Background Image

...

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.

-John Green

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The World Is Broken,

John Green

...

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.

Views: 9

Topic

More From John Green

All Salvation Is Temporary," Augustus Shot Back. "i Bought Them A Minute. Maybe That's The Minute That Buys Them An Hour, Which Is The Hour That Buys Them A Year. No One's Gonna Buy Them Forever, Hazel Grace, But My Life Bought Them A Minute. And That's Not Nothing.

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

Before Any Of It Could Make Sense, It Had To Be Heard.

Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?

I Know It's Impossible For You To See Your Peers This Way, But When You're Older, You Start To See Them--the Bad Kids And The Good Kids And All Kids--as People. They're Just People, Who Deserve To Be Cared For.

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

I Like This World. I Like Drinking Champagne. I Like Not Smoking. I Like Dutch People Speaking Dutch.

Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

"you Are Fairly Smart," I Said After A While. "you Are Fairly Good At Compliments," He Answered.

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

The Labyrinth Blows, But I Choose It.

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.

Half-drunk On Well-creamed Gas Station Coffee And The Exhilarating Loneliness Of A Freeway In Nighttime.

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.

All Hurt Is Brain Hurt.

Maybe There Is Something You're Afraid To Say, Or Someone You're Afraid To Love, Or Somewhere You're Afraid To Go. It's Gonna Hurt. It's Gonna Hurt Because It Matters.

Need Is Never A Good Basis For Any Relationship.

You Know, Like When You Look In The Mirror And The Thing You See Is Not The Thing As It Really Is.

We Are Greater Than The Sum Of Our Parts.

If I Could Just Stay Alive For A Week, I’d Know The Unwritten Secrets Of Anna’s Mom And The Dutch Tulip Guy.

Failing To Grapple With Complexity Actually Turns Out To Be A Pretty Bad Life Strategy.

We Kiss. Her Hands Are Freezing On My Face, And She Tastes Like Coffee And The Smell Of The Onion Is Still Stuck In My Nose, And My Lips Are All Dry From The Endless Winter. And It's Awesome.

Memories Fall Apart Too.

March 4th, The Only Day That Is Also A Sentence

We Were Just Looking At Ideas Of Each Other.

No Matter How Hard You Kick, No Matter How High You Get, You Can't Go All The Way Around.

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

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.

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

I'm A Good Person But A Shitty Writer. You're A Shitty Person But A Good Writer. We'd Make A Good Team.

Tonight, Darling, We Are Going To Right A Lot Of Wrongs. And We Are Going To Wrong Some Rights. The First Shall Be Last; The Last Shall Be First; The Meek Shall Do Some Earth-inheriting. But Before We Can Radically Reshape The World, We Need To Shop.

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

This Was What I Liked Most About My Friends: Just Sitting Around & Telling Stories.

Caroline Is No Longer Sufffering From Personhood.

Not That Smart. Not That Hot. Not That Nice. Not That Funny. That's Me: I'm Not That.

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

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

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.

...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.

You Spend Your Whole Life Stuck In The Labyrinth.

Imagining The Future

The Marks Humans Leave Are Too Often Scars. You Build A Hideous Minimall Or Start A Coup Or Try To Become A Rock Star And You'll Think "they'll Remember Me Now," But (a) They Don't Remember You, And (b) All You Leave Behind Are More Scars. Your Coup Becomes A Dictatorship. Your Minimall Becomes A Lesion.

What The Hell Is Instant? Nothing Is Instant.

Feeling - Probably For The First Time In My Life - The Fear And Excitement Of Living In A Place Where You Never Know What's Going To Happen Or When.

Still, What Could I Say? That I Didn't Just Feel Depressed - Instead, It Was Like The Depression Was The Core Of Me, Of Every Part Of Me, From My Mind To My Bones? That If He Got Blue, I Got Black? That I Hated Those Pills So Much, Because I Knew How Much I Relied On Them To Live?

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.

Incidentally, Did You Know That The Whole Eight Glasses A Day Thing Is Complete Bullshit And Has No Scientific Basis? So Many Things Are Like That. Everyone Just Assumes They're True, Because People Are Basically Lazy And Incurious, Which Incidentally Is One Of Those Words That Sounds Like It Wouldn't Be A Word But Is.

You Were Clearly Not Doing Your Part In The Clover Search, Perv.

She Was Nothing But Good And I Was Nothing But Bad, But Then She Died, And I Didn't.

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

I Think It's Crazy, Crazy That Book Tours Lose So Much Money. They Shouldn't. Book Tours Should Be Part Of What Keeps Independent Bookstores Vibrant And Profitable.

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.

Suffering Can Bend & Break Us. But It Can Also Break Us Open To Become The Persons God Intended Us To Be. It Depends On What We Do With The Pain. If We Offer It Back To God, He Will Use It To Do Great Things In Us & Through Us, Because Suffering Is Fertile... It An Grow New Life.

That's The Mystery, Isn't It? Is The Labyrinth Living Or Dying? Which Is He Trying To Escape---the World Or The End Of It?

I Choose The Labyrinth.

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.

And, Since They Are Theater People, They Are All Talking. All Of Them. Simultaneously. They Do Not Need To Be Heard; They Only Need To Be Speaking.

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

I Smiled. She Smiled. I Believed The Smile.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Muhammad Brought The Promise That Anyone Could Find Fulfillment And Everlasting Life Through Allegiance To The One True God. The Buddah Held Out Hope That The Suffering Could Be Transcended. Jesus Brought The Message That Even The Last Shall Be First, That Even The Tax Collectors And Lepers - The Outcasts - Had Cause For Hope. And So That Is The Question I Leave You With In This Final: What Is Your Cause For Hope.

What Happens In The Band Room Stays In The Band Room.

I Didn't Know Whether To Trust Alaska, And I'd Certainly Had Enough Of Her Unpredictability - Cold One Day, Sweet The Next; Irresistibly Flirty One Moment, Resistibly Obnoxious The Next. I Preferred The Colonel: At Least When He Was Cranky, He Had A Reason.

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

I'm Interested In Internet Cultures. I'm Interested In What The Teenagers Who Drive The Internet Culture Are Passionate About. I Follow Their Lead - They Go To Tumblr, I Go To Tumblr.

Television Is A Passivity.

Daddy Is Trying Really Fugging Hard To Think Of A Not-terrifying Reason Why You'd Wake Daddy Up In The Middle Of The Night To Ask That Fugging Question. But No. No. Daddy Does Not Have A Match Or A Lighter.

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

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

It Is So Hard To Leave—until You Leave. And Then It Is The Easiest Goddamned Thing In The World.

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

Dad Had A Sign Of His Own. My Beautiful Family, It Read, And Then Underneath That (and Gus).

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

And As We Kept Driving North, The Whole Family In The Care Together, It Got Darker, And Snowier, Until Finally The Road Delivered Us To The One Place That All My Youthful Trips West Never Could: Home.

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

Maybe Life Is Not About Accomplishing Some Bullshit Markers.

We Were Very Different, And We Disagreed About A Lot Of Things, But He Was Always So Interesting, You Know?

Once You Think A Thought, It Is Extremely Difficult To Unthink It.

Because You're My Friend, Wingnut.

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.

We All Use The Future To Escape The Present.

Imagining The Future

You Like Someone Who Can't Like You Back Because Unrequited Love Can Be Survived In A Way That Once-requited Love Cannot.

Unrequited Love

It's Nice To Have People Who Will Feel Guilty For You.

‎"i Go To Seek A Great Perhaps.

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

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

He Took A Bite, Swallowed. "god. If Asparagus Tasted Like That All The Time, I'd Be Vegetarian, Too." Some People In A Lacquered Wooden Boat Approached Us On The Canal Below. One Of Them, A Woman With Curly Blond Hair, Maybe Thirty, Drank From A Beer Then Raised Her Glass Towards Us And Shouted Something. "we Don't Speak Dutch," Gus Shouted Back. One Of The Others Shouted A Translation: "the Beautiful Couple Is Beautiful.

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.

I Kept It For Myself Like A Keepsake, As If Sharing The Memory Might Lead To Its Dissipation.

According To The Conventions Of The Genre, Augustus Waters Kept His Sense Of Humor Till The End, Did Not For A Moment Waiver In His Courage, And His Spirit Soared Like An Indomitable Eagle Until The World Itself Could Not Contain His Joyous Soul.

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

The Joy You Bring Us Is So Much Greater Than The Sadness We Feel About Your Illness.

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.

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.

It Doesn’t Matter How Long We’ve Used Something; All That Matters Is How Awesome The Thing Replacing It Is. Mp3s And Automobiles Happen To Be Really, Really Awesome, Whereas Ebooks—at Least So Far—are Fairly Limited In Their Awesomeness.

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

Finally, I Decided That The Proper Strategy Was To Stare Back. Boys Do Not Have A Monopoly On The Staring Business, After All. So I Looked Him Over And Soon It Was A Staring Contest. After A While The Boy Smiled, And Then Finally His Blue Eyes Glanced Away. When He Looked Back At Me, I Flicked My Eyebrows Up To Say, I Win. He Shrugged

A Drink This Good Deserves One's Best Posture.

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.

Why Is It Upset? Shouldn't It Be Downset?

My Interest As A Writer Is Not In Reflecting Actual Human Speech, Which, Of Course, Does Not Occur In Sentences And Is Totally Undiagrammable. My Interest Is In Trying To Reflect The Reality Of Experience - How We Feel When We Talk To Each Other, How We Feel When We're Engaging With Questions That Interest Us.

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.

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

People Thought He Was A Glutton For Punishment, That He Liked Getting Dumped. But It Wasn't Like That. He Could Just Never See Anything Coming, And As He Lay On The Solid, Uneven Ground With Hassan Pressing Too Hard On His Forehead, Colin Singleton's Distance From His Glasses Made Him Realize The Problem: Myopia. He Was Nearsighted. The Future Lay Before Him, Inevitable But Invisible.

We Fell. We Got Up. We Ran.

You Know How We Make A Scotch And Water In This Home?" "no, Sir," Gus Said. "we Pour Scotch Into A Glass And Then Call To Mind Thoughts Of Water, And Then We Mix The Actual Scotch With The Abstracted Idea Of Water.

It Seems To Me That All The Things We Keep In Sealed Boxes Are Both Alive And Dead Until We Open The Box, That The Unobserved Is Both There And Not.

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

We Landed, In Fact, Parallel To A Canal, Like There Were Two Runways: One For Us And One For Waterfowl.

You May Be Smart, But I've Been Smart Longer.

The Miracle And Hope Of Human Consciousness Is That We Can Still Conceive Of Boundlessness.

There's No Way Of Knowing That Your Last Good Day Is Your Last Good Day. At The Time, It Is Just Another Good Day.

To Be Abandoned Like That! Shut Out When You Most Need To Be Loved.

When Did We See Each Other Face-to-face? Not Until You Saw Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours. Before That, We Were Just Looking At Ideas Of Each Other, Like Looking At Your Window Shade But Never Seeing Inside. But Once The Vessel Cracks, The Light Can Get In. The Light Can Get Out.

Shame About How We’re Gonna Die Here, Though. I Mean, Seriously. An Arab And A Half-jew Enter A Store In Tennessee. It’s The Beginning Of A Joke, And The Punch Line Is “sodomy’’.

All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract.

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.

We Live In A Universe Devoted To The Creation, And Eradication, Of Awareness. Augustus Waters Did Not Die After A Lengthy Battle With Cancer. He Died After A Lengthy Battle With Human Consciousness, A Victim - As You Will Be - Of The Universe's Need To Make And Unmake All That Is Possible.

...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.

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.

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

I Dislike The Phrase ‘internet Friends,’ Because It Implies That People You Know Online Aren’t Really Your Friends, That Somehow The Friendship Is Less Real Or Meaningful To You Because It Happens Through Skype Or Text Messages. The Measure Of A Friendship Is Not Its Physicality But Its Significance.

Her Underwear, Her Jeans, The Comforter, My Corduroys And My Boxers Between Us, I Thought. Five Layers, And Yet I Felt It, The Nervous Warmth Of Touching – A Pale Reflection Of The Fireworks Of One Mouth On Another, But A Reflection Nonetheless. And In The Almostness Of The Moment, I Cared At Least Enough. I Wasn’t Sure Whether I Liked Her, And Doubted Whether I Could Trust Her, But I Cared At Least Enough To Try To Find Out. Her On My Bed, Wide Green Eyes Staring Down At Me. The Enduring Mystery Of Her Sly, Almost Smirking, Smile. Five Layers Between Us.

Thank You," I Say, Pounding His Back Probably Too Hard. "that Was The Best Damned Passenger-seat Driving I've Ever Seen In My Life." He Pats My Uninjured Cheek With His Greasy Hand. "i Did It To Save Myself, Not You," He Says. "believe Me When I Say That You Did Not Once Cross My Mind. " I Laugh. "nor You Mine," I Say.

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

I Believe The Universe Wants To Be Noticed. I Think The Universe Is Inprobably Biased Toward The Consciousness, That It Rewards Intelligence In Part Because The Universe Enjoys Its Elegance Being Observed. And Who Am I, Living In The Middle Of History, To Tell The Universe That It-or My Observation Of It-is Temporary?

You're Not Boring. You've Got To Stop Saying That, Or People Will Start Believing You.

She's Cute, I Thought, But You Don't Need To Like A Girl Who Treats You Like You're Ten: You've Already Got A Mom.

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.

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

We'd Failed, Maybe, But Some Mysteries Aren't Meant To Be Solved.

He Lit A Cigarette And Handed It To Me. I Inhaled. Coughed. Wheezed. Gasped For Breath. Coughed Again. Considered Vomiting. Grabbed The Swinging Bench, Head Spinning, And Threw The Cigarette To The Ground And Stomped On It, Convinced My Great Perhaps Did Not Involve Cigarettes.

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.

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

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

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

The Ideas Of Directing Attention Outward, Trying To Imagine Other People Complexly, Trying Not To See Myself As The Center Of The Universe - These Concepts Have Become Important To Me, And I Hope They're At Work In My Life On A Minute-by-minute Basis.

“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.”

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Hurt, And That Is Not A Euphemism. It Hurt Like A Beating.

Who Would You Die For? Who Would You Wake Up At Five Forty-five In The Morning For Even Though You Don't Even Know Why He Needs You?

Colin's Skin Was Alive With The Feeling Of Connection To Everyone In That Car And Everyone Not In It. And He Was Feeling Not-unique In The Very Best Possible Way.

It Is A Good Life, Hazel Grace.

One Of Those Moments He Knew He'd Remember And Look Back On, One Of Those Moments That He'd Try To Capture In The Stories He Told. Nothing Was Happening, Really, But The Moment Was Thick With Mattering.

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.

I Found Myself Thinking About President William Mckinley, The Third American President To Be Assassinated. He Lived For Several Days After He Was Shot, And Towards The End, His Wife Started Crying And Screaming, "i Want To Go Too! I Want To Go Too!" And With His Last Measure Of Strength, Mckinley Turned To Her And Spoke His Last Words: "we Are All Going.

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.

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.

Our Fearlessness Shall Be Our Secret Weapon.

That's Absolutely True, About The Eight Glasses A Day. There's No Reason Whatsoever To Drink Eight Glasses Of Water A Day Unless You, For Whatever Reason, Particularly Like The Taste Of Water. Most Experts Agree That Unless There's Something Horribly Wrong With You, You Should Just Drink Water Whenever You're - Get This - Thirsty.

Teenagers Are Extremely Funny, And Extremely Clever And Intellectually Curious. But They're Also Willing To Ask Questions About The Meaning Of Life Without Disguising Them Around Irony, And Ask Questions About What Are Our Responsibilities To Other People Without Having To Couch It In Irony.

You Don't Remember What Happened. What You Remember Becomes What Happened.

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

So How’s It Going?” “okay. Glad To Be Home, I Guess. Gus Told Me You Were In The Icu?” “yeah,” I Said. “sucks,” He Said. “i’m A Lot Better Now,” I Said. “i’m Going To Amsterdam Tomorrow With Gus.” “i Know. I’m Pretty Well Up-to-date On Your Life, Because Gus Never. Talks. About. Anything. Else.

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

Did I Help You To A Fate You Didn't Want?

He Liked The Idea Of Coffee Quite A Lot—a Warm Drink That Gave You Energy And Had Been For Centuries Associated With Sophisticates And Intellectuals. But Coffee Itself Tasted To Him Like Caffeinated Stomach Bile.

Do You Guys Remember That Time When We Were All Definitely Going To Die And Then Ben Grabbed The Steering Wheel And Dodged A Ginormous Freaking Cow And Spun The Car Like The Teacups At Disney World And We Didn't Die?

A Paper Town For A Paper Girl.

We Have This Weird Thing In The World Where You Don't Get Insulted For What You Do, You Get Insulted For Who You Are.

I Was Born Into Bolívar's Labyrinth, And So I Must Believe In The Hope Of Rabelais' Great Perhaps.

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.

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

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've Gotten Really Hot Since You Went Blind.

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

I Couldn't Hear A Thing In The World But You. And It Was So Cold Then, And So Silent, And I Loved You So Much. Now It's Hot And Dead Quiet Again, And I Love You Still.

And Yes, Again, That Was It Exactly. A Retyper And Not A Writer. A Prodigy And Not A Genius.

Colin Singleton

The Good Times And The Bad Times Both Will Pass. It Will Pass. It Will Get Easier. But The Fact That It Will Get Easier Does Not Mean That It Doesn’t Hurt Now. And When People Try To Minimize Your Pain They Are Doing You A Disservice. And When You Try To Minimize Your Own Pain You’re Doing Yourself A Disservice. Don’t Do That. The Truth Is That It Hurts Because It’s Real. It Hurts Because It Mattered. And That’s An Important Thing To Acknowledge To Yourself. But That Doesn’t Mean That It Won’t End, That It Won’t Get Better. Because It Will.

Books So Special And Rare And Yours That Advertising Your Affection Feels Like A Betrayal.

The Truth Is That In Our Lives We Are All Going To Encounter Questions That Should Be Answered, That Deserve To Be Answered, And Yet Prove Unanswerable.

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.

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

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

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.

I Was Surprised. I'd Always Associated Belief In Heaven With, Frankly, A Kind Of Intellectual Disengagement. But Gus Wasn't Dumb.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

Thank You For Explaining That My Eye Cancer Isn't Going To Make Me Deaf. I Feel So Fortunate That An Intellectual Giant Like Yourself Would Deign To Operate On Me.

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

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.

He Loved The Scratching Of Pencil Against Paper When He Was Focused: It Meant Something Was Happening.

When You Say Nasty Things About People, You Should Never Say The True Ones, Because You Can't Really Fully And Honestly Take Those Back.

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

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!

Dear Jane, Just So You Know: E. E. Cummings Cheated On Both Of His Wives. With Prostitutes. Yours, Will Grayson

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

Meriwether Lewis's Last Words Were, 'i Am Not A Coward, But I Am So Strong. So Hard To Die.' I Don't Doubt That It Is, But It Cannot Be Much Harder Than Being Left Behind.

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

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

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.

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

Sometimes You Lose A Battle. But Mischief Always Wins The War

When It Comes To Girls (and In Colin's Case, It So Often Did), Everyone Has A Type. Colin Singleton's Type Was Not Physical But Linguistic: He Liked Katherines. And Not Katies Or Kats Or Kitties Or Cathys Or Rynns Or Trinas Or Kays Or Kates Or, God Forbid, Catherines. K-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e. He Had Dated 19 Girls. All Of Them Had Been Named Katherine. And All Of Them- Every Single Solitary One- Had Dumped Him.

Trending Author

Lady Bird Johnson

Kimora Lee Simmons

Sherri Shepherd

Thomas Cochrane

Category