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

“The thing is that I do believe in college, and jobs, and maybe even babies one day. I believe in the future. Maybe it's a character flaw, but for me it is a congenital one.”

“I don’t know a perfect person. I only know flawed people who are still worth loving.”

“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.”

“How can you read and talk at the same time?” I asked.“Well, I usually can’t, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging.”

“Getting a life’ is something only a complete idiot could believe. Like you can just drive to a store and get a life. See it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, ‘Wow, I look much happier — I think this is the life I need to get!’, take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. If getting a life was that easy, we’d be one blissed-out race.”

“I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you're brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr.”