Background Image

...

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.

-John Green

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When I Was In

John Green

...

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.

Views: 88307

Topic

More From John Green

I Want To Minimize The Deaths I Am Responsible For.

Because So Many People Use Goodreads, It Is An Amazingly Good—and Amazingly Underutilized—resource For Understanding What People Read, Why, And How They Feel About Their Reading Experiences.

There Is Always The Risk: Something Is Good And Good And Good And Good, Then All At Once It Gets Awkward.

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.'

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.

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 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.

Imagining The Future Is A Kind Of Nostalgia.

Imagining The Future

"why Are Breakfast Food Breakfast Foods?" I Asked Them. "like, Why Don't We Have Curry For Breakfast?" "hazel, Eat." "but Why?" I Asked. "i Mean Seriously: How Did Scrambled Eggs Get Stuck With Breakfast Exclusivity? You Can Put Bacon On A Sandwich Without Anyone Freaking Out. But The Moment Your Sandwich Has An Egg, Boom, It's A Breakfast Sandwich."

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

Random Questions Are The Least Random Of All Questions.

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

I Mean, He Was Something That Happened To Me, You Know? But Before He Was This Minor Figure In The Drama Of My Life He Was - You Know, The Central Figure In The Drama Of His Own Life.

Real Gangster-ass Nerdfighters Don't Run From Nothing... 'cause Real Gangster-ass Nerdfighters Can't Run Fast.

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

Books—they Weren't Ladders Out Of The Abyss, But They Were Companions.

Don't Make Fun Of Her," The Duke Said. "she Needs Gentle Encouragement. Carla, Baby, We Love You. You Are Such A Good Car. And We Believe In You One Hundred Percent." ... "don't Listen To Him, Carla. You're Gonna Do This." ... "i Love You, Carla. You Know That, Don't You? I Wake Up Every Morning And The First Thing I Think Is That I Love Tobin's Mom's Car. I Know That's Weird, Baby, But I Do. I Love You. And I Know You Can Do This." ... "carla," The Duke Said, "it's Time To Tell You The Truth. I'm In Love With You. I Want To Be With You, Carla. I've Never Felt This Way About A C-

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

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.

If You Were To Go, And Hopefully Someday You Will, You Would See A Lot Of Paintings Of Dead People. You'd See Jesus On The Cross, And You'd See A Dude Get Stabbed In The Neck, And You'd See People Dying At Sea And In Battle And A Parade Of Martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody Biting It From The Plague Or Smallpox Or Yellow Fever Or Whatever, Because There Is No Glory In Illness. There Is No Meaning To It. There Is No Honor In Dying Of.

The Punch Connected, But (1) Colin Forgot To Close His Fist, So He Was Slapping Not Hitting, And (2) Instead Of Slapping Toc, He Ended Up Slapping Hassan Flush Across The Cheek, Whereupon Hassan Finally Succeeded In Falling Down.

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.

Books Belong To Their Readers.

That's Why People Grow Weary Of Listening To Dumpees Obsess Over Their Troubles: Getting Dumped Is Predictable, Repetitive, And Boring. They Want To Stay Friends; They Feel Smothered; It's Always Them And It's Never You; And Afterward, You're Devastated And Their Relieved; It's Over For Them And Just Starting For You.

You've Got A Lifetime To Mull Over The Buddhist Understanding Of Interconnectedness." He Spoke Every Sentence As If He'd Written It Down, Memorized It, And Was Now Reciting It. "but While You Were Looking Out The Window, You Missed The Chance To Explore The Equally Interesting Buddhist Belief In Being Present For Every Facet Of Your Daily Life, Of Being Truly Present. Be Present In This Class. And Then, When It's Over, Be Present Out There," He Said, Nodding Toward The Lake And Beyond.' ~dr. Hyde, Pg 50

Tiny, The Next Time That You Try To Set Me Up With A Girl With A Secret Boyfriend Can You At Least Inform Me That She Has A Secret Boyfriend? Also, If You Don't Call Me Back Within Five Minutes, I'm Going To Assume You Found A Way Back To Evanston. Furthermore, You Are An Asshat. That Is All.

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.

Because No One Can Catch The Motherfucking Fox.

Looking For Alaska Book

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.

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.

Saying 'i Notice You're A Nerd' Is Like Saying, 'hey, I Notice That You'd Rather Be Intelligent Than Be Stupid, That You'd Rather Be Thoughtful Than Be Vapid, That You Believe That There Are Things That Matter More Than The Arrest Record Of Lindsay Lohan. Why Is That?' In Fact, It Seems To Me That Most Contemporary Insults Are Pretty Lame. Even 'lame' Is Kind Of Lame. Saying 'you're Lame' Is Like Saying 'you Walk With A Limp.' Yeah, Whatever, So Does 50 Cent, And He's Done All Right For Himself.

"and We'll Call You... Hmmm. Pudge." "huh?" "pudge," The Colonel Said. "because You're Skinny. It's Called Irony, Pudge. Heard Of It? Now, Let's Go Get Some Cigarettes And Start This Year Off Right."

Colin Singleton’s Distance From His Glasses Made Him Realize The Problem: Myopia. He Was Nearsighted. The Future Lay Before Him, Inevitable But Invisible.

Waffles аrе јust Awesome Bread.

At Some Point, You Gotta Stop Looking Up At The Sky, Or One Of These Days You'll Look Back Down And See That You Floated Away, Too.

But There's So Much To Do: Cigarettes To Smoke, Sex To Have, Swings To Swing On.

Depression Is A Side Effect Of Dying. (almost Everything Is, Really).

There's Not Even Real *popularity* At My School." "that," Coli Said Emphatically, "is A Sentence That Has Only Ever Been Spoken By Popular People.

I Liked Being A Person. I Wanted To Keep At It.

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.

I've Lived Here For Eighteen Years And I Have Never Once In My Life Come Across Anyone Who Cares About Anything That Matters.

If You Don't Imagine, Nothing Ever Happens At All.

You Should See It. V For Vendetta I Mean. "i'll Look It Up." No. With Me. At My House. Now

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.

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

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.

Augustus: “you Probably Need Some Rest.” Me: “i’m Okay.” Augustus: “okay.” (pause.) “what Are You Thinking About?” Me: “you.” Augustus: “what About Me?” Me: “‘i Do Not Know Which To Prefer, / The Beauty Of Inflections / Or The Beauty Of Innuendos, / The Blackbird Whistling / Or Just After.’” Augustus: “god, You Are Sexy.” Me: “we Could Go To Your Room.” Augustus: “i’ve Heard Worse Ideas.

I'm A Grenade, I Just Want To Stay Away From People And Read Books, And Think.

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.

But A Lot Of Times, People Die How They Live. And So Last Words Tell Me A Lot About Who People Were, And Why They Became The Sort Of People Biographies Get Written About.

The Truth Hurts Because It's Real. It Hurts Because It Mattered. And That's An Important Thing To Acknowledge To Yourself.

I'm A Big Believer In Pairing Classics With Contemporary Literature, So Students Have The Opportunity To See That Literature Is Not A Cold, Dead Thing That Happened Once But Instead A Vibrant Mode Of Storytelling That's Been With Us A Long Time - And Will Be With Us, I Hope, For A Long Time To Come.

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 Don't Think Ministering Requires A Religious Context. The Number One Thing Is That Every Parent Is Extremely Worried About Their Kid. Of Course, When A Chaplain Shows Up, That Can Exacerbate This Worry Rather Than Calm It.

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.

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

You See How Fake It All Is. It's Not Even Hard Enough To Be Made Out Of Plastic. It's A Paper Town.

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.

Funerals...are For The Living.

You’re Joining Us For Dinner, I Hope?” Asked His Mom. She Was Small And Brunette And Vaguely Mousy. “i Guess?” I Said. “i Have To Be Home By Ten. Also I Don’t, Um, Eat Meat?” “no Problem. We’ll Vegetarianize Some,” She Said. “animals Are Just Too Cute?” Gus Asked. “i Want To Minimize The Number Of Deaths I Am Responsible For,” I Said. Gus Opened His Mouth To Respond But Then Stopped Himself.

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

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.

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

Seriously, Don't Even Get Me Started On My Hot Bod. You Don't Want To See Me Naked, Dave. Seeing Me Naked Actually Took Hazel Grace's Breath Away,' He Said, Nodding Toward The Oxygen Tank.

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.

Being In A Relationship, That's Something You Choose. Being Friends, That's Something You Just Are.

The Last Time I Was This Scared, I Peed Myself." "the Last Time I Was This Scared," Radar Says, "i Actually Had To Face A Dark Lord In Order To Make The World Safe For Wizards.

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

By The Power Of The Superglue Beer Sword, I Designate You My Driver!

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

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

So I Walked Back To My Room And Collapsed On The Bottom Bunk, Thinking That If People Were Rain, I Was Drizzle And She Was A Hurricane.

Unrequited Love

Colin Thought About The Dork Mantra: Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me. What A Dirty Lie.

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.

But To Be Perfectly Frank, This Childish Idea That The Author Of A Novel Has Some Special Insight Into The Characters In The Novel ... It's Ridiculous. That Novel Was Composed Of Scratches On A Page, Dear. The Characters Inhabiting It Have No Life Outside Of Those Scratches. What Happened To Them? They All Ceased To Exist The Moment The Novel Ended.

Breaking Up Isn't Something That Gets Done To You; Its Something That Happens With You.

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."

All Representations Of A Thing Are Inherently Abstract.

Leaving Feels Good And Pure Only When You Leave Something Important, Something That Mattered To You. Pulling Life Out By The Roots. But You Can't Do That Until Your Life Has Grown Roots.

I'm Not Embarrassed By My Faith, And I'm Also Not Embarrassed By My Doubt.

In The Contemporary World Where Things Fall Apart, And The Centre Cannot Hold, You Have To Imagine A Community Where There Is No Centre. Hank, At The End Of This Year I Started Thinking That A Lot Of Life Is About Doing Things That Don’t Suck With People Who Don’t Suck.

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

Imagining The Future

It's Embarrassing That We All Just Walk Through Life Blindly Accepting That Scrambled Eggs Are Fundamentally Associated With Mornings.

Not The Brightest Gem In The Jewelry Shop, But You've Got To Admire His Single-minded Dedication To Drug Abuse.

The Kiss Lasted Forever As Otto Frank Kept Talking From Behind Me. "and My Conclusion Is," He Said, "since I Had Been In Very Good Terms With Anne, That Most Parents Don't Know Really Their Children.

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.

My Thoughts Are Stars I Cannot Fathom Into Constellations.

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.

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.

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.

Everything That Comes Together Falls Apart.

Margo Says, "i Know What She's Talking About. The Something Deeper And More Secret. It's Like Cracks Inside Of You. Like There Are These Fault Lines Where Things Don't Meet Up Right.

There's No Reason Whatsoever To Drink Eight Glasses Of Water A Day Unless You, For Whatever Reason, Particularly Like The Taste Of Water

We Got Off At The Next Exit, Quietly, And, Switching Drivers, We Walked In Front Of The Car. We Met And I Held Him, My Hands Balled Into Tight Fists Around His Shoulders, And He Wrapped His Short Arms Around Me And Squeezed Tight, So That I Felt The Heaves Of His Chest As We Realized Over And Over Again That We Were Still Alive. 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 When You Have Just Now Realized, All The Time Later, That You Are Still Alive.

I Make A Gesture That Is Intended To Convey, "hey, No Hurry, Talk As Long As You'd Like," And Probably Actually Conveys, "hey, Look At Me! I Have Spastic Hands.

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.

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.

You Couldn't Be More Wrong," I Said. "you Are Buying Into The Cross-stitched Sentiments Of Your Parents' Throw Pillows. You're Arguing That The Fragile, Rare Thing Is Beautiful Simply Because It Is Fragile And Rare. But That's A Lie, And You Know It." "you're A Hard Person To Comfort," Augustus Said. "easy Comfort Isn't Comforting," I Said.

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

Does He Have Ugly Hands? Sometimes Beautiful People Have Ugly Hands." "no He Has Kind Of Amazing Hands.

‎"i Go To Seek A Great Perhaps.

I Hated Hurting Him. Most Of The Time, I Could Forget About It, But The Inexorable Truth Is This: They Might Be Glad To Have Me Around, But I Was The Alpha And The Omega Of My Parents' Suffering.

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.

Do You Know Why I Left America, Lidewij? So That I Would Never Again Have To Encounter Americans." "but You Are An American." "incurably So, It Seems.

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.

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

In General-like Not Just In Fiction But In Life-it Doesn't Work Out Well When Someone Imagines Someone Else As A Manic Pixie Dream Girl Or An Edward Cullen Or Anything Other Than A Full, Complex Human Being. That Said, While I've Tried To Reflect That In My Books, I Don't Think I've Always Succeeded, Because I Am Always Running Up Against My Own Insufficiencies And Biases Etc.

I Stand In This Parking Lot, Realizing That I’ve Never Been This Far From Home, And Here Is This Girl I Love And Cannot Follow. I Hope This Is The Hero’s Errand, Because Not Following Her Is The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done.

Do You Know What Your Problem Is? You Can't Live With The Idea That Someone Might Leave.

I Pulled The Oxygen Tubes From My Nostrils And Raised The Tube Up Over My Head, Handing It To Dad. I Wanted It To Be Just Me And Just Him.

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.

One Of The Things I Like About Making Stuff In The Age Of The Internet, Is That People Make Stuff In Response To It. You Can See People Respond To Your Work Visually Or Musically Or With Writing.

...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.

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.

You Could Drive Past It Without Noticing And From What I Understand, You Ought To.

Hurt Tends To Drown Out Sorry.

Such Is Life. We Grow Up. Planets Like Tiny Get New Moons. Moons Like Me Get New Planets.

Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

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

...it Was Nice To Spend Time With Someone So Interesting.

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.

Coal Miners Don't Get Coal Miners' Block.

There Is No Them. There Are Only Facets Of Us.

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

I Was A Fairly Shy Person - Not The Hand Raising Type.

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

I Wanted So Badly To Lie Down Next To Her On The Couch, To Wrap My Arms Around Her And Sleep... Just Sleep Together, In The Most Innocent Sense Of The Phrase. But I Lacked The Courage And She Had A Boyfriend And I Was Gawky And She Was Gorgeous And I Was Boring And She Was Endlessly Fascinating. So I Walked Back To My Room And Collapsed On The Bottom Bunk, Thinking That If People Were Rain, I Was Drizzle And She Was A Hurricane.

I Felt The Unfairness Of It, The Inarguable Injustice Of Loving Someone Who Might Have Loved You Back But Can't Due To Deadness.

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.

When People Call People Nerds, Mostly What They're Saying Is, 'you Like Stuff.' Which Is Not A Good Insult At All, Like, 'you Are Too Enthusiastic About The Miracle Of Human Conscience.

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.

People Are Such Idiots. As If There's Something Wrong With Being In Love.

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.

You're Arguing That The Fragile, Rare Thing Is Beautiful Simply Because It Is Fragile And Rare. But That's A Lie, And You Know It.

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

It Seemed Like Forever Ago, Like We've Had This Brief But Still Infinite Forever. Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities.

You're Awfully Philosophical For A Girl That Just Got Busted.

I Don't Believe In Prom,' I Reminded Her As She Rounded A Corner. I Expertly Angled My Raisin Bran To Accomodate The G-forces. I'd Done This Before.

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.

In My Opinion, Actual Heroism, Like Actual Love, Is A Messy, Painful, Vulnerable Business—and I Wanted To Try To Reflect That.

It Must Be Some Book," She Said As She Knelt Down Next To The Bed..."did That Boy Give It To You?" She Asked Out Of Nowhere. "by 'it' Do You Mean Herpes?" "you Are Too Much," Mom Said, "the Book, Hazel. I Mean The Book.

What Is The Point Of Being Alive If You Don't At Least Try To Do Something Remarkable?

...whatever You're Worried About, You're Bigger Than The Worries.

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.

To Be Human Is To Catch The Falling Person.

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.

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

And I Will Forget Her, Yes. That Which Came Together Will Fall Apart Slowly, But She Will Forgive My Forgetting, Just As I Forgive Her For Forgetting Me And The Colonel And Nothing But Herself And Her Mom In Those Last Moments As She Spent As A Person.

Isaac Out Of Surgery. It Went Well. He's Officially Nec. Nec Meant "no Evidence Of Cancer." A Second Text Came A Few Seconds Later. I Mean, He's Blind. So That's Unfortunate.

My Days Had A Pleasant Identicalness About Them. I Had Always Liked That: I Liked Routine. I Liked Being Bored. I Didn’t Want To But I Did.

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.

Go Spit In The Face Of Our Inevitable Obsolescence And Finish Your @#$&ng Novel.

We Gotta Do Something About This Frigging Swing Set,' He Said. 'i'm Telling You, It's Ninety Percent Of The Problem.

Frankly, I Kind Of Want You To Be Haunted By The Unansweredness Of The Question, Because I Think Being Haunted By Such Things Is A Valuable Part Of Being A Person.

You Could Hear The Wind In The Leaves, And On That Wind Traveled The Screams Of The Kids On The Playground In The Distance, The Little Kids Figuring Out How To Be Alive, How To Navigate A World That Was Not Built For Them By Navigating A Playground That Was. . . Who Am I To Say That These Things Might Not Be Forever? Who Is Pete Van Houten To Assert As Fact The Conjecture That Our Labor Is Temporary? All I Know Of Heaven And All I Know Of Death Is In This Park: An Elegant Universe In Ceaseless Motion, Teeming With Ruined Ruins And Screaming Children.

That Deep, Can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth Sleep.

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

She Smiled With All The Delight Of A Kid On Christmas Morning And Said, "y'all Smoke To Enjoy It. I Smoke To Die." - Alaska

We All Miss You So Much. It Just Never Ends. It Feels Like We Were All Wounded In Your Battle, Caroline. I Miss You. I Love You.

Ashes To Ashes. Garage Sale To Garage Sale,” I Said.

But It Is The Nature Of Stars To Cross, And Never Was Shakespeare More Wrong Than When He Has Cassius Note, ‘the Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not In Our Stars / But In Ourselves.

I Fear Your Faith Has Been Mis- Placed—but Then, Faith Usually Is.

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.

It Always Shocked Me When I Realized That I Wasn’t The Only Person In The World Who Thought And Felt Such Strange And Awful Things.

We're Invisible. I've Never Been Here With Someone Else. It's Different Being Invisible With Someone.

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

You Are So Busy Being You That You Have No Idea How Utterly Unprecedented You Are.

But There Was Nothing I Could Do To Dim The Supernovae Exploding Inside My Brain, An Endless Chain Of Intra Cranial Firecrackers

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.

Your Responsibility Is Not To The People You're Making The Gift For, But The Gift Itself.

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.

Oh, God, Alaska, I Love You. I Love You,' And The Colonel Whispered, 'i'm So Sorry, Pudge. I Know You Did,' And I Said, 'no. Not Past Tense.

Nothing Really Ever Happens Like You Imagine It Will.

It's Not Life Or Death, The Labyrinth. Suffering. Doing Wrong And Having Wrong Things Happen To You.

I Hated Sports. I Hated Sports, And I Hated People Who Played Them, And I Hated People Who Watched Them, And I Hated People Who Didn't Hate People Who Watched Or Played Them.

Why Don’t We Break Up? I Guess I Stay With Her Because She Stays With Me. And That’s Not An Easy Thing To Do.

Not To Ask The Obvious Question, But Why Alaska?

And Yet Still I Worried. I Like Being A Person. I Wanted To Keep At It. Worry Is Yet Another Side Effect Of Dying.

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.

So Keeping The Box Closed Just Keeps You In The Dark, Not The Universe.

That Is, To Me At Least, One Of The Most Helpful And Useful Things Books Do For Us: They Are Generous Enough To Allow Us To Choose What Matters To Us.

I Was Thinking About The Universe Wanting To Be Noticed, And How I Had To Notice It As Best I Could. I Felt That I Owed A Debt To The Universe That Only My Attention Could Repay, And Also That I Owed A Debt To Everybody Who Didn’t Get To Be A Person Anymore And Everyone Who Hadn’t Gotten To Be A Person Yet.

So Dawn Goes Down Today... Nothing Gold Can Stay. -- Robert Frost

I Think That It's A Universal Urge To Have Our Pain Not Be Felt Alone And To Have Our Joys Not Be Felt Alone.

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.

You'll Live Forever In Our Hearts, Big Man. That Particularly Galled Me, Because It Implied The Immortality Of Those Left Behind: You Will Live Forever In My Memory, Because I Will Live Forever! I Am Your God Now, Dead Boy! I Own You!

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

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.

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

Tobin," Mom Said Disapprovingly. She Wasn't A Particularly Funny Person. It Suited Her Professionally - I Mean, You Don't Want Your Cancer Surgeon To Walk Into The Examination Room And Be Like, "guy Walks Into A Bar. Bartender Says, 'what'll Ya Have?' And The Guy Says, 'whaddya Got?' And The Bartender Says, 'i Don't Know What I Got, But I Know What You Got: Stage Iv Melanoma.

Well, But You Can Eat Grandma's Cookies. They're Not Bad For You. They Were Made By Grandma. Grandma Wouldn't Hurt You.

Pg. 231-232: They'd Given Me A Minivan. They Could Have Picked Any Car And They Picked A Minivan. A Minivan. O God Of The Vehicular Justice, Why Dost Thou Mock Me? Minivan, You Albatross Around My Neck! You Mark Of Cain! You Wretched Beast High Ceilings And Few Horsepower!

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

It Was An Indulgence, Learning Last Words. Other People Had Chocolate; I Had Dying Declarations.

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

It's Bad For Your Brain Not To Unplug.

You Can Trust That Caring, As A Rule, Ends Poorly,” Which Is True. Caring Doesn’t Sometimes Lead To Misery. It Always Does.

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.

Did I Help You Toward A Fate You Didn't Want, Alaska, Or Did I Just Assist In Your Willful Self-destruction?

Trending Author

Category