John Green

“But you know what they say about Gutshot: the population never goes up and never goes down, because every time a woman gets pregnant, a man leaves town.”

“I guess these days this is a politically charged statement, but it seems to me manifestly true: You make nothing alone. Human beings are not mere competitors, and human life is not merely competition. We are collaborators. To be human is to catch the falling person.”

“It was not the way Curve smelled that Colin liked - not exactly. It was the way the air smelled just as Lindsey began to jog away from him. The smell of perfume left behind. There's not a word for that in English, but Colin knew the French word: sillage. What Colin liked about Curve was not its smell on the skin but its sillage, the fruity sweet smell of its leaving.”

“and then I realized there was no one else to call, which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Water's death was Augustus Water.”

“I reread An Imperial Affliction until Mom woke up and rolled over toward me around six. She nuzzled her head against my shoulder, which felt uncomfortable and vaguely Augustinian.”

“COLUMBUS BROUGHT SMALLPOX TO THE NATIVES; WE SHALL RECALL THE OCCASION WITH A PICNIC!”

“We all romanticize the people we adore.”

“The risen sun too bright in her losing eyes. That's God, I think, the rising sun and the light is too bright and her eyes are losing but they aren't lost. I don't believe we return to haunt or comfort the living or anything, but I think something becomes of us.”

“Right, that's why I said tomorrow, he said. I want to see you again tonight. But I'm willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow.”

“Peter Van Houten was the only person I’d ever come across who seemed to (a) understand what it’slike to be dying, and (b) not have died.”

“my lungs sucked at being lungs.”

“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.”

“and pulled out, of all things, a pack of cigarettes ”Are you serious?” I asked. “You think that’s cool? Oh, my God, you just ruined the whole thing.” “Which whole thing?” he asked, turning to me ”The whole thing where a boy who is not unattractive or unintelligent or seemingly in any way unacceptable stares at me and points out incorrect uses of literally and compares me to actresses and asks me to watch a movie at his house. But of course there is always a hamartia and yours is that oh, my God, even though you HAD FREAKING CANCER you give money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER…”

“But of course there is always a hamartia and yours is that oh, my God, even though you HAD FREAKING CANCER you give money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER.”

“Parecía una eternidad, como si hubiéramos estado juntos una breve pero infinita eternidad. Hay infinitos más grandes que otros infinitos.”

“Estoy enamorado de ti, y no me apetece privarme del sencillo placer de decir la verdad. Estoy enamorado de ti y sé que el amor es solo un grito en el vacío, que es inevitable el olvido, que estamos todos condenados y que llegará el día en que todos nuestros esfuerzos volverán al polvo. Y sé que el sol engullirá la única tierra que vamos a tener, y estoy enamorado de ti.”

“¿Te sientes mejor? le preguntó.No murmuró Isaac.Es lo que pasa con el dolor dijo Augustus. Volvió la mirada hacia mí y añadió: Hay que sentirlo.”

“Estamos volando me dijo.¿Es la primera vez que coges un avión?Asintió.¡MIRA! casi gritó señalando la ventana,Sí, sí, lo veo —le dije. Es como si estuviéramos en un avión.NO SE HA VISTO NADA IGUAL EN TODA LA HISTORIA DE LA HUMANIDAD exclamó.”

“Pero creo en el amor verdadero. ¿Tú no? Creo que no todo el mundo puede conservar sus ojos, o no ponerse enfermo, o lo que sea, pero todo el mundo debería tener amor verdadero, y debería durar como mínimo toda la vida.”

“depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”

“Maybe I was supposed to hate Caroline Mathers or something because she’d been with Augustus, but I didn’t. I couldn’t see her very clearly amid all the tributes, but there didn’t seem to be much to hate. She seemed to be mostly a professional sick person, like me, which made me worry that when I died they’d have nothing to say about me except that I fought heroically, as if the only thing I’d ever done was Have Cancer.”

“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.”

“The food was so good that with each passing course, our conversation devolved further into fragmented celebrations of its deliciousness:'I want this dragon carrot risotto to become a person so I can take it to Las Vegas and marry it.”

“Observation: It would be awesome to fly in a superfast airplane that could chase the sunrise around the world for a while.”

“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.”

“This is your war now.' I despised myself for the cheesy sentiment, but what else did I have?'Some war,' he said dismissively. 'What am I at war with? My cancer. And what is my cancer? 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, Hazel Graze, with a predetermined winner.”

“Sin dolor, no podríamos conocer la alegría.”

“Oh, no me importaría, Grace Hazel. Sería un privilegio para mí tener el corazón roto por ti.”

“I brought you a snack," Takumi said, dropping an oatmeal cream pie onto my book."Very nutritious," I smiled."You've got your oats. You've got your meal. You've got your cream. It's a fuckin' food pyramid.”

“Trane's playing is literally the most convincing proof of God's existence I've ever come across.”

“But i doesn't much matter when you have just now realised, all the time later, that you are still alive.”

“feeling - probably for the first time in my life - the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what's going to happen or when.”

“Quizás Bien será nuestro siempre...”

“Esa es la cosa sobre el dolor —dijo Augustus, y luego me miró—. Demanda ser sentido.”

“And he couldn't know because he hadn't been left with an unkeepable promise, because he wasn't me.”

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody. a”

“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.”

“Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. Nerds are allowed to LOVE stuff, like, jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair-can't-control-yourself LOVE it. 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 consciousness”

“Their sneak-out was over. But by then it was too late. In his mind, Katherine I was already becoming Katherine XIX. She would soon retake the throne that, all along, had rightfully been hers.”

“The cessation of desire equates to the cessation of suffering”

“She was up and down—from fire and brimstone to smoke and ashes.”

“I think most of us would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich we would be doing something else.”

“If I become blind and 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.”

“What do you mean by meant? Given the final futility of our struggle, is the fleeting jolt of meaning that art gives us valuable? Or is it the only value passing time as comfortably as possible?”

“The marks humans leave are too ofter scars.”

“A Hazel é diferente. Ela caminha com leveza, velhote. Caminha com leveza sobre a Terra. A Hazel sabe a verdade: Somos tão capazes de magoar o universo como de o ajudar, e não é provável que façamos qualquer uma das coisas. As pessoas dirão que é triste que ela deixe uma cicatriz menor, que menos pessoas a recordarão, que ela foi profundamente amada mas de modo menos amplo. Mas não é triste, Van Houten. É triunfante. É heroico. Não será isso o verdadeiro heroísmo? Como dizem os médicos: Em primeiro lugar, não faças mal.Seja como for, os verdadeiros heróis não são as pessoas que fazem coisas; os verdadeiros heróis são as pessoas que reparam nas coisas, que prestam atenção (...)Que mais? Ela é tão bonita. Uma pessoa não se cansa de olhar para ela. Nunca se preocupa se ela é mais esperta do que nós. Sabemos que é. É engraçada sem nunca ser maldosa. Eu amo-a. Tenho tanta sorte por amá-la, Van Houten. Não podemos escolher se somos ou não magoados neste mundo, velhote, mas temos algo a dizer sobre quem nos magoa. Eu gosto das minhas escolhas. Espero que ela goste das dela.Gosto, Augustus.Gosto.”

“That's why those tapes we made are going to be so great one day, because they'll tell stories that time has swallowed up or distorted or whatever.”

“Não posso falar da nossa história de amor, portanto vou falar de matemática. Não sou matemática, mas uma coisa eu sei: Entre 0 e 1 existem números infinitos. Existe o 0,1 e o 0,12 e o 0,112 e uma série infinita de outros. Claro está que existe um maior conjunto infinito de números entre 0 e 2, ou entre 0 e um milhão. Algumas infinidades são maiores do que outras. Quem nos ensinou isto foi um escritor, de quem gostávamos. Há dias, muitos dias, em que sinto um rancor do tamanho do meu conjunto iluminado. Quero mais números do que é provável que tenha e, oh Deus, quero mais números para o Augustus Waters do que os que ele tem. Mas Gus, meu amor, não te consigo dizer como estou grata pela nossa pequena infinidade. Não a trocaria por nada deste mundo. No meio dos dias numerados, tu deste-me um para sempre, e eu estou grata”

“Spoiler alert. Mayhem lives.”

“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 **** hope all those freshmen get their money bright and early on Monday morning."So do I, little angel. So do I.”