John Green Quotes - Page 5

I felt bashful, like I had when I'd first told him of An Imperial Affliction. "Um, okay. Okay. 'Let us go, trough certain half-deserted streets,/ The muttering retreats/ Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:/ Streets that follow like a tedious argument/ Of insidious intent/ To lead you to an overwhelming question../Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"/ Let us go and make our visit" "I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus," I said. "I am, " he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you." "Augustus," I said again, not knowing what else to say. It felt like everything was rising up in me, like I was drowning in this wierdly painful joy, but I couldn't say it back. I couldn't say it back. I just looked at him and let him look at me until he nodded, lips pursed, and turned away, placing the side of his head against the window.
John Green
You could hold me and I could hold you. And it would be so peaceful. Completely peaceful. Like the feeling of sleep, but awake in it together.
John Green
Her primary reason for living and my primary reason for living were awfully entangled.
John Green
It's hard as hell to hold onto your dignity when the risen sun is too bright in your losing eyes, and that's what I was thinking about as we hunted for bad guys through the ruins of a city that didn't exist.
John Green
If you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all
John Green
In the ensuing silence, I have the time to contemplate the word cute – how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.
John Green
I did some research on this a couple years ago," Augustus continued. "I was wondering if everybody could be remembered. Like, if we got organized, and assigned a certain number of corpses to each living person, would there be enough living people to remember all the dead people?""And are there?" "Sure, anyone can name fourteen dead people. But we're disorganized mourners, so a lot of people end up remembering Shakespeare and no one ends up remembering the person he wrote Sonnet Fifty-five about
John Green
As he read, I feel in love the way you fall asleep: slow, and then all at once.
John Green
All writing is rewriting.
John Green
As a child I was an inveterate liar. As opposed to now, I am a Novelist.
John Green
We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.
John Green
I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.
John Green
[T]here is something to recommend a story that ends.
John Green
Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doin
John Green
Let me just acknowlege that the function of grammar is to make language as efficent and clear and transparent as possible. But if we’re all constantly correcting each other’s grammar and being really snotty about it, then people stop talking because they start to be petrified that they’re going to make some sort of terrible grammatical error and that’s precisely the opposite of what grammar is supposed to do, which is to facilitate clear communication.
John Green
People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the though of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believe in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.
John Green
I just want you to be happy. If that’s with me or with someone else or with nobody. I just want you to be happy.
John Green
The existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate.
John Green
The existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate".
John Green
The humans lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show them how we feel.
John Green
...stories don’t just make us matter to each other—maybe they’re also theonly way to the infinite mattering he’d been after for so long.
John Green
You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.
John Green
This is all so CHILDISH PATHETIC. YOU'RE EMBARASSING. GET OVER IT GET OVER IT GET OVER IT. But he did not quite know what "it" was.
John Green
It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating.
John Green
Nuts, arms, stomachs -- they never hurt. All hurt is brain hurt.
John Green
All hurt is brain hurt.
John Green
The missing piece in his stomach hurt so much-and eventually he stopped thinking about the Theorem and wondered only how something that isn't there can hurt you.
John Green
I walked to his bedside table next. Infinite Mayhem. the ninth sequel to The Prince of Dawn, lay atop the table next to his reading lamp, the corner of page 138 turned down. He'd never made it to the end of the book. 'Spoiler alert: Mayhem survives,' I said out loud to him, just in case he could hear me.
John Green
Your party kicked so much ass!Even though you suck so much! It's like, instead of blood, your heart pumps liquid suck! But thanks for the beer!
John Green
That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste. But I'm not pretty, not close up anyway. Generally, the closer people get to me the less hot they find me.
John Green
While the world wasn't build for the humans, we were built for the world
John Green
there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars
John Green
What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.I do, Augustus.I do.
John Green
The whole thing was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic
John Green
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism?The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
John Green
Hey, it’s Col. I’m standing in a soybean field outside of Gutshot, Tennessee, which is a long story, and it’s hot. K. I’m standing here sweating like I had hyperhidrosis, that disease where you sweat a lot. Crap. That’s not interesting. But anyway, it’s hot, and so I’m thinking about cold to stay cool. And I was remembering walking through the snow coming back from the ridiculous movie. Do you remember that, K? We were on Giddings, and the snow made it so quiet, I couldn’t hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it’s hot, and dead quiet again, and I love you still.
John Green
Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.
John Green
if you don't believe,nothing ever happens at all.
John Green
You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to lover her.
John Green
You get caught in being something, being cool or special or whatever, to the point where you don’t even know why you need it; you just think you do
John Green
Jesus, why would he hook up with Becca?" "Well, she's not known for her personality or generosity of spirit, so it's probably because she's hot." "She's not as hot as you," I said, before I could think better of it. "That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would want to around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste.
John Green
You don’t get to have an opinion on whether .999… is equal to 1, for instance. It is equal to 1. People smarter than us have worked hard to figure this stuff out, and we owe it to them and to the universe to respect what they’ve figured out.
John Green
Who am I to say that these things might not be forever? Who is Peter Van Houten to assert as fact the conjecture that our labor is temporary? All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park; an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children.
John Green
what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us- not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us as individuals.
John Green
But of course, the universe does not conspire to put you in one place rather than another.
John Green
…it argues that true love will triumph in the end (which may or may not be true) but if it’s a lie, it’s the most beautiful lie we have!
John Green
Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.I want to leave a mark.But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion....We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox....But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar....What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
John Green
Thomas Edison’s last words were ‘It’s very beautiful over there’. I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful
John Green
Why are you looking at me like that?"Augustus half smiled. "Because you`re beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.
John Green
He reached up t0 grab one and came down with several, and they kept coming, washing over him, floating all around him. Never have tampon strings seemed so beautiful as they rolled up and down with the wind, landing on the ground and then twirling and floating up again, falling and rising and falling and rising.
John Green
You could hear the wind in the leaves, and on that wind traveled the screams of the kids on the playground in the distance, little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that wasn't made for them by navigating a playground that was.
John Green
Everyone wants to leave an extraordinary life.
John Green
On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are.
John Green
The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rockstar and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
John Green
And the moral of the story is that you don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.
John Green
The town was paper, but the memories were not.
John Green
I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and Ihated people who didn't hate people who watched or played them.
John Green
Caroline was always moody and miserable, but I liked it. I liked feeling as if she had chosen me as the only person in the world not to hate, and so we spent all this time together just ragging on everyone, you know?
John Green
humans lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show anyone how we feel
John Green
That deep, can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth sleep.
John Green