encompassing Sadness.

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

She Walks Lightly, Old Man. She Walks Lightly Upon The Earth.

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.

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

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

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

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.

It's Not Fair," I Said. "it's Just So Goddamned Unfair." "the World," He Said, "is Not A Wishgranting Factory.

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

And I Agreed, But Still, She Owed Us An Explanation. If She Was Up There, Down There, Out There, Somewhere, Maybe She Would Laugh.

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.

And Then I Was Asleep. That Deep, Can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth Sleep, That Sleep That Is Not Particularly Restful But Difficult To Wake Up From All The Same.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

So We Gave Up. I'd Finally Had Enough Of Chasing After A Ghost Who Did Not Want To Be Seen. We'd Failed, Maybe, But Some Mysteries Aren't Meant To Be Solved.

She Has Enough Black Eyeliner On To Outline A Corpse, And Her Skin's So Pale She Looks Like She's Just Broken Dawn.

Grief Does Not Change You. It Reveals You. And Herein Lies The Gift That Cannot Die. It Changes The Course Of Your Life Forever. If You Allow Yourself The Chance To Feel It For As Long As You Need To - Even If It Is For The Rest Of Your Life - You Will Be Guided By It. You Will Become Someone It Would Have Been Impossible For You To Be, And In This Way Your Loved One Lives On, In You

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.

What Else? She Is So Beautiful. You Don’t Get Tired Of Looking At Her. You Never Worry If She Is Smarter Than You: You Know She Is. She Is Funny Without Ever Being Mean. I Love Her. I Am So Lucky To Love Her, Van Houten. You Don’t Get To Choose If You Get Hurt In This World, Old Man, But You Do Have Some Say In Who Hurts You. I Like My Choices. I Hope She Likes Hers.

At Some Point, I Realized I Was Kaitlyning The Encounter, So I Decided To Text Kaitlyn And Ask For Some Advice.

I Want More Numbers Than I’m Likely To Get, And God, I Want More Numbers For Augustus Waters Than He Got. But, Gus, My Love, I Cannot Tell You How Thankful I Am For Our Little Infinity. I Wouldn’t Trade It For The World. You Gave Me A Forever Within The Numbered Days, And I’m Grateful.

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I Thought You Hung The Moon.

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The World Is Broken, And All Our Attempts To Fix It Will Inevitably Fail, And Some Day All Life Will Be Extinguished From The Planet And There Will Be No One To Remember That Any Of Us Ever Did Anything. But This Fact, Strangely, Does Not Delegitimize Hope, Because Every Now And Again We Find Evidence That Hope Is Helpful. This Evidence, In My Opinion, Should Be Celebrated-even As We Lament And Fight The Devastation.

How Will I Ever Get Out Of This Labyrinth!" To A Margin Note Written In Her Loop-heavy Cursive: Straight & Fast.

A Margo For Each Of Us--and Each More Mirror Than Window.

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I Didn't Know What To Say To Her - I Was Caught In A Love Triangle With One Dead Side.

What's That?" "the Laundry Basket?" "no, Next To It." "i Don't See Anything Next To It." "it's My Last Shred Of Dignity. It's Very Small.

Y'all Smoke To Enjoy It. I Smoke To Die.

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Abligurition: An Actual, If Very Obscure, English Word, Which Means The Spending Of Too Much Money On Food.

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

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.

One Of The Great Rules Of Economics According To John Green If You Are Rich, You Have To Be An Idiot Not To Stay Rich. And If You Are Poor, You Have To Be Really Smart To Get Rich.

In English, We Don't Have A Word For People Who Aren't Virgins. What The Non-virgin Lexical Gap Really Made Me Think Was That Our Obsession With Sexual Purity Is Such That Once You Are No Longer This Thing, You Are Indescribable.

It Is Saying These Things That Keeps Us From Falling Apart. And Maybe By Imagining These Futures We Can Make Them Real, And Maybe Not, But Either Way We Must Imagine Them. The Light Rushes Out And Floods In.

I Wouldn’t Have A Career If It Weren’t For Independent Bookstores.

Suffering Is Universal.

“i Thought We Were In A Church Basement, But We Are Literally In The Heart Of Jesus.” “someone Should Tell Jesus,” I Said. “i Mean, It's Gotta Be Dangerous, Storing Children With Cancer In Your Heart.” “i Would Tell Him Myself.” Augustus Said, “but Unfortunately I Am Literally Stuck Inside Of His Heart, So He Won't Be Able To Hear Me.”

It Is Not My Fault That My Parents Own The World's Largest Collection Of Black Santas.

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

Caroline Is No Longer Sufffering From Personhood.

Because You're Only Thinking They-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, And Guess What? When You Act Like That, No One Likes You.

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

She Spoke Quietly Then, The Tiniest Crack In Her Voice, And All At Once Lacey Pemerton Was Not Lacey Pemberton. She Was Just—like, A Person.

So I Wasn't Lying, Exactly. I Was Just Choosing Among Truths.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cherish Every Moment

The Phrase Booze And Mischief Left Me Worrying I'd Stumbled Into What My Mother Referred To As "the Wrong Crowd," But For The Wrong Crowd, They Both Seemed Awfully Smart.

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.

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

The 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.

They Belong To Their Readers Now, Which Is A Great Thing–because The Books Are More Powerful In The Hands Of My Readers Than They Could Ever Be In My Hands.

Dying Is The Last Thing I Would Ever Do!

And Then The Line Was Quite But Not Dead. I Almost Felt Like He Was There In My Room With Me, But In A Way It Was Better, Like I Was Not In My Room And He Was Not In His, But Instead We Were Together In Some Invisible And Tenuous Third Space That Could Only Be Visited On The Phone.

I Don't Think You Can Ever Fill The Empty Space With The Thing You Lost.

I Could Be Worse, You Know." "how?" I Asked, Teasing. "i Mean, I Have A Work Of Calligraphy Over My Toilet That Reads, 'bathe Yourself In The Comfort Of God's Words,' Hazel. I Could Be Way Worse." "sounds Unsanitary," I Said.

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.

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

At Some Point, You Just Pull Off The Band-aid, And It Hurts, But Then It's Over And You're Relieved.

"nothing," I Said. "i’m Just…" I Couldn’t Finish The Sentence, Didn’t Know How To. "i’m Just Very, Very Fond Of You."

I Love Making Youtube Videos. I Love Tumblr, I Love Twitter. I Love Talking With People I Find Interesting About Stuff I Find Interesting, And The Internet Is A Great Way To Do That.

I Was Struck By An Awful Thought, The Kind That Cannot Be Taken Back Once It Escapes Into The Open Air Of Consciousness; It Seemed To Me That This Was Not A Place You Go To Live. It Was A Place You Go To Die.

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 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

All Of Us, Poor & Rich Alike, Have Been Conditioned By Our Upbringings. Impoverished Men & Women May Become Lulled Into A State Of "learned Helplessness" Without Hope To Change Their Lives. Likewise, The Wealthy Can Walk In A State Of "learned Blindness" Ignoring The Desperation Of The Local & Global Poor.

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.

The Five Of Us Walking Confidently In A Row, I'd Never Felt Cooler. The Great Perhaps Was Upon Us, And We Were Invincible. The Plan May Have Had Faults, But We Did Not.

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.

Waffles Are Just Awesome Bread.

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

Videogame Players Essentially Choose Whether To Win The Game Or To Die Heroically. There's A Certain Glory In Both.

The Act Of Leaning In To Kiss Someone, Or Asking Them, Is Fraught With The Possibility Of Rejection, So The Person Least Likely To Get Rejected Should Do The Leaning In Or The Asking.

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.

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

I’ll Give You My Strength If I Can Have Your Remission.

We All Use The Future To Escape The Present.

Imagining The Future

We're Not Going To Break Anything. Don't Think Of It As Breaking In To Seaworld. Think Of It As Visiting Seaworld In The Middle Of The Night For Free.

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 Thought Being An Adult Meant Knowing What You Believe, But That Has Not Been My Experience.

You Live For Pretentious Metaphors.

The Colonel Led All The Cheers. Cornbread!" He Screamed. Chicken!" The Crowd Responded. Rice!" Peas!" And Then, All Together: "we Got Higher Sats." Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" The Colonel Cried. You'll Be Workin' For Us Someday!

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.

I Wasn't Disappointed. My Expectations Had Been Met.

How Are The Eyes?' 'oh, Excellent,' He Said. 'i Mean, They're Not In My Head Is The Only Problem.

I Always Wondered If There Was A Purpose To The Universe, If There Was A Plan, If There Was Some Sort Of Organizing Factor, Hopefully That I Played A Role In.

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

Our Fearlessness Shall Be Our Secret Weapon.

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.

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.

For Me, The Hero’s Journey Is Not The Voyage From Weakness To Strength. The True Hero’s Journey Is The Voyage From Strength To Weakness.

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.

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

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.

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

It Is The Nature Of Stars To Cross

I Do Love You And What Else Matters But That

I Really Think That Reading Is Just As Important As Writing When You're Trying To Be A Writer Because It's The Only Apprenticeship We Have, It's The Only Way Of Learning How To Write A Story.

Talking To A Drunk Person Was Like Talking To An Extremely Happy, Severely Brain-damaged Three-year-old.

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.)

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

Imagining Things

At Some Point We All Look Up And Realize We Are Lost In A Maze.

I Don't Really Want To Be The Costar Of Anyone's Life.

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It Just Goes To Show, If You Try To Ruin Someone's Life, It Only Gets Better. You Just Don't Get To Be A Part Of It.

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

Every Year, Many, Many Stupid People Graduate From College. And If They Can Do It, So Can You.

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.

If Drunk Were Cookies, I'd Be Famous Amos

I Am Crying, He Thought, Opening His Eyes To Stare Through The Soapy, Stinging Water. I Feel Like Crying, So I Must Be Crying, But It's Impossible To Tell Because I'm Underwater. But He Wasn't Crying. Curiously, He Felt Too Depressed To Cry. Too Hurt. It Felt As If She'd Taken The Part Of Him That Cried.

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

I Wondered Whether I Could Find A Great Perhaps Here At All Or Whether I Had Made A Grand Miscalculation.

Miscalculations

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.

Take A Picture Of This So Isaac Can See It When They Invent Robot Eyes.

It Was Not An Eventful Day. I Should Have Done Extraordinary Things. I Should Have Sucked The Marrow Out Of Life. But On That Day, I Slept Eighteen Hours Out Of A Possible Twenty-four.

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.

It Was Kind Of A Beautiful Day, Finally Real Summer In Indianapolis, Warm And Humid - The Kind Of Weather That Reminds You After A Long Winter That While The World Wasn't Built For Humans, We Were Built For The World.

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.

Don't Swear In The Literal Heart Of Jesus.

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.

Great News For Someone Is Always Bad News For Someone Else

Sexuality Is Important, But It's Certainly Not The Most Interesting Or Important Thing Happening To You Right Now. We Live In A World That Tells Us That There Are Only Two Important Things. One Is The Acquisition Of Goods And The Other Is Either The Acquisition Or Avoidance Of Sex, But It Turns Out That The Question Of Who's A Virgin And Who's A Virgout Is Not The Most Interesting Question.

Thank You For Wearing That Dress Which Is Like Whoa.

When Was The Last Good Kiss You Had?

Hazel Grace Lancaster

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

"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".

We Have This Habit Of Romanticizing The Lives Of Writers. I Remember When I Was A Kid, I Was Like, 'i Want To Be Kurt Vonnegut.'

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.

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

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.

I Smiled. She Smiled. I Believed The Smile.

Why Would You Try To Kill This Guy, Kevin? He's A Genius. Nuts To Your Truce.

You Will Go To The Paper Towns And Never Come Back.

It Is So Hard To Leave-until You Leave.

I Could Stand Up And Go To Her And Kiss Her. I Could. But There Is Still Too Much To Be Ruined.

She Would Stay On The Road And In Hiding, A Balloon Floating Through The Sky, Eating Up Hundreds Of Miles A Day With A Help Of The Perpetual Tailwind.

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

All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract.

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

I Was Blind And Heart Broken And Didn't Want To Do Anything And Gus Burst Into My Room And Shouted, "i Have Wonderful News!" And I Was Like, "i Don't Really Want To Hear Wonderful News Right Now," And Gus Said, "this Is Wonderful News You Want To Hear," And I Asked Him, "fine, What Is It?" And He Said, "you Are Going To Live A Good And Long Life Filled With Great And Terrible Moments That You Cannot Even Imagine Yet!

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.

You Can’t Divorce Margo The Person From Margo The Body. You Can’t See One Without Seeing The Other. You Looked At Margo’s Eyes And You Saw Both Their Blueness And Their Margo-ness. In The End, You Could Not Say That Margo Roth Spiegelman Was Fat, Or That She Was Skinny, Any More Than You Can Say That The Eiffel Tower Is Or Is Not Lonely. Margo’s Beauty Was A Kind Of Sealed Vessel Of Perfection – Uncracked And Uncrackable.

The Only Person I Really Wanted To Talk To About Augustus Water's Death With Was Augustus Waters.

Depression Is Not A Side Effect Of Cancer. Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying.

I Want To Minimize The Deaths I Am Responsible For.

She Is Close Enough To Me That I Can See Her, Because Even Now There Is The Outward Sign Of Visible Light, Even At Night In This Parking Lot On The Outskirts Of Algoe. After We Kiss, Our Foreheads Touch As We Stare At Each Other. Yes, I Can See Her Almost Perfectly In This Cracked Darkness.

And I Don’t Blame Him. I Don’t Even Trust Me.

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.

When You’re As Charming And Physically Attractive As Myself, It’s Easy Enough To Win Over People You Meet. But Getting Strangers To Love You...now, That’s The Trick.

Thomas Edison's Last Words Were 'it's Very Beautiful Over There'. I Don't Know Where There Is, But I Believe It's Somewhere, And I Hope It's Beautiful.

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

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

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.

I Believe In Hope, In What Is Something Called ”radical Hope.” I Believe There Is Hope For All Of Us, Even Amid The Suffering. And That’s Why I Write Fiction, Probaby. It’s My Attempt To Keep That Fragile Strand Of Radical Hope, To Buld A Fire In The Darkness.r

Are You Currently At Your House?" He Asked. "um, No," I Said. "that Was A Trick Question. I Knew The Answer, Because I Am Currently At Your House.

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

We Are Engaged Here In The Most Important Pusuit In History. The Search For Meaning. What Is What Is The Nature Of Being A Person? What Is The Best Way To Go About Being A Person?how Did We Come To Be, And Wha Will Become Of Us When We Are No Longer? In Short: What Are The Rules This Game, And How Might We Best Play It?

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

I Wish I Knew How To Quit You, Tumblr.

Whatever, Bro. We Both Had A Long Day. Too Much Drama. I'll Ttys." I Wanted To Ridicule Him For Using Chatspeak Irl, But I Found Myself Lacking The Energy.

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.

What's The Point In Being Alive If You Don't At Least Try To Do Something Remarkable? How Very Odd, To Believe God Gave You Life, And Yet Not Think That Life Asks More Of You Than Watching Tv.

I Wanted To Know That He Would Be Okay If I Died. I Wanted To Not Be A Grenade, To Not Be A Malevolent Force In The Lives Of People I Loved.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

So I Let Her Go, Too. And I'm Sorry.

My Parents Always Liked It When I Cursed In Front Of Them. I Could See The Pleasure Of It In Their Faces. It Signified That I Trusted Them, That I Was Myself In Front Of Them.

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

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

And So That Is The Question I Leave You With In This Final: What Is Your Cause For Hope?

Everlasting Life

So Zeno Is Most Famous For His Tortoise Paradox. Let Us Imagine That You Are In A Race With A Tortoise. The Tortoise Has A Ten-yard Head Start. In The Time It Takes You To Run That Ten Yards, The Tortoise Has Moved One Yard. And Then In The Time It Takes You To Make Up That Distance, The Tortoise Goes A Bit Farther, And So On Forever. You Are Faster Than The Tortoise But You Can Never Catch Him; You Can Only Decrease His Lead.

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