John Green

“I inherited that penchant for intellectualism, a character flaw that these days can only be thoroughly eradicated by getting Z’ed up.”

“Boys do not have the monopoly in Staring Business, after all.”

“I was thinking about the word handle and all the unholdable things that got handled.”

“At some point, I realized I was Kaitlyning the encounter, so I decided to text Kaitlyn and ask for some advice.”

“Kaitlyn never wore open-toed shoes on account of how she hated her feet because she felt her second toes were too long, as if the second toe was a window into the soul or something.”

“Well, but you can eat Grandma's cookies. They're not bad for you. They were made by Grandma. Grandma wouldn't hurt you.”

“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.”

“And so we all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than none.”

“Real gangster-ass Nerdfighters don’t run from nothing… ‘cause real gangster-ass Nerdfighters can’t run fast.”

“History reminds us that revolutions are not events, so much that they’re processes – that for tens of thousands of years, people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today; just as today, we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions.”

“Yeah, about the test...The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you’ll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you’ll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, will make your life yours. And everything, everything, will be on it....I know, right?”

“dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may also learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can’t go all the way around.”

“I love you present tense,” I whispered, and then put my hand on the middle of his chest and said, “It’s okay, Gus. It’s okay. It is. It’s okay, you hear me?” I had—and have—absolutely no confidence that he could hear me. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

“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.”

“I nudged my head into his shoulder. "Thanks for offering to come over.""you realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you," he said."i guess?" i said."all efforts to save me from you will fail," he said.”

“Oh, my god," Augustus said. "I can't believe I have a crush on a girl with such cliche wishes.""I was thirteen," I said again, although of course I was only thinking "crush crush crush crush crush". I was flattered but changed the subject immediately.”

“All cells come from cells. Every cell is born of a previous cell, which was born of a previous cell. Life comes from life. Life begets life begets life begets life.”

“You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet.”

“So much depends on this observer of the universe.”

“You still secretly believe that there is an element of magic to this world? It's all just soulless molecules bouncing against each other randomly.”

“I think forever is an incorrect concept.”

“We have bottled all the stars this evening, my young friend.”

“Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

“I didn't tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die.”

“Imagine taking that last drive to the hospital," I said quietly. "The last time you'll ever drive a car."Without looking over at me, Augustus said, "You're killing my vibe here, Hazel Grace. I'm trying to observe young love in it's many-splendored awkwardness.""I think he's hurting her boob," I said."Yes it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam.”

“I was so frustrated with him. "I just want to be enough for you, but I never can be. This can never be enough for you. But this is all you get. You get me, and your family, and this world. This is your life. I'm sorry if it sucks. But you're not going to be the first man on Mars, and you're not going to be an NBA star, and you're not going to hunt Nazis.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I was not religious, but I liked rituals. I liked the idea of connecting an action with remembering.”

“Nineteenth-century preacher Henry Ward Beecher's last words were "Now comes the mystery." The poet Dylan Thomas, who liked a good drink at least as much as Alaska, said, "I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I do believe that's a record," before dying. Alaska's favorite was playwright Eugene O'Neill: "Born in a hotel room, and--God damn it--died in a hotel room." Even car-accident victims sometimes have time for last words. Princess Diana said, "Oh God. What's happened?" Movie star James Dean said, "They've got to see us," just before slamming his Porsche into another car. I know so many last words. But I will never know hers.”

“I know. I know. Just--hold on." He pulled out a thick headband. It was brown, with a plush fox head on the front. He put it on his head.I laughed. "What the hell is that?""It's my fox hat.""Your fox hat?""Yeah, Pudge. My fox hat.""Why are you wearing your fox hat?" I asked."Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.”

“The Great Perhaps was upon us, and we were invincible. The plan may have had faults, but we did not.”

“there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars”

“Augustus Waters," I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love.”

“It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness wh's kind of bossy--then I had to basically start liking a whole different person.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Que je croie. Que tu croies. Qu'il ou qu'elle croie. She said it over and over, like it wasn't a verb so much as a a Buddhist mantra. Que je croie. Que tu croies. Qu'il ou qu'elle croie. What a funny thing to say over and over again: I would believe; you would believe; he or she would believe. Believe what? I thought, and right then, the rain came.”

“But in the time between when something gets thought and when it gets done, the ball hit me square across the side of the face. I fell, the back of my head slamming against the gym floor. I then stood up immediately, as if unhurt, and left the gym.Pride had gotten me off the floor of the gym, but as soon as I was outside, I sat down."I am concussed," I announced, entirely sure of my self-diagnosis.”

“Well later, I found out what it means. It's from and Aleut word, Alyeska. It' means 'That which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like I wanted to be.”

“Hey Pudge," the Colonel said. "What do you think of a truce?""It reminds me of when the Germans demanded that the U.S. surrender at the Battle of the Bulge," I said. "I guess I'd say to this truce offer what General McAuliffe said to that one: Nuts.”

“Dying is the last thing I would EVER do!”

“It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again. aa”