“I was struck by an awful thought, the kind that cannot be taken back once it escapes into the open air of consciousness; it seemed to me that this was not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die.”

“This was not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die."- Paper Towns”

“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.”

“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.”

“That feeling of finishedness does not come all at once, and it is not easily won, but I think once you get there it is hard to go back.”

“Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou”

“Jesus, I’m not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they’re gonna do. I’m just going to do it. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. ... You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present”