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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.

-John Green

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You Know How We

John Green

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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.

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I Write About Broken People Who Need Other People In Order To Go On. But Those Are The Only Kind Of People I Know To Exist. We Are All Broken.

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.

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

It Always Happened Like This: He Would Look And Look For The Keys To Satan’s Hearse And Then Finally He’d Just Give Up And Say, “fine. I’ll Take The Fugging Bus,” And On His Way Out The Door, He’d See The Keys. Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus; Katherines Appear When You Start To Disbelieve The World Contains Another Katherine; And, Sure Enough, The Eureka Moment Arrived Just As He Began To Accept It Would Never Come.

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

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.

...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.

A Paper Town For A Paper Girl.

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.

Some Tourists Think Amsterdam Is A City Of Sin, But In Truth It Is A City Of Freedom. And In Freedom, Most People Find Sin.

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?

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.

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

It's Hard To Believe In Coincidence, But It's Even Harder To Believe In Anything Else.

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

He Is Both The Source Of My Happiness And The One I Want To Share It With. I Have To Believe That’s A Sign.

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.

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

He Reached Up T0 Grab One And Came Down With Several, And They Kept Coming, Washing Over Him, Floating All Around Him. Never Have Tampon Strings Seemed So Beautiful As They Rolled Up And Down With The Wind, Landing On The Ground And Then Twirling And Floating Up Again, Falling And Rising And Falling And Rising.

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.

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.

What's The Meaning Of Life? Other People.

Meaning Of Life

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.

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.

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

And Then I Screwed Up And The Colonel Screwed Up And Takumi Screwed Up And She Slipped Through Our Fingers.

Labyrinth Looking For Alaska

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 Was So Tired Of Her Getting Upset For No Reason. The Way She Would Get Sulky And Make References To The Freaking Oppressive Nature Of Tragedy Or Whatever But Then Never Said What Was Wrong, Never Have Any Goddamned Reason To Be Sad. And I Just Think You Ought To Have A Reason. My Girlfriend Dumped Me, So I'm Sad. I Got Caught Smoking, So I'm Pissed Off. My Head Hurts, So I'm Cranky. She Never Had A Reason, Pudge. I Was Just So Tired Of Putting Up With Her Drama. And I Just Let Her Go. Christ.

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.

'cause I'm Just - I Want To Go To Amsterdam, And I Want Him To Tell Me What Happens After The Book Is Over, And I Just Don't Want My Particular Life, And Also The Sky Is Depressing Me, And There Is This Old Swing Set Out Here That My Dad Made For Me When I Was A Kid.' 'i Must See This Old Swing Set Of Tears Immediately,' He Said. 'i'll Be Over In Twenty Minutes.'

He Missed Her Like Crazycakes.

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.

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

Books Are Like Tweets, Except Longer.

Nothing Really Ever Happens Like You Imagine It Will.

Nothing's Wrong. Everything's Right. Things Couldn't Be Righter. Things Could Be Less Tired. They Could Be Less Busy. They Could Be Less Caffeinated. But They Couldn't Be Righter.

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

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

So I Was Ugly. I Was Never Fat, Really, And I Never Wore Headgear Or Had Zits Or Anything. But I Was Ugly. I Don't Even Know How Ugly And Pretty Get Decided - Maybe There's Like A Secret Cabal Of Boys Who Meet In The Locker Room And Decide Who's Ugly And Who's Hot, Because As Far As I Can Remember, There Was No Such Thing As A Hot Fourth-grader. - Lindsey Lee Wells

The World May Be Broken, But Hope Is Not Crazy.

We Only Have So Long To Play In The Dirt And Ask Questions Of Rivers.

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

...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.

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

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.

Every Paper Girl Needs At Least One String.

Sunlight Feels Warm And Rough Against Your Skin Like A Kiss On The Cheek From Your Dad.

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.

Throughout The Book, She Refers To Herself As "the Side Effect," Which Is Just Totally Correct. Cancer Kids Are Essentially Side Effects Of The Relentless Mutation That Made The Diversity Of Life On Earth Possible.

The Human Tongue Is Like Wasabi: It's Very Powerful, And Should Be Used Sparingly.

Nerd Life Is Just So Much Better Than Regular Life.

In Our Hyper-secular World, Worship Is Still Inevitable. But It Is Vital To Remember That Our Gods Don't Choose Us, We Choose Them.

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

Shouldn't Letting Go Be Painless If You've Never Learned How To Hold On?

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

Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus.

You Can't Just Make Me Different, And The Leave. Because I Was Fine Before.

Reading It The Night Before, I'd Wondered If It Would Be Like That For Me-if In One Moment, I Would Finally Understand Her, Know Her, And Understand The Role I'd Played In Her Dying. But I Wasn't Convinced Enlightenment Struck Like Lightining.

Q, You're Going To Go To Duke. You're Going To Be A Very Successful Lawyer-or-something And Get Married And Have Babies And Live Your Whole Little Life, And Then You're Going To Die, And In The Last Moments, When You're Chocking On Your Own Bile In The Nursing Home, You'll Say To Yourself:'well, I Wasted My Whole Goddamned Life, But At Least I Broke Into Seaworld With Margo Roth Spiegelman My Senior Year Of High School. At Least I Carpe'd That One Diem.

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

Anyway, That Was The Last Good Day I Had With Gus Until The Last Good Day.

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 Red Wheelbarrow" By William Carlos Williams. So Much Depends Upom A Red Wheel Barrow Glazed With Rain Water Beside The White Chickens.

Maybe All The Strings Inside Him Broke.

I’ve Always Sort Of Preferred People Who Are Not Entirely Likable.

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

I'm Not From Indianapolis, But I Like Living In Indianapolis. If I Were To Explain It, I'd Tell Someone To Imagine A City That Perfectly Captures The Best And The Worst Of America. Imagine The Truly American City, Because That's What It Is.

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

What You Must Understand About Me Is That I’m A Deeply Unhappy Person.

The Way I Figure It, Everyone Gets A Miracle.

Hurt Tends To Drown Out Sorry.

Patients Are Almost Always Preceded By Their Parents, Because No Matter How Fast An Ambulance Can Drive, Terrified Parents Can Drive Faster.

So She Became Impulsive, Scared By Her Inaction Into Perpetual Action.

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

But The Fascinating And Unbelievable-but-true Thing About Dr. Jefferson Jeffersonis That He Was Not A Doctor Of Any Kind. He Was Just An Orange Juice Salesman Named Jefferson Jefferson. When He Became Rich And Powerful, He Went To Court, Made "jefferson" His Middle Name, And Then Changed His First Name To "dr." Capital D. Lowercase R. Period.

I Know That Books Seem Like The Ultimate Thing That's Made By One Person, But That's Not True. Every Reading Of A Book Is A Collaboration Between The Reader And The Writer Who Are Making The Story Up Together.

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.

The Things I Would Do To That Boy. I Mean, Not Now That I Know You're Interested In Him. But, Oh, Sweet Holy Lord, I Would Ride That One-legged Pony All The Way Around The Corral." "kaitlyn," I Said. "sorry. Do You Think You'd Have To Be On Top?" "kaitlyn," I Said.

The Degree To Which I Am Blessed Staggers Me... The Degree To Which I Take That For Granted Shames Me. -streetwalking With Jesus

We're All Just Facilitators. The Real Business Is Done By Readers.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

But My Miracle Was Different. My Miracle Was This: Out Of All The Houses In All The Subdivisions In All Of Florida, I Ended Up Living Next Door To Margo Roth Spiegelman.

The Colonel's Hand Was So Little, And I Grabbed It Tight, His Cold Seeping Into Me And My Warmth Into Him. 'i Memorized The Populations,' He Said.

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

You Either Have A Great Social Life And Shitty Taste In Music, Or A Fantastic Taste In Music With Barely Any Social Life.

Gratitude Is The Proper Response For The Absolute Astonishment Of Getting To Be Alive, And Aware, And An Essential Part Of This Crazy, Sprawling Story.

Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!' He Screamed. 'so That's Sara,' I Said. 'yes.' 'she Seems Nice.

Your Driving Is Unpleasant, But It Isn't Technically Unsafe.

If Drunk Were Cookies, I'd Be Famous Amos

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

But As For Me: I Must Ask The Wounded Man Where He Is Hurt, Because I Cannot Become The Wounded Man. The Only Wounded Man I Can Be Is Me.

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.

Okay, Maybe I'm Not Such A Shitty Writer. But I Can't Pull My Ideas Together, Van Houten. My Thoughts Are Stars I Can't Fathom Into Constellations.

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

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.

What Matters To You Defines Your Mattering.

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

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.

Love Is Keeping The Promise Anyway.

Keeping Promises

I Know What Happens A The End Of Falling-landing.

Falling In Love

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

My Lungs Sucked At Being Lungs.

I Think Maybe The Reason I Have Spent Most Of My Life Being Afraid Is That I Have Been Trying To Prepare Myself To Train My Body For Real Fear When It Comes. But I Am Not Prepared.

It Is Worth It To Leave Behing My Minor Life For Grander Maybes.

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

Don't Worry. Worry Is Useless. I Worried Anyway

Right, Well, He'd Been Sick For A While And His Nurse Said To Him, 'you Seem To Be Feeling Better This Morning,' And Isben Looked At Her And Said, 'on The Contrary,' And Then He Died.

Waffles Are Just Awesome Bread.

Our Fearlessness Shall Be Our Secret Weapon.

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.

We Look Back To The Most Important Moment In Our History, And That Becomes The Dividing Line Between What We Were And What We Are Now.

The Universe Is Biased Toward Consciousness Because The Universe Wants To Be Noticed. It's A Way Into Existential Hope That Doesn't Have Too Much Cliché Wrapped Around It.

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.

Idiotically, It Occurred To Me That My Pink Underwear Didn’t Match My Purple Bra, As If Boys Even Notice Such Things.

We Did A Few Things Worth Remembering, And I Wish For Someone To Remember Them.

I Hadn’t Been In Proper School In Three Years. My Parents Were My Two Best Friends. My Third Best Friend Was An Author Who Did Not Know I Existed.

When You Acknowledge That There Is Nothing Repulsive Or Unforgivable Or Shameful About Yourself, It Becomes Easier To Be That Authentic Person And Feel Like You're Living A Less Performed Life.

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

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

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.

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

I Do Not Say Goodbye. I Believe That's One Of The Bullshitiest Words Ever Invented. It's Not Like You're Given The Choice To Say Bad-bye, Or Awful-bye, Or Couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye. Everytime You Leave, It's Supposed To Be A Good One.

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.

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

You Can Say A Lot Of Bad Things About Tiny Cooper. I Know, Because I Have Said Them. But For A Guy Who Knows Absolutely Nothing About How To Conduct His Own Relationships, Tiny Cooper Is Kind Of Brilliant When It Comes To Dealing With Other People's Heartbreak. Tiny Is Like Some Gigantic Sponge Soaking Up The Pain Of Lost Love Everywhere He Goes.

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.

Entropy Increases. Things Fall Apart.

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.

You Can't Just Make Me Different, And Then Leave. Because I Was Fine Before, Alaska. I Was Just Fine With Me And Last Words And School Friends, And You Can't Just Make Me Different And Then Die.

The Pure And Simple Truth Is Rarely Pure And Never Simple. What's A Boy To Do When Lies And Truth Are Both Sinful?

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

I Can Almost Imagine A Happiness Without Her, The Ability To Let Her Go, To Feel Our Roots Are Connected Even If I Never See That Leaf Of Grass Again.'

Leaves Of Grass

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

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

Me: "if You Want Me To Be A Teenager, Don't Send Me To Support Group. Buy Me A Fake Id So I Can Go To Clubs, Drink Vodka, And Take Pot." Mom: "you Don't Take Pot, For Starters." Me: "see, That's The Kind Of Thing I'd Know If You Got Me A Fake Id.

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

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.

I Find It Really Offensive When People Say That The Emotional Experiences Of Teenagers Are Less Real Or Less Important Than Those Of Adults. I Am An Adult, And I Used To Be A Teenager, And So I Can Tell You With Some Authority That My Feelings Then Were As Real As My Feelings Are Now.

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

The Real Heroes Anyway Aren't The People Doing Things; The Real Heroes Are The People Noticing Things, Paying Attention. The Guy Who Invented The Smallpox Vaccine Didn't Actually Invent Anything. He Just Noticed That People With Cowpox Didn't Get Smallpox.

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

I Worked Hard To Meet His Eyes, Even Though They Were The Kind Of Pretty That's Hard To Look At.

But Even If We Survive The Collapse Of Our Sun, We Will Not Survive Forever.

He Took A Long Drink, Then Grimaced. “i Do Not Have A Drinking Problem,” He Announced, His Voice Needlessly Loud. “i Have A Churchillian Relationship With Alcohol: I Can Crack Jokes And Govern England And Do Anything I Want To Do. Except Not Drink.

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

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.

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

You Say Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours.

I Feel Like, Like, How You Matter Is Defined By The Things That Matter To You. You Matter As Much As The Things That Matter To You.

Things That Matter

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

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

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."

This Fear Bears No Analogy To Any Fear I Knew Before. This Is The Basest Of All Possible Emotions, The Feeling That Was With Us Before We Existed, Before This Building Existed, Before The Earth Existed. This Is The Fear That Made Fish Crawl Out Onto Dry Land And Evolve Lungs, The Fear That Teaches Us To Run, The Fear That Makes Us Bury Our Dead.

You Can Love Someone So Much...but You Can Never Love People As Much As You Can Miss Them.

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 Feel Like Crying, So I Must Be Crying, But It's Impossible To Tell Because I'm Underwater.

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.

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.

As A Child I Was An Inveterate Liar. As Opposed To Now, I Am A Novelist.

I Always Had This Secret Suspicion That I Was Special.

Life Works Best When We Think Of People As People.

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

Wow,” I Said. “are You Making This Up?” “hazel Grace, Could I, With My Meager Intellectual Capacities, Make Up A Letter From Peter Van Houten Featuring Phrases Like ‘our Triumphantly Digitized Contemporaneity’?” “you Could Not,” I Allowed. “can I, Can I Have The Email Address?” “of Course,” Augustus Said, Like It Was Not The Best Gift Ever.

I Wanted To Be One Of Those People Who Have Streaks To Maintain, Who Scorch The Ground With Their Intensity. But For Now, At Least I Knew Such People, And They Needed Me, Just Like Comets Need Tails.

I Don't Really Care How People Read. I Care If People Read.

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.

Dating You Would Be Like A Series Of Unnecessary Root Canals Interspersed With Occasional Makeout Sessions.

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

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

What I Love About The Sculpture Is That It Makes The Bones That We Are Always Walking And Playing On Manifest, Like In A World That So Often Denies The Reality Of Death And The Reality That We Are Surrounded By And Outnumbered By The Dead. Here, Is A Very Playful Way Of Acknowledging That And Acknowledging That And That Always, Whenever We Play, Whenever We Live, We Are Living In Both Literal And Metaphorical Ways On The Memory And Bones Of The Dead.

It's Bad For Your Brain Not To Unplug.

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.

Not Following Her Is The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done.

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.

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

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.

Do You Have A Wish?' He Asked, Referring To This Organization, The Genie Foundation, Which Is In The Business Of Granting Sick Kids One Wish. 'no' I Said. 'i Used My Wish Pre-miracle.' 'what'd You Do?' I Sighed Loudly. 'i Was Thirteen,' I Said. 'not Disney,' He Said. I Said Nothing. 'you Did Not Go To Disney World.' I Said Nothing. '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 Had A Crush On A Girl With Such Cliché Wishes.

We Don't Suffer From A Shortage Of Metaphors . . . But You Have To Be Careful Which Metaphor You Choose, Because It Matters.

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

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

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

You Had Been A Paper Boy To Me All These Years - Two Dimensions As A Character On The Page And Two Different, But Still Flat, Dimensions As A Person. But That Night You Turned Out To Be Real.

The Right Story Needs The Right Telling.

I Told Myself – As I’ve Told Myself Before – That The Body Shuts Down When The Pain Gets Too Bad, That Consciousness Is Temporary, That This Will Pass. But Just Like Always, I Didn’t Slip Away. I Was Left On The Shore With The Waves Washing Over Me, Unable To Drown.

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

Night Falls Fast. Today Is The Past.

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

You Used," He Said, And Then Took A Sharp Breath, "to Call Me Augustus.

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

Boys Do Not Have The Monopoly In Staring Business, After All.

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.

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.

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.

Cold,” He Said, Pressing A Finger To My Pale Wrist. “not Cold So Much As Underoxygenated,” I Said. “i Love It When You Talk Medical To Me,” He Said. He Stood, And Pulled Me Up With Him, And Did Not Let Go Of My Hand Until We Reached The Stairs.

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