John Green

“Things so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal.”

“I kept it for myself like a keepsake, as if sharing the memory might lead to its dissipation.”

“Because no one thought she was a person, she had no one to really talk to.”

“The whole pleasure of being in a state of unknowing is that as long as you don’t know, all possible outcomes feel as if they are happening.”

“You just get caught in being something, to the point where you don’t even know why you need it; you just think you do”

“And for the first time in his life, he smiled thinking about the always-coming infinite future stretching out before him.”

“And maybe by imagining these futures we can make it real, and maybe not, but either way we must imagine them.”

“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.”

“It's like she thinks my job is to please her, and that should be my dearest wish, and when I don't please her - I get shut out.”

“You die in the middle of your life.”

“Omnia Cellula e Cellula”

“I still think that, sometimes, thinkthat maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable.”

“I was thinking about this tonight, actually, that maybe I want strangers to think I'm cool since people who actually know me don't.”

“He wasn’t perfect or anything. He wasn’t your fairy-tale Prince Charming or whatever. He tried to be like that sometimes, but I liked him best when that stuff fell away.”

“and then she said, 'Let's play Truth or Dare' and then you fucked her.""Wait, you fucked her? In front of the Colonel?" Takumi cried."I didn't fuck her.""Calm down, guys," the Colonel said, throwing up his hands. "It's a euphemism.""For what?" Takumi asked."Kissing.”

“I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and it occured 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.”

“According to Maslow, I was stuck on the second level of the pyramid, unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art and whatever else, which is, utter horseshit: The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.Maslow's pyramid seemed to imply I was less human than other people, and most people seemed to agree with him.”

“I believe humans have souls, and I believe in the conservation of souls.”

“and I told myself -- as I've told myself before -- that the body shuts down then 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.”

“I don’t know where you got the idea that the quality of a novel should be judged by the likability of its characters, but let me submit to you that Daisy Buchanan doesn’t have to be likable to be interesting… That’s the pleasure and challenge of reading great novels. You get to see yourself as others see you, and you get to see others as they see themselves.”

“It’s a mad, mad world when your best friend is a dog and your second-best friend is an automatic rifle, but such was life in the Aze.”

“Which got me to wondering whether it’s possible to learn how to be a person in a world where all the people are dead.”

“So afterward, while I was getting eviscerated by chemo, for some reason I decided to feel really hopeful. Not about survival but I felt like Anna does in the book, that feeling of excitement and gratitude about just being able to marvel at it all.”

“Having a voice that made my skin feel more like skin.”

“What happens in the band room stays in the band room.”

“My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me. It is a civil war with a predetermined winner”

“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”

“Everyone else is thinking about themselves as much as you are thinking about yourself and so therefore no one has any time to think about you.”

“Omaha, Nebraska. Sac City, Iowa. Alexandria, Indiana. Darwin, Minnesota. Hollywood, California. Alliance, Nebraska.”

“The Rough Guide to Nepal; The Great Sights of Canada; America by Car; Fodor's Guide to the Bahamas; Let's go Bhutan.”

“And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves." "So grass is death too-it grows out of our buried bodies. The grass was so many different things at once, it was bewildering. So grass is a metaphor for life, and for death, and for equality, and for connectedness, and for God, and for hope.”

“A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me will full hands; How could I answer the child?......I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. There was the hope Dr. Holden had talked about-the grass was a metaphor for his hope. But that"s not all. He continues, Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Like grass is a metaphor for God's greatness or something.... And then soon after is itself a child.... And then soon after that, Or, I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broadzones and narrow zones. Growing among black folk as among white.”

“I will play out the string. I will not betray your trust. I will find you.”

“Looks like Madison Estates isn't going to get built; my husband and I bought property there, but someone called this week to say they're refunding us our deposit because they didn't presell enough houses to finance the project. Another paper town for KS!- Marge in Cawker, KS”

“A Paper Town is a town that's got a paper mill on it.”

“You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books. I tramp a perpetual journey All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. The final three stanzas of 'Song of Myself" were also highlighted. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to your nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one places search another, I stop some where waiting for you It became a weekend of reading, of trying to see her in the fragments of the poem she'd left for me. I could never get anywhere with the lines, but I kepr thinking about them anyway, becase I didn't want to disappoint her. She wanted me to play out with the string, to find the place where she had stopped and was waiting for me, to follow the bread crumb trail until it dead-ended into her.”

“Mr. Worthington, I understand that you do not control Chuck and Jasper. But you see, I am in a similar situation. I do not control the little devil sitting on my left shoulder. The devil is saying, "PRINT THE PICTURE PRINT THE PICTURE TAPE IT UP ALL OVER SCHOOL DO IT DO IT DO IT." And then on my right shoulder, there is a little tiny white angel. And the angel is saying, "Man, I sure as shit hope all those freshmen get their money bright and early on Monday morning." So do I, little angel. So do I. Best Wishes, Your friendly Neighboorhood Nemesis.”

“From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: You, Me, Becca Arrington's House, Your Penis, Etc. Dear Mr. Worthington, 1.$200 in cash should be provided to each of the 12 people whose bikes your collegues destroyed via Chevy Tahoe. This shouldn't be a problem, given your magnificent wealth. 2.This graffiti situation in the girls' bathroom has to stop. 3.Water guns? With pee? Really? Grow up. 4.You should treat your fellow students with respect, particularly those less socially fortunate than you. 5.You should probably instruct members of your clan to behave in similarly considerate ways. "I realize that it will be very difficult to accomplish some of these task. But then again, It will also be very difficult not to share the attached photograph with the world.”

“At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. 'Till dawn do us part.”

“1. A green-glass beanstalk 2. An abstract representation of a tree 3. A greener, glassier, uglier Washington Monument 4. The Jolly Green Giant's gigantic jolly green phallus.”

“Well I don't remember exactly what I called her, but it was something along the lines of sniveling, repulsive, idiotic, backenridden, snaggletoothe, fat-assed bitch with the worst hair in Central Florida and that's saying something.”

“Love is always a miracle, everywhere,every time. But for us, it's a little different. I don't want to say it's more miraculous,...It is though.”

“Love is always a miracle, everywhere, every time. But for us, it's a little different.”

“Love is the most common miracle.”

“He walked over to Isaac and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Dude, pillows don’t break. Try something that breaks.”Isaac reached for a basketball trophy from the shelf above the bed and then held it over his head as if waiting for permission.“Yes,” Augustus said. “Yes!” The trophy smashed against the floor, the plastic basketball player’s arm splintering off, still grasping its ball. Isaac stomped on the trophy.“Yes!” Augustus said. “Get it!” And then back to me, “I’ve been looking for a way to tell my father that I actually sort of hate basketball, and I think we’ve found it.”

“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.”

“After I finished, there was quite a long period of silence as I watched a smile spread all the way across Augustus’s face—not the little crooked smile of the boy trying to be sexy while he stared at me, but his real smile, too big for his face. “Goddamn,” Augustus said quietly. “Aren’t you something else.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

“Imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

“What did Dom Perignon say to fellow monks after he invented champagne? ... Come quickly, I am tasting the stars.”