Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.
John Green
Related This foundational principle - that human beings derive their rights from God, rather than from the S... ERNIE FLETCHER What's the meaning of life? Other people. JOHN GREEN Whether we're Democrats, Republicans, or independents - it does not matter. We all understand th... MICHELLE OBAMA But when we set out to understand somebody’s inside? Is that a trip that ever ends? Is the soul a ... PASCAL MERCIER It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or an... SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Those having a heart attack will have a far lower risk of having a second heart attack, a stroke, or... CHARLES HENNEKENS Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from other... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Everyone has a story inside them. Some are bedtimes stories, some thrill and others scare and horrif... C.K. WEBB Inevitably, most readers come to John Cheever's 'Journals' via his fiction. Whatever val... GEOFF DYER The novels take longer to write than the picture book texts, and they do take a different sort of co... MARGARET MAHY It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the... CHARLES DARWIN Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from the... GEORGE M. CHURCH Every Age has its own peculiar faith. Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age wit... GIUSEPPE MAZZINI John Howard Davies was not a very human person... if you made a mistake of any kind, any sort of pau... GRAHAM CHAPMAN ↑ ASSUMPTION → ↓ PROBABILITY OF ACCURACY → ↑ % OF ERROR
↓ ASSUMPTION → ↑ PROBABILITY... ABDUS SALAM I can't say that the ending of a story is always the best part of the story, and yet there's... CARLTON CUSE Never break the neutrality of a port or place, but never consider as neutral any place from whence a... HORATIO NELSON Today, private landowners live in fear of the ESA. Those who harbor endangered species on their prop... DAVID RIDENOUR Today, private landowners live in fear of the ESA. Those who harbor endangered species on their prop... DAVID RIDENOUR John Roberts is a very careful and good lawyer, and I think the facts (of each case) will matter to ... ALAN MORRISON What is the Other?" they ask. The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not ... PAULO COELHO Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by plac... MAHATMA GANDHI I?m really proud of the efforts of the girls today. This was a very tough team from Georgetown, and ... BRIAN URIG I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all... SATYAJIT RAY There's such a low propensity to innovate. The problem is that most buyers perceive any innovation a... AARON GELLMAN I said that I have finished telling my story, not that the story is finished. I said before that no ... HERBERT ROSENDORFER At any given time, any of our girls can step up and have a big game, whether it's making baskets or ... MARSHALL BALLARD I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Now an infinite happiness cannot be purchased by any price less than that which is infinite in value... ADAM CLARKE You meet a thousand times in life with those who, in dealing with any religious question, make at on... THEODOR CHRISTLIEB The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or... GEORGE WASHINGTON Various kinds of ideas can be classified by their relationship to the authentication process. There... THOMAS SOWELL The whole idea of setting up a Catholics-only town or any religious town in a pluralistic society is... FRANCES KISSLING The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether... ELIZABETH STROUT When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes litera... RAYMOND CHANDLER The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is ... THOMAS HUXLEY Writers use both their blood and their brains to explore the darkest recesses of their pooling self.... KILROY J. OLDSTER I think that the style is the writing, a beautiful sense of style. And if you don't have it, it does... MARGUERITE YOUNG Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any i... GEORGE BERKELEY One of the strengths, and weaknesses, of liberal democratic societies is giving the benefit of the d... GARRY KASPAROV For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, j... C.S. LEWIS It is because I know all that science can bring to the world that I shall continue my efforts to ens... FRéDéRIC JOLIOT-CURIE There's an idea that action movies are more attractive to one gender than the other or different... PATTY JENKINS Writers witnessing actors read their stories will often come away very confused because they'll have... BILL BUFORD Sharing stories that fill our chambers with an explosion of unique voices is a means to instigate an... KILROY J. OLDSTER The Chinese began with the assumption that the group is the fundamental unit of reality. Individuals... HUSTON SMITH Whether it would be a terrorist attack directed at foreigners or whether it would be directed very s... ALEXANDER DOWNER Good luck. This is fundamentally not going to be used in something that any of the contributors to t... ERIC HEMMENDINGER I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether it's with Africa or childhood. BINYAVANGA WAINAINA The bedrock foundation of any rational immigration policy should be to benefit America rather than b... ROBERT ZUBRIN Neither was there any heresy, or diversity of opinion, or disputing about the matter, till the pope ... WILLIAM TYNDALE With respect to the books of the New Testament, particularly such parts as tell us of the resurrecti... THOMAS PAINE There are a lot of different stories, but there are a lot of stories that our audience will be able ... LILY NEUMEYER Families represent the basic building blocks of our society, and primary care a foundational piece o... TONY TAN I think that the style is the writing, a beautiful sense of style. And if you don't have it, it does... MARGUERITE YOUNG Maybe instead of strings it's stories things are made of, an infinite number of tiny vibrating stori... PAUL MURRAY "The secrets of the Universe are hidden in neither physics; biology; nor any empirical inquiry. That... LELAND T. LEWIS Those of my generation who grew up in the midst of the Cold War had a very, very strong awareness an... EDWARD ZWICK Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be ins... MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO Commemoration of John Wyclif, Reformer, 1384 All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, comm... JOHN CALVIN What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be r... JANE AUSTEN Some infinities are bigger than other infinities." -John Green, The Fault in Our Stars JOHN GREEN Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids. ALEXANDER BELL Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL The attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been underta... SERGEI LAVROV is against any kind of principle of show business. If you install some buttons that one can press wh... ROMAN POLANSKI Storytelling creates a healing serum. The thematic unguent of our personal story represents a fusion... KILROY J. OLDSTER I'm a roller coaster that only foes up. - THE FAULT IN OUR STARS JOHN GREEN What idea can be formed from the description of these people or what credit can be given to their st... NATHANIEL SMITH I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with thei... JONATHAN COE Respect for the dignity of the human person is the foundational principle of any just society. From ... SALVATORE J. CORDILEONE The idea of telling the story of the Armenian genocide - or, really, any other genocide - and repeat... CHRIS CORNELL The philosophy of Hobb... HANNAH ARENDT We want to provide readers with a very clean and fast way to get to information, whether they trust ... BILL GRUESKIN Simply put, would you rather die of a heart attack or a shark attack? So what scares us, kind of ent... DAVID ROPEIK When we, any of us who have been transformed by Christ, tell our own stories, we’re telling the st... SHAUNA NIEQUIST Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exempl... MARY CATHERINE BATESON It's a shame that one officer conducted himself in such an inappropriate and disorderly manner. I ne... EVA LONGORIA The bill would ban human cloning, and any attempts at human cloning, for both reproductive purposes ... KEN CALVERT The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to f... DOCTOR WHO It may not be amiss to add, for the benefit of incredulous readers, that all the 'improbable events'... WILKIE COLLINS Expanded fire suppression efforts may be the only way to save these species from extinction, ... The... DAVID HOGAN We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our c... FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our c... FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our c... FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT The theories of the social sciences do not consist of “laws” in the sense of empirical rules abo... FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply "there is ... SCARLETT THOMAS We don't feel this [review-panel process] is going to benefit our community or quality of life in an... BARBARA WARD We don't know enough to know whether any of that influence in any way stopped the administration or ... JOSEPH LIEBERMAN Mary believes that at the center of everyone is a mystery. And the idea that you can sum up a person... GRETCHEN MOL (Nationally), species such as the bald eagle have made a comeback because of targeted efforts. But u... BRETT ALBANESE If any private school coach attempts to recruit from a public system, or vice versa, that will be in... BRAD CASHMAN Power, of course. The primitive fear of being controlled. It does not matter whether it is an invasi... WOLE SOYINKA Neither informally or formally have I been advised of any such intention on her part. KARL SAMUDA As a revelation from God, they have stood the test of many ages; and as such maintained their ground... ADAM CLARKE Let me say straight up that tonight's benefit is not to support cop killers or any other kind of kil... ZACK DE LA ROCHA To begin with, you must realize that any idea accepted by the brain is automatically transformed int... SCOTT REED I don't know if it is of any joy to humiliate people. No matter what, whether you're high in... KANGANA RANAUT The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or pr... ELIZABETH I I do not want to go into its physical reasons: the construction of the human body is different from ... MORARJI DESAI
More John Green
Words are not static.Language shape our memories, and it is also shaped by our memories. JOHN GREEN The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real. JOHN GREEN That smile could end wars and cure cancer. JOHN GREEN You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. JOHN GREEN Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, a... JOHN GREEN you can never love someone as much as you miss them. JOHN GREEN There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what. JOHN GREEN He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his hea... JOHN GREEN Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again an... JOHN GREEN I think it's crazy, crazy that book tours lose so much money. They shouldn't. Book tours sho... JOHN GREEN I realize that humans lack good mirrors. It’s so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so ha... JOHN GREEN True love will triumph in the end—which may or may not be a lie, but if it is a lie, it's the most... JOHN GREEN I'm sitting her thinking, -God, I swear I will take a vow of silence and move to a monastery and wor... JOHN GREEN Headline?" he asked. "'Swing Set Needs Home,'" I said. "'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Need... JOHN GREEN He called out to his fellow monks,'Come quickly I am tasting stars. JOHN GREEN Is it still cool to go to the mall?' she asked. 'I take quite a lot of pride in not knowing what's c... JOHN GREEN Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer... JOHN GREEN Do you have a Wish?' he asked, referring to this organization, The Genie Foundation, which is in the... JOHN GREEN Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I sai... JOHN GREEN I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up," he said. "And it is my privilege and my resp... JOHN GREEN You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurt... JOHN GREEN Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something. Hazel Grace, tell me I hav... JOHN GREEN What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is s... JOHN GREEN I'm starting to think you have an amputee fetish" he answered, still kissing me. I laughed. "I... JOHN GREEN I have an Augustus Waters fetish," I explained. JOHN GREEN Finally, I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the St... JOHN GREEN Sure, anyone can name fourteen dead people. But we're disorganized mourners, so a lot of people end ... JOHN GREEN Lonley, Vaguely pedophilic swing set seeks the butts of children. JOHN GREEN There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection o... JOHN GREEN He’s not that smart.” “She’s right,” Augustus says. “It’s just that most re... JOHN GREEN All at once, I couldn’t figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object through a tor... JOHN GREEN A day after I got my eye cut out, Gus showed up at the hospital. I was blind and heart-broken and di... JOHN GREEN I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasu... JOHN GREEN Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. W... JOHN GREEN Maybe 'Okay' will be our 'always'... JOHN GREEN I was a bit of a Victorian Lady, fainting-wise. JOHN GREEN While I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action... JOHN GREEN the world wasn't made for us, we were made for the world JOHN GREEN Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds ou... JOHN GREEN I fell in love like you would fall asleep: slowly and then all at once. JOHN GREEN I missed the future. Obviously I knew even before his recurrence that I'd never grow old with August... JOHN GREEN Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted... JOHN GREEN Gus: "It tastes like..." Me: "Food." Gus: "Yes, precisely. It tastes like food, excellentl... JOHN GREEN But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassiu... JOHN GREEN I imagined the Augustus Waters analysis of that comment: If I am playing basketball in heaven, does ... JOHN GREEN I love you present tense. JOHN GREEN She loved mysteries so much, that she became one. JOHN GREEN It's just that I learned a while ago that the best way to get people to like you is not to like them... JOHN GREEN There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the ... JOHN GREEN As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the Ocean: "Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner conce... JOHN GREEN And then the line was quite but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in... JOHN GREEN All salvation is temporary," Augustus shot back. "I bought them a minute. Maybe that's the minute th... JOHN GREEN There were five others before they got to him. He smiled a little when his turn came. His voice was ... JOHN GREEN I know so many last words. But I will never know hers. JOHN GREEN And I wanted to tell her that the pleasure for me wasn't planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure ... JOHN GREEN Thank you for explaining that my eye cancer isn't going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an... JOHN GREEN That's why I like you. Do you realize how rare it is to come across a hot girl who creates a adjecti... JOHN GREEN I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is ine... JOHN GREEN I wanted to know that he would be okay if I died. I wanted to not be a grenade, to not be a malevole... JOHN GREEN Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that i... JOHN GREEN If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love ... JOHN GREEN We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. JOHN GREEN I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was t... JOHN GREEN there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars JOHN GREEN I dislike the phrase 'Internet friends,' because it implies that people you know online aren't reall... JOHN GREEN I wish I knew how to quit you, Tumblr. JOHN GREEN Just move to the Internet, its great here. We get to live inside where the weather is always awesome... JOHN GREEN Oh, Wikipedia, with your tension between those who would share knowledge and those who would destroy... JOHN GREEN It's not because I want to make out with her." Hold on." He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excit... JOHN GREEN I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying tr... JOHN GREEN They love their hair because they're not smart enough to love something more interesting. JOHN GREEN Principled hate is a hell of a lot stronger than "Boy, I wish you hadn't mummified me and thrown me ... JOHN GREEN Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. "R... JOHN GREEN So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I w... JOHN GREEN Thomas Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there ". I don't know where there is... JOHN GREEN Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you. JOHN GREEN When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, t... JOHN GREEN What a slut time is. She screws everybody. JOHN GREEN The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. JOHN GREEN Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than... JOHN GREEN You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I... JOHN GREEN Some people have lives; some people have music. JOHN GREEN You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect. JOHN GREEN As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, ... JOHN GREEN Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to t... JOHN GREEN Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinc... JOHN GREEN Some infinities are bigger than other infinities... JOHN GREEN It seemed like forever ago, like we've had this brief but still infinite forever. Some infinities ar... JOHN GREEN There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection o... JOHN GREEN Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. JOHN GREEN What you must understand about me is that I’m a deeply unhappy person. JOHN GREEN Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about sufferi... JOHN GREEN You could hold me and I could hold you. And it would be so peaceful. Completely peaceful. Like the f... JOHN GREEN That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pret... JOHN GREEN The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember w... JOHN GREEN Apparently, the world is not a wish-granting factory. JOHN GREEN Augustus," I said. "Really. You don't have to do this." "Sure I do," he said. "I found my Wish.... JOHN GREEN Peeing is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start. JOHN GREEN You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are. JOHN GREEN We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska t... JOHN GREEN Harry Potter isn’t real? Oh no! Wait, wait, what do you mean by real? Is this video blog real? Am ... JOHN GREEN The marks humans leave are too often scars. JOHN GREEN As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. JOHN GREEN Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew wha... JOHN GREEN It's just that most really good-looking people are stupid, so I exceed expectations.' 'Right, i... JOHN GREEN Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinc... JOHN GREEN Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to den... JOHN GREEN I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, ok... JOHN GREEN You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All effo... JOHN GREEN That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in t... JOHN GREEN I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the con... JOHN GREEN Maybe 'okay' will be our 'always JOHN GREEN It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the ... JOHN GREEN Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom... JOHN GREEN Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal. JOHN GREEN Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he h... JOHN GREEN May I see you again?" he asked. There was an endearing nervousness in his voice. I smile... JOHN GREEN There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no ... JOHN GREEN Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you. JOHN GREEN The world is not a wish-granting factory. JOHN GREEN My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations. JOHN GREEN Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, an... JOHN GREEN Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but ... JOHN GREEN You will not kill my girlfriend today, International Terrorists of Ambiguous Nationality! JOHN GREEN I mean, we're ninjas." "Well maybe you're a ninja," I said "You're just... JOHN GREEN The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing well or doing it poorly, it looks the exa... JOHN GREEN There are times when it is appropriate, even preferable, to get an erection when someone's face is i... JOHN GREEN We were kissing. I thought: This is good. I thought: I am not bad at this kissing. Not bad... JOHN GREEN What the hell is that?" I laughed. "It's my fox hat." "Your fox hat?" "Yeah, Pudge. M... JOHN GREEN I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their in... JOHN GREEN Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die. JOHN GREEN We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken. JOHN GREEN It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you.... JOHN GREEN Sometimes I don't get you,' I said. She didn't even glance at me. She just smiled toward the t... JOHN GREEN That didn’t happen, of course. Things never happened the way I imagined them. JOHN GREEN I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassi... JOHN GREEN I just did some calculations and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit. JOHN GREEN I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to us... JOHN GREEN Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war JOHN GREEN And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall... JOHN GREEN Have you really read all those books in your room?” Alaska laughing- “Oh God no. I’... JOHN GREEN He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, a... JOHN GREEN Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why... JOHN GREEN It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and fe... JOHN GREEN I may die young, but at least I'll die smart. JOHN GREEN What is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those ... JOHN GREEN I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fu... JOHN GREEN When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books. JOHN GREEN pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A ... JOHN GREEN Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, cert... JOHN GREEN I figured something out. The future is unpredictable. JOHN GREEN When things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again.... JOHN GREEN It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world. JOHN GREEN Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth,... JOHN GREEN [I]t occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, beca... JOHN GREEN Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will… but then again, if you don’t imagine, nothing eve... JOHN GREEN What the hell is instant ? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant puddin... JOHN GREEN I'll fight it. I'll fight it for you. Don't you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I'm okay. I'll find a w... JOHN GREEN You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how ... JOHN GREEN You used," he said, and then took a sharp breath, "to call me Augustus. JOHN GREEN The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, o... JOHN GREEN It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else. JOHN GREEN I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus," I said. "I am," he said. H... JOHN GREEN I looked over at Augustus Waters, who looked back at me. You could almost see through his eyes they ... JOHN GREEN And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. JOHN GREEN -so if the inevitability of oblivion worries you, than I suggest you ignore it. God knows that's wha... JOHN GREEN Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting. JOHN GREEN You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them. JOHN GREEN What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? JOHN GREEN Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the sid... JOHN GREEN What's that?" "The laundry basket?" "No, next to it." "I don't see anything next to i... JOHN GREEN Do the thing you're good at. Not many people are lucky enough to be so good at something. JOHN GREEN For a moment, she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered, “Run run run run run,” and too... JOHN GREEN We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels -... JOHN GREEN I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not tru... JOHN GREEN Chuck Parson did not participate in organized sports, because to do so would distract from his large... JOHN GREEN The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tighteni... JOHN GREEN Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see. JOHN GREEN You see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. JOHN GREEN But there was so much todo: cigarettes to smoke, sex to have, swings to swing on. I'll have more tim... JOHN GREEN How wil we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering? JOHN GREEN AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!' he screamed. 'So that's Sara,' I said. 'Yes.' 'She seems nice. JOHN GREEN The pigs can't stop the fox; I'm too quick,' Takumi said to himself. "I can rhyme while I run; I'm t... JOHN GREEN I’m just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them. JOHN GREEN You can't just make me different and then leave JOHN GREEN She has great breasts," the Colonel said without looking up from the whale. "DO NOT OBJECTIFY W... JOHN GREEN But why Alaska?' I asked her. 'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut... JOHN GREEN Right, well, he'd been sick for a while and his nurse said to him, 'You seem to be feeling better th... JOHN GREEN I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what. JOHN GREEN You're funny, and you're smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually. JOHN GREEN I have a great affection for people who are intellectually engaged with the world, and who don’t t... JOHN GREEN I've never known before what it feels like to want someone - not to want to hook up with them or wha... JOHN GREEN There's a stark difference between the words 'prodigy' and 'genius.' Prodigies can very quickly lear... JOHN GREEN Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you�... JOHN GREEN I wanted us to have an adventure. Because I love that crap. Because I'm not whatever-her-name-is. I ... JOHN GREEN If my public existence does anything worthwhile, hopefully it at least demystifies the author a bit,... JOHN GREEN If people were like rain, I was like drizzle and she was a hurricane. JOHN GREEN I do not say goodbye. I believe that's one of the bullshitiest words ever invented. It's not like yo... JOHN GREEN Do you know what your problem is? You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. JOHN GREEN Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will JOHN GREEN