“The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself,' he said.'And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.”

“Are there any Nazis left that I could hunt down and bring to justice?” Augustus asked while we leaned over the vitrines reading Otto’s letters and the gutting replies that no, no one had seen his children after the liberation.“I think they’re all dead. But it’s not like the Nazis had a monopoly on evil.”“True,” he said. “That’s what we should do, Hazel Grace: We should team up and be this disabled vigilante duo roaring through the world, righting wrongs, defending the weak, protecting the endangered.”Although it was his dream and not mine, I indulged it. He’d indulged mine, after all. “Our fearlessness shall be our secret weapon,” I said.“The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself,” he said.“And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.”“They will robot-laugh at our courageous folly,” he said. “But something in their iron robot hearts will yearn to have lived and died as we did: on the hero’s errand.”

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

“Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does”

“Therewill come a time,” I said, “when all of us aredead. All of us. There will come a time whenthere are no human beings remaining to rememberthat anyone ever existed or that ourspecies ever did anything. There will be noone left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra,let alone you. Everything that we did andbuilt and wrote and thought and discoveredwill be forgotten and all of this”—I gesturedencompassingly—“will have been for naught.Maybe that time is coming soon and maybeit is millions of years away, but even if wesurvive the collapse of our sun, we will notsurvive forever. There was time before organismsexperienced consciousness, andthere will be time after. And if the inevitabilityof human oblivion worries you, I encourageyou to ignore it. God knows that’s whateveryone else does.”

“Like many people, I feel like celebrating. Remember this feeling. It is human, and can help us understand when others express bloodlust.”

“Hazel has to realize that her mom was wrong when she said, “I won’t be a mother anymore.” The truth is, after Hazel dies (assuming she dies), her mom will still be her mom, just as my grandmother is still my grandmother even though she has died. As long as either person is still alive, that relationship survives. (It changes, but it survives.)”