John Green

We were very different, and we disagreed about a lot of things, but he was always so interesting, you know?

I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

I was born into Bolívar's labyrinth, and so I must believe in the hope of Rabelais' Great Perhaps.

Nerd girls are the world’s most underutilized romantic resource. And guys, do not tell me that nerd girls are not hot because that shows a Paris Hilton-esque failure to understand hotness.

Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.

They love their hair because they're not smart enough to love something more interesting.

Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?

Love is keeping the promise anyway.

Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said."Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.

Maybe 'Okay' will be our 'always'...

You just gotta tell her, man,’ I said. ‘You just gotta say, Angela, I really like you, but there’s something you need to know: when we go to my house and hook up, we’ll be watched by the twenty-four hundred eyes of twelve hundred black Santas.

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.

I always felt like you had to be important to have enemies.

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.

You will not kill my girlfriend today, International Terrorists of Ambiguous Nationality!

I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was thirteen. (I didn’t tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.)

If you don't live a life in service of a greater good, you've gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won't get either a life or a death that means anything.