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The Z’s Will Kill Us All, And Then The Z’s Will Die Out And In Sixty Years There Will Be No One To Remember Our Silly War, Caroline’s Wasted Ammunition, My Year Of Zombic Survivalism, Rene Descartes’s Musings, Or Michelangelo’s Sculptures. And That Is Really Only The Sadness Here As I Drink A Thousand-dollar Bottle Of Wine Down Here In The Cellar: We Did A Few Things Worth Remembering, And I Wish For Someone To Remember Them.

-John Green

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The Z’s Will Kill

John Green

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The Z’s Will Kill Us All, And Then The Z’s Will Die Out And In Sixty Years There Will Be No One To Remember Our Silly War, Caroline’s Wasted Ammunition, My Year Of Zombic Survivalism, Rene Descartes’s Musings, Or Michelangelo’s Sculptures. And That Is Really Only The Sadness Here As I Drink A Thousand-dollar Bottle Of Wine Down Here In The Cellar: We Did A Few Things Worth Remembering, And I Wish For Someone To Remember Them.

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All Along — Not Only Since She Left, But For A Decade Before — I Had Been Imagining Her Without Listening, Without Knowing That She Made As A Poor A Window As I Did. And So I Could Not Imagine Her As A Person Who Could Feel Fear, Who Could Feel Isolated In A Roomful Of People, Who Could Be Shy About Her Record Collection Because It Was Too Personal To Share. Someone Who Might Have Read Travel Books To Escape Having To Live In The Town That So Many People Escape To. Someone Who — Because No One Thought She Was A Person — Had No One To Really Talk To.

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To Be Human Is To Catch The Falling Person.

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I Nodded. 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. I Liked That He Was A Tenured Professor In The Department Of Slightly Crooked Smiles With A Dual Appointment In The Department Of Having A Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I Liked That He Had Two Names. I’ve Always Liked People With Two Names, Because You Get To Make Up Your Mind What You Call Them: Gus Or Augustus? Me, I Was Always Just Hazel, Univalent Hazel.

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I Finally Found Something That Can Stop The Fox. The Fox Cannot Summit Strawberry Hill.” - Takumi

Every Time I Try To Set Something In Chicago, I Get Intimidated By 'augie March.' It's Easy To Set Something In Indianapolis - We Don't Have 'augie March' Here. But I Love Writing About Chicago, And I Love Being There And Imagining Lives In Chicago. I Hope To Set Something There In The Future, But It's Intimidating.

Neither Novels Or Their Readers Benefit From Any Attempts To Divine Whether Any Facts Hide Inside A Story. Such Efforts Attack The Very Idea That Made-up Stories Can Matter, Which Is Sort Of The Foundational Assumption Of Our Species.

Made Up Stories

Nerdighters Make Me Believe In America Again.

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They Couldn't Bear The Idea Of Death Being A Big Black Nothing.

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

Falling In Love

You Are Going To Live A Good And Long Life Filled With Great And Terrible Moments That You Cannot Even Imagine Yet.

Life Has Become The Future.

At Least It Was Instant. At Least There Wasn't Any Pain." I Knew He Was Only Trying To Help, But He Didn't Get It. There Was Pain. A Dul Endless Pain In My Gut That Wouldn't Go Away Even When I Knelt On The Stingingly Frozen Tile Of The Bathroom, Dry-heaving.

If You Don't Say The Honest Thing, It Never Becomes True.

He May Be A Malevolent Sorcerer, But Tiny Cooper Is His Own Goddamned Man, And If He Wants To Be A Gigantic Skipper, Then That's His Right As A Huge American.

I Went On Spouting Bullshit Encouragements As Gus's Parents, Arm In Arm, Hugged Each Other And Nodded At Every Word. Funerals, I Had Decided, Are For The Living.

No, I Don’t Think You’re Gonna Be Single Forever, And Also I Don’t Understand Your Obsession With Romantic Love. There Are Other Ways To Have Fulfilling Relationships That Can Sustain You And Make Your Life Great And Fun Other Than Having A Sexualized Relationship. It’s Not The Only Kind Of Fulfilling Human Interaction. So, Even If You Are Single Forever, That Doesn’t Mean That You’ve Had Some Kind Of Failed Life.

Don't Swear In The Literal Heart Of Jesus.

In The End, What Makes A Book Valuable Is Not The Paper It's Printed On, But The Thousands Of Hours Of Work By Dozens Of People Who Are Dedicated To Creating The Best Possible Reading Experience For You.

So You've Been Gone A Couple Days,' Alison Said. 'hmm, What'd You Miss...a Celebrity Did Drugs. Politicians Disagreed. A Different Celebrity Wore A Bikini That Revealed A Bodily Imperfection. A Team Won A Sporting Event, But Another Team Lost.

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.

It Is The Nature Of Stars To Cross

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Labyrinth Looking For Alaska

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Barnacles On The Container Ship Of Consciousness.

Like The Way The Sun Is Right Now, With The Long Shadows, And That Kind Of Bright, Soft Light You Get When The Sun Isn't Quite Setting? That's The Light That Makes Everything Better, Everything Prettier, And Today, Everything Just Seemed To Be In That Light.

She Was Loved Deeply, But Not Widely

Fault In Our Stars

I Have Never Really Thought Of Him As A Person, Either.... A Guy Whose Strings Were Broken, Who Didn’t Feel The Root Of His Leaves Of Grass Connected To The Field, A Guy Who Was Cracked. Like Me.

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!

We Had To Forgive To Survive The Labyrinth

That's The Thing About Pain, It Demands To Be Felt.

Scared Isn't A Good Excuse. Scared Is The Excuse Everyone Has Always Used.

I'll Fight It. I'll Fight It For You. Don't You Worry About Me, Hazel Grace. I'm Okay. I'll Find A Way To Hang Around And Annoy You For A Long Time.

At The End, We Brought Her To New York, Where I Was Living, For A Series Of Experimental Tortures That Increased The Misery Of Her Days Without Increasing The Number Of Them.

The Feeling Of Loving Her And Being Loved By Her Welled Up In Him, And He Could Taste The Adrenaline In The Back Of His Throat, And Maybe It Wasn't Over, And Maybe He Could Feel Her Hand In His Again And Hear Her Loud, Brash Voice Contort Itself Into A Whisper To Say I-love-you As If It Were A Secret, And An Immense One.

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

She Cannot Possibly Be Dead, People Do Not Just Die

She Fell Apart Because That's What Happens.

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.

Waffles Are Just Awesome Bread.

While I Did Not Fancy Myself A Particularly Good Person, I Never Thought My First Real Sexual Action Would Be Prostitutional.

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

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

It's Just That I Learned A While Ago That The Best Way To Get People To Like You Is Not To Like Them Too Much.

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.

Almost Everyone Is Obsessed With Leaving A Mark Upon The World. Bequeathing A Legacy. Outlasting Death. We All Want To Be Remembered. I Do, Too. That’s What Bothers Me Most, Is Being Another Unremembered Casualty In The Ancient And Inglorious War Against Disease.

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

If Drunk Were Cookies, I'd Be Famous Amos

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

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

My Responsibility Is To Try To Tell True Stories. To Me A True Story Is Always Hopeful, But Never Simply, Uncomplicatedly Happy.

Given The Final Futility Of Our Struggle, Is The Fleeting Jolt Of Meaning That Art Gives Us Valuable? Or Is The Only Value In Passing The Time As Comfortable As Possible? What Should A Story Seek To Emulate, Augustus? A Ringing Alarm? A Call To Arms? A Morphine Drip? Of Course, Like All Interrogation Of The Universe, This Line Of Inquiry Inevitably Reduces Us To Asking What It Means To Be Human And Whether—to Borrow A Phrase From The Angst-encumbered Sixteeen-year-olds You No Doubt Revile—there Is A Point To It All.

Those Of Us Who Frequent The Band Room Have Long Suspected That Becca Maintains Her Lovely Figure By Eating Nothing But The Souls Of Kittens And The Dreams Of Impoverished Children.

When I Look At My Room, I See A Girl Who Loves Books.

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.

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

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.

Books Are The Ultimate Dumpees: Put Them Down And They’ll Wait For You Forever; Pay Attention To Them And They Always Love You Back.

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

Before I Got Here, I Thought For A Long Time That The Way Out Of The Labyrinth Was To Pretend That It Did Not Exist, To Build A Small, Self-sufficient World In The Back Corner Of The Endless Maze And To Pretend That I Was Not Lost, But Home.

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.

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.

A Small Olive-skinned Creature Who Had Hit Puberty But Never Hit It Very Hard, Ben Had Been My Best Friend Since Fifth Grade, When We Both Finally Owned Up To The Fact That Neither Of Us Was Likely To Attract Anyone Else As A Best Friend.

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