Quotes from John Green

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.

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

I hadn't been in proper school in three years. My parents were my two best friends. My third best friend was an author who did not know I existed.

There is no Them. There are only facets of Us.

We all use the future to escape the present.

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 beautiful lie we have.

It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.

Principled hate is a hell of a lot stronger than "Boy, I wish you hadn't mummified me and thrown me into the lake" hate.

Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes.

Have you really read all those books in your room?" Alaska laughing- Oh God no. I've maybe read a third of 'em. But I'm going to read them all. I call it my Life's Library. Every summer since I was little, I've gone to garage sales and bought all the books that looked interesting. So I always have something to read.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.

Maybe 'okay' will be our 'always

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.

Is it still cool to go to the mall?' she asked. 'I take quite a lot of pride in not knowing what's cool,' I answered.

Teenage readers also have a different relationship with the authors whose work they value than adult readers do. I loved Toni Morrison, but I don't have any desire to follow her on Twitter. I just want to read her books.

Because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.

Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.

We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim - as you will be - of the universe's need to make and unmake all that is possible.

She loved mysteries so much that she became one.

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.

If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?

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.)

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.