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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

-John Green

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The Whole Thing Was

John Green

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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

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I Don't Want To Hear Another Negative Word About Cheerleaders. If It Weren't For Cheerleaders, Who Would Tell Us When And How To Be Happy During Athletic Events? If It Weren't For Cheerleaders, How Would America's Prettiest Girls Get The Exercise That's So Vital To A Healthy Life?

But That Part Of Us Greater Than The Sum Of Our Parts Cannot Begin And Cannot End, And So It Cannot Fail

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.

Because You're My Friend, Wingnut.

The Challenge Is The Same Whether Or Not I'm Collaborating: To Empathize With Your Reader And To Tell A Story That Will Matter To Him Or Her. But The Mechanics Of Going About That Challenge Change When You're Collaborating, Because You Have Someone To Help Refine Your Thinking And Expand Your Vision Of What Might Happen.

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.

The Side Effects Of Dying In Your Pants Isn't Really Funny… Alright, It's A Little Funny.

Barnacles On The Container Ship Of Consciousness.

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.

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

History Doesn't Have A Curfew.

The Worse The Haircut, The Better The Man.

One Of The Pitfalls About Writing About Illness Is That It Is Very Easy To Imagine People With Cancer As Either These Wise-beyond-their-years Creatures Or These Sad-eyed Tragic People. And The Truth Is, People Living With Cancer Are Very Much Like People Who Are Not Living With Cancer. They're Every Bit As Funny And Complex And Diverse As Anyone Else.

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...

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.

Standing In Line Is A Form Of Oppression

Standing In Line

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.

Coal Miners Don't Get Coal Miners' Block.

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.

Falling In Love

But We Can't Know Better Until Knowing Better Is Useless.

The United States Congress, Like A Lot Of Rich People, Lives In Two Houses.

Nothing (at Least That Can Be Done By Humans) Immortalizes Anyone. The Fault In Our Stars Will Hopefully Have A Long And Wonderful Life, But It Will Eventually Go Out Of Print, And Eventually The Last Person Ever To Read It Will Die, And Then The Characters Will No Longer Live In Any Consciousness.also, That Is Okay. That Is Good, Actually. That Is How It Should Be. One Of The Things The Characters In This Novel Have To Grapple With Is The Reality Of Temporaryness. What Gus In Particular Must Reconcile Himself To Is That Being Temporary Does Not Mean Being Unimportant Or Meaningless.

You Cannot Invent An Algorithm That Is As Good At Recommending Books As A Good Bookseller, And That's The Secret Weapon Of The Bookstore - Is That No Algorithm Will Ever Understand Readers The Way That Other Readers Can Understand Readers.

I Realized That All My Life, My Values Were Based Upon Typical Middle-class American Values: Hard Work, Doing Good, Living Well, Owning Things, Following The Rules & Being The Best I Can Be... But God Clearly Says, "those Are Not My Values. I Value Justice, Mercy & Humility.

Nothing To Be Gained By Worrying Between Now And Then.

I Wanted More Time So We Could Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

I Hate The Idea That, When It Comes To Books And Learning, Hard Is Often Seen As The Opposite Of Fun. It's Strange To Me That We Should Be So Quick To Give Up On A Book Or A Math Problem When We Are So Willing To Grapple, For Centuries If Necessary, With A Single Level Of Angry Birds.

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!

There Comes A Time When We Realize That Our Parents Cannot Save Themselves Or Save Us, That Everyone Who Wades Through Time Eventually Gets Dragged Out To Sea By The Undertow- That, In Short, We Are All Going.

All The Characters Are Made Out Of Words. With Reading, I Understand That The People Aren't Real But The Fact That They Are Made Out Of Language And Are Made Out Of Words Is Extremely Powerful To Me. It Becomes Transformative For Me. Different People Have Different Ways Of Trying To Make Stories Using Language.

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.

My Stomach Sank. Jp Had Come So Close. His Immigrant Parents Had Sacrificed So Much.

Immigrant Parents

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

In The End The Listening Exposes You Even More Than It Exposes The People You're Trying To Listen To.

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

I Am Still Bowled Over By This Great Young Adult Novel By David Levithan Called 'every Day,' Which Is About A Character With No Gender Or Body Who Wakes Up Every Day In The Body Of A Different Person. It's A Really Impressive Execution Of A Really Great Premise.

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.

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.

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

I Don't See A Future Where We're All Taught By Robots. The Real Life, Physical Experience Of Being In A Classroom And Having Conversations With Knowledgeable People Is Immeasurably Valuable And Irreplaceable.

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.

A Paper Town For A Paper Girl.

I've Never Known Before What It Feels Like To Want Someone - Not To Want To Hook Up With Them Or Whatever, But To Want Them, To Want Them. And Now I Do. So Maybe I Do Believe In Epiphanies.

Is The Labyrinth Living Or Dying?

I Stood Under The Awning For A Moment, But Finally I Decided That Being In A Bad Mood With Your Friends Beats Being In A Bad Mood Without Them.

You Don't Get To Choose If You Get Hurt In This World...but You Do Have Some Say In Who Hurts You. I Like My Choices.

Do You Ever Wonder Whether People Would Like You More Or Less If They Could See Inside You?

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

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.

One Of The Reasons That Metaphor And Symbolism Are Important In Books Is Because They Are Also Important To Life. Like, For Example Say You're In High School And You're A Boy And You Say To A Girl: "do You Like Anyone Right Now?" - That's Not The Question You're Asking. The Question You're Asking Is, "do You Like Me Right Now."

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

She Didn’t Understand Why It Was Happening,” He Said. “i Had To Tell Her She Would Die. Her Social Worker Said I Had To Tell Her. I Had To Tell Her She Would Die, So I Told Her She Was Going To Heaven. She Asked If I Would Be There, And I Said That I Would Not, Not Yet. But Eventually, She Said, And I Promised That Yes, Of Course, Very Soon. And I Told Her That In The Meantime We Had Great Family Up There That Would Take Care Of Her. And She Asked Me When I Would Be There, And I Told Her Soon. Twenty-two Years Ago.

The Real Heroes Anyway Aren't The People Doing Things; The Real Heroes Are The People Noticing Things, Paying Attention.

I'm Not Saying It Was Your Fault. I'm Saying It Wasn't Nice.

Whether You're Studying Electrical Engineering Or Poetry, College Is Not About Maximizing Income, It's About Becoming A Better And More Informed Observer Of The Universe. And For Me, At Least, That What's Leads To A More Fulfilling Life.

Also, It Was A Bit Hopeless," He Said. "a Bit Defeatist." "if By Defeatist You Mean Honest, Then I Agree." "i Don't Think Defeatism Is Honest, " Dad Answered. "i Refuse To Accept That.

I Always Liked Routine. I Suppose I Never Found Boredom Very Boring. I Doubted I Could Explain It To Someone Like Margo But Drawing Circles Through Life Struck Me As A Kind Of Reasonable Insanity.

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 Would Always Love Alaska Young, My Crooked Neighbor, With All My Crooked Heart.

I'll Just Go Over To The Duke's," I Said. "her Parents Already Told Me I Could Stay There. I'll Go Over There And Open All My Presents, And Talk About How My Parents Neglect Me, And Then Maybe The Duke Will Give Me Some Of Her Presents Because She Feels So Bad About How My Mom Doesn't Love Me.

I Always Had This Idea That You Should Never Give Up A Happy Middle In The Hopes Of A Happy Ending, Because There Is No Such Thing As A Happy Ending. Do You Know What I Mean? There Is So Much To Lose.

Don't Lie To Anyone, But Particularly Don't Lie To Millennials. They Just Know. They Can Smell It. Be Yourself: If You're Old, Be Old. If You Don't Know Anything About Pop Culture, Don't Pretend To Know Anything About Pop Culture. When You Credit Teenagers With Intelligence And Emotional Sophistication, They Respond Intelligently And With Emotional Sophistication.

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

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

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.

To Find Margo Roth Spiegelman, You Must Become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I Had Done Many Of The Things She Might Have Done: I Had Engineered A Most Unlikely Prom Coupling. I Had Quieted The Hounds Of Caste Warfare. I Had Come To Feel Comfortable Inside The Rat-infested Haunted House Where She Did Her Best Thinking. I Had Seen. I Had Listened. But I Could Not Yet Become The Wounded Person.

Augustus Waters Died Eight Days After His Prefuneral, At Memorial, In The Icu, When The Cancer, Which Was Made Of Him, Finally Stopped His Heart, Which Was Also Made Of Him.

I Tried--i Swear I Tried. But You Didn't Want To Hear What I Was Saying, And I Used That As An Excuse To Let It Go On.

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

If You Don't Live A Life In Service Of A Greater Good, You've Gotta At Least Die A Death In Service Of A Greater Good, You Know? And I Fear That I Won't Get Either A Life Or A Death That Means Anything.

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

The Missing Piece In His Stomach Hurt So Much-and Eventually He Stopped Thinking About The Theorem And Wondered Only How Something That Isn't There Can Hurt You.

I'm At The Eye Doctor. I'm Always At The Eye Doctor. It's Like This Is My Profession. I Am No Longer A Writer, I'm Now An Optomoligical Patient. By The Way, This Job Doesn't Pay Well.

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

One Of The Jobs Of A Writer Is To Add Nuance And Ambiguity To That Straight Line That People Often Draw To Very Specific Kinds Of Heroism. Most Of Us Don't Get To Be Snooki. For Most Of Us Heroism Has To Be In Our Everyday Lives.

The Nature Of The Labyrinth, I Scribbled Into My Spiral Notebook, And The Way Out Of It. This Teacher Rocked. I Hated Discussion Classes. I Hated Talking, And I Hated Listening To Everyone Else Stumble On Their Words And Try To Phrase Things In The Vaguest Possible Way So They Wouldn't Sound Dumb, And I Hated How It Was All Just A Game Of Trying To Figure Out What The Teacher Wanted To Hear And Then Saying It. I'm In Class, So Teach Me.

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

People, I Thought, Wanted Security. They Couldn't Bear The Idea Of Death Being A Big Black Nothing, Couldn't Bear The Thought Of Their Loved Ones Not Existing, And Couldn't Even Imagine Themselves Not Existing. I Finally Decided That People Believed In An Afterlife Because They Couldn't Bear Not To.

The Book Was Turned To The Page With Anne Frank's Name, But What Got Me About It Was The Fact That Right Beneath Her Name There Were Four Aron Franks. Four. Four Aron Franks Without Museums, Without Historical Markers, Without Anyone To Mourn Them. I Silently Resolved To Remember And Pray For The Four Aron Franks As Long As I Was Around.

I Think About How Much Depends Upon A Best Friend. Then You Wake Up In The Morning You Swing Your Legs Out Of Bed And You Put Your Feet On The Ground And You Stand Up. You Don't Scoot To The Edge Of The Bed And Look Down To Make Sure The Floor Is There. The Floor Is Always There. Until It's Not.

We Do An Epically Bad Job Of Acknowledging One Another's Work And Checking Our Sources.

And I Don't Really Have Anyone Upon Whom I Want To Rain Down My Wrath," I Said, Because In Truth I Didn't. I Always Felt Like You Had To Be Important To Have Enemies. Example: Historically, Germany Has Had More Enemies Than Luxembourg, Margo Roth Spiegelman Was Germany. And Great Britain. And The United States. And Czarist Russia. Me, I'm Luxembourg. Just Sitting Around, Tending Sheep, And Yodeling.

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.

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

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

There's A Stark Difference Between The Words 'prodigy' And 'genius.' Prodigies Can Very Quickly Learn What Other People Have Already Figured Out; Geniuses Discover That Which No One Has Ever Previously Discovered. Prodigies Learn; Geniuses Do.

Facts, Even False Ones, Cannot Be Copyrighted.

Have You Really Read All Those Books In Your Room?” Alaska Laughing- “oh God No. I’ve Maybe Read A Third Of ‘em. But I’m Going To Read Them All. I Call It My Life’s Library. Every Summer Since I Was Little, I’ve Gone To Garage Sales And Bought All The Books That Looked Interesting. So I Always Have Something To Read.

What About The Rest Of Your Life?" She Shrugged. "what About It?" "aren't You Worried About, Like, Forever?" "forever Is Composed Of Nows," She Says.

Rest Of Your Life

Like Everyone, I'm Saddened And Horrified By This. All I'll Say Is That I'm Personally Trying To Pay More Attention To The Victims Than To Their Murderer. I Certainly Will Not Be Mentioning The Murderer. I Don't Think He Warrants Our Attention-particularly Since He So Clearly Wanted It.

You May Choose Your Song, But Know This: Tiny. Cooper. Hates. Over. The. Rainbow.

We Are All Going, I Thought, And It Applies To Turtles And Turtlenecks, Alaska The Girl And Alaska The Place, Because Nothing Can Last, Not Even The Earth Itself. The Buddha Said That Suffering Was Caused By Desire, We'd Learned, And That The Cessation Of Desire Meant The Cessation Of Suffering. When You Stopped Wishing Things Wouldn't Fall Apart, You'd Stop Suffering When They Did.

You Matter As Much As The Things That Matter To You. And I Got So Backwards Trying To Matter To Him. All This Time, There Were Real Things To Care About: Real, Good People Who Care About Me, And This Place. 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.

Everywhere Man Blames Nature And Fate, Yet His Fate Is Mostly But The Echo Of His Character, And Passions, His Mistakes, And Weaknesses."--democritus An Abundance Of Katherines---john Green

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 Just Want You To Be Happy. If That’s With Me Or With Someone Else Or With Nobody. I Just Want You To Be Happy.

They Were Angry, I Thought. Horrified. These Teenagers, With Their Hormones, Making Out Beneath A Video Broadcasting The Shattered Voice Of A Former Father.

On The Morning In Question, She Wore White Shorts And A Pink T-shirt That Featured A Green Dragon Breathing A Fire Of Orange Glitter. It Is Difficult To Explain How Awesome I Found This T-shirt At The Time.

Above Us, The Wind Blew And The Branching Shadows Rearranged Themselves On Our Skin. Gus Squeezed My Hand. "it Is A Good Life, Hazel Grace.

Poetry Is Just So Emo." He Said. "oh, The Pain. The Pain. It Always Rains. In My Soul.

Lacey Shrugged Bashfully. “do You Think I’m Superficial?” “well, Yeah.” I Thought Of Myself Standing Outside Becca’s Bedroom, Hoping She’d Take Her Shirt Off. “but So Am I,” I Added. “so Is Everyone.

I Think Forever Is An Incorrect Concept.

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.

Beware Of That Monster Called 'self-loathing'.

We Must Strike Down The Insidious Lie That A Book Is The Creation Of An Individual Soul Labouring In Isolation. We Must Strike It Down Because It Threatens The Overall Quality And Breadth Of American Literature.

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

A Novel Is A Conversation Between A Reader And A Writer.

The Nature Of Impending Fatherhood Is That You Are Doing Something That You're Unqualified To Do, And Then You Become Qualified While Doing It.

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

A Desert Blessing, An Ocean Curse.

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.

Augustus Waters," I Said, Looking Up At Him, Thinking That You Cannot Kiss Anyone In The Anne Frank House, And Then Thinking That Anne Frank, After All, Kissed Someone In The Anne Frank House, And That She Would Probably Like Nothing More Than For Her Home To Have Become A Place Where The Young And Irreparably Broken Sink Into Love.

This Is Unbearable ... God. These Books She'll Never Read. Her Life's Library.

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

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

The Risen Sun Too Bright In Her Losing Eyes.

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

Nerdighters Make Me Believe In America Again.

You And Me Will Read A Book And Find Three Interesting Things That We Remember. But Colin Finds Everything Intriguing. He Reads A Book About Presidents And He Remembers More Of It Because Everything He Reads Clicks In His Head As Fugging Interesting.

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

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.

Language Buries, But Does Not Resurrect.

If I Had Cared About Her As I Should Have, As I Thought I Did, How Could I Have Let Her Go?

Just Remember That Sometimes, The Way You Think About A Person Isn't The Way They Actually Are... People Are Different When You Can Smell Them And See Them Up Close.

Do You Ever Wonder Whether People Would Like You More Or Less If They Could See Inside You? But I Always Wonder About That. If People Could See Me The Way I See Myself—if They Could Live In My Memories—would Anyone, Anyone, Love Me?

Reading A Good Book Helps Us To Feel Un-alone.

The Rules Of Capitalization Are So Unfair To Words In The Middle Of A Sentence.

People Will Say It's Sad That She Leaves A Lesser Scar, That Fewer Remember Her, That She Was Loved Deeply But Not Widely. But It's Not Sad, Van Houten. It's Triumphant. It's Heroic. Isn't That The Real Heroism? Like The Doctors Say: First, Do No Harm.

I Was So Frustrated With Him. "i Just Want To Be Enough For You, But I Never Can Be. This Can Never Be Enough For You. But This Is All You Get. You Get Me, And Your Family, And This World. This Is Your Life. I'm Sorry If It Sucks. But You're Not Going To Be The First Man On Mars, And You're Not Going To Be An Nba Star, And You're Not Going To Hunt Nazis.

And Even Though He Felt Pitiful And Ridiculous, He Didn't Want It To End, Because He Knew The Absence Of Her Would Hurt More Than Any Breakup Ever Could.

Augustus," I Said. "really. You Don't Have To Do This." "sure I Do," He Said. "i Found My Wish." "god, You're The Best," I Told Him. "i Bet You Say That To All The Boys Who Finance Your International Travel," He Answered.

Tuesday—we Had School For The First Time. Madame O’malley Had A Moment Of Silence At The Beginning Of French Class, A Class That Was Always Punctuated With Long Moments Of Silence, And Then Asked Us How We Were Feeling. “awful,” A Girl Said. “en Français,” Madame O’malley Replied. “en Français.

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.

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.

That Was Part Of Her, And You Used To Know It. It's Like Now You Only Care About The Alaska You Made Up.

I Call My Mom From The Car. I Tell Her That Neutral Milk Hotel Is Playing At The Hideout And She Says, "who? What? You're Hiding Out?" And Then I Hum A Few Bars Of One Of Their Songs And Mom Says, "oh, I Know That Song. It's On The Mix You Made Me," And I Say, "right," And She Says, "well You Have To Be Back By Eleven," And I Say, "mom This Is A Historical Event. History Doesn't Have A Curfew," And She Says, "back By Eleven," And I Say, "fine. Jesus," And Then She Has To Go Cut Cancer Out Of Someone.

There Is No Best And No Worst, ...those Judgments Have No Real Meaning Because There Is Only What Is

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.

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.

Teenagers Have More Intense Reading Experiences Because They've Had Fewer Of Them. It's Like The First Time You Fall In Love. You Have A Connection To That First Person You Fell In Love With Because It Was So Intense And Unprecedented.

Falling In Love

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.

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

I Even Tried To Tell Myself To Live My Best Life Today.

There Is No Try. There Is Only Do.

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

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

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

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.

And Imagining That Future Keeps You Going, But You Never Do It. You Just Use The Future To Escape The Present.

Imagining The Future

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

Every Paper Girl Needs At Least One String.

Alaska Decided To Go Help Dolores With Dinner. She Said That It Was Sexist To Leave The Cooking To The Women, But Better To Have Good Sexist Food Than Crappy Boy-prepared Food.

I Believe In That Line From An Imperial Affliction. 'the Risen Sun Too Bright In Her Losing Eyes.' That's God, I Think, The Rising Sun, And The Light Is Too Bright And Her Eyes Are Losing But They Aren't Lost.

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

You Cannot Invent An Algorithm That Is As Good At Recommending Books As A Good Bookseller.

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.

Hey Pudge," The Colonel Said. "what Do You Think Of A Truce?" "it Reminds Me Of When The Germans Demanded That The U.s. Surrender At The Battle Of The Bulge," I Said. "i Guess I'd Say To This Truce Offer What General Mcauliffe Said To That One: Nuts.

Interesting Capitalization,' I Said. 'yeah. I'm A Big Believer In Random Capitalization. The Rules Of Capitalization Are So Unfair To Words In The Middle.

Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

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

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.

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.

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.

My Lungs Sucked At Being Lungs.

Nostalgia Is Inevitably A Yearning For A Past That Never Existed And When I'm Writing, There Are No Bees To Sting Me Out Of My Sentimentality. For Me At Least, Fiction Is The Only Way I Can Even Begin To Twist My Lying Memories Into Something True.

I'd Had Nearly Four Years Of Experience Looking At These Clocks, But Their Sluggishness Never Ceased To Surprise. If I Am Ever Told That I Have One Day To Live, I Will Head Straight To The Hallowed Halls Of Winter Park High School, Where A Day Has Been Known To Last A Thousand Years.

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

...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.

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.

Great News For Someone Is Always Bad News For Someone Else

There Is Always The Risk: Something Is Good And Good And Good And Good, And Then All At Once It Gets Awkward. All At Once, She Sees You Looking At Her, And Then She Doesn't Want To Joke Around With You Anymore, Because She Doesn't Want To Seem Flirty, Because She Doesn't Want You To Think She Likes You. It's Such A Disaster, Whenever, In The Course Of Human Relationships, Someone Begins To Chisel Away At The Wall Of Separation Between Friendship And Kissing.

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.

I Am In The Midst Of A Soliloquy! I Wrote This Out And Memorized It And If You Interrupt Me I Will Completely Screw It Up,' Augustus Interrupted. 'please To Be Eating Your Sandwich And Listening.

Destiny Is Not Something That Happens All At Once-it's Something That Happens Only In Retrospect.

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

That's Who You Really Like. The People You Can Think Out Loud In Front Of.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

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 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.

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

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." ..." ..." ...".

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

My Thoughts Are Starts I Can't Fathom Into Constellations.

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?

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

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.

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

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

Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities.

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

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.

She Has Great Breasts," The Colonel Said Without Looking Up From The Whale. "do Not Objectify Women's Bodies!" Alaska Shouted. Now He Looked Up. "sorry. Perky Breasts." "that's Not Any Better!

This One's For Alaska Young!

I Felt Tired For The First Time, And I Thought Of Us Lying Down On Some Grassy Patch Of Seaworld Together, Me On My Back And She On Her Side With Her Arm Draped Against Me, Her Head On My Shoulder, Facing Me. Not Doing Anything--just Lying There Together Beneath The Sky, The Night Here So Well Lit That It Drowns Out The Stars. And Maybe I Could Feel Her Breathe Against My Neck, And Maybe We Could Just Stay There Until Morning And Then The People Would Walk Past Us As They Came Into The Park, And They Would See Us And Think That We Were Tourists, Too, And We Could Just Disappear Into Them.

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.

What Is An "instant" Death Anyway? How Long Is An Instant? Is It One Second? Ten? The Pain Of Those Seconds Must Have Been Awful As Her Heart Burst And Her Lungs Collapsed And There Was No Air And No Blood To Her Brain And Only Raw Panic. What The Hell Is Instant? Nothing Is Instant. Instant Rice Takes Five Minutes, Instant Pudding An Hour. I Doubt That An Instant Of Blinding Pain Feels Particularly Instantaneous.

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