John Green Quotes

Cousin-screwing. It is not totally safe. It raises the risk of birth defects slightly. But I was reading in a book for history that there's, like, a 99.9999 percent chance that at least one of your great-great-great-grandparents married first cousin. ~ John Green

I always like routine. I suppose I never found boredom very boring. ~ John Green

The thought of you being removed from the rotation is not funny to me. ~ John Green

I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them. ~ John Green

The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness. ~ John Green

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin. ~ John Green

That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste. ~ John Green

And after, when we went outside to look at her finished lantern from the road, I said I liked the way her light shone through the face that flickered in the dark. - "Jack O'Lantern," Katrina Vandenberg from Atlas ~ John Green

Because it's kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way. And Agloe is a place where a paper creation became real. A dot on the map became a real place, more real than the people who created the dot could never have imagined. I thought maybe the paper cutout of a girl could start becoming real here also. And it seemed like a way to tell that paper girl who cared about popularity and clothes and everything else: 'You are going to the paper towns. And you are never coming back. ~ John Green

In the contemporary world where things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold, you have to imagine a community where there is no centre. Hank, at the end of this year I started thinking that a lot of life is about doing things that don't suck with people who don't suck. ~ John Green

I mean, it's stupid to miss someone you didn't even get along with. But I don't know, it was nice, you know, having someone you could always fight with. ~ John Green

JG: Ha! I will get him Looking for Alaska and tell him this idea that a human being is more than a human being is a mistaken idea and in the end does no service either to him or the person he's imagining. That trope has become so deeply embedded in American culture, and as someone who writes about young people falling in love, I feel like I can't ignore it, but I try to make it clear that life works best when we think of people as people. ~ John Green

And I don't really have anyone upon whom I want to rain down my wrath, I said, because in truth I didn't. I always felt like you had to be important to have enemies. Example: Historically, Germany has had more enemies than Luxembourg, Margo Roth Spiegelman was Germany. And Great Britain. And the United States. And czarist Russia. Me, I'm Luxembourg. Just sitting around, tending sheep, and yodeling. ~ John Green

The truth is that in our lives we are all going to encounter questions that should be answered, that deserve to be answered, and yet prove unanswerable. ~ John Green

If you want me to be a teenager, don't send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot. ~ John Green

Love is always a miracle, everywhere,every time. But for us, it's a little different. I don't want to say it's more miraculous, ... It is though. ~ John Green

The slight chill in the air was balanced magnificently by the sunshine. ~ John Green

... God, it's over. Takumi, you gotta stop stealing other people's problems and get some of your own. ~ John Green

In the end, what you do isn't going to be nearly as interesting or important as who you do it with. ~ John Green

One of the points of being alive is we get to pay attention. We get to both participate in and observe this weird universe that is simultaneously like stunningly elegant and completely heartless. ~ John Green

It is so hard to leave - until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world. ~ John Green

Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate. ~ John Green

I thought of us lying down on some grassy patch of SeaWorld together, me on my back and she on her side with her arm draped against me, her head on my shoulder, facing me. Not doing anything - just lying there together beneath the sky, the night here so well lit that it drowns out the stars. ~ John Green

We always think of language as an immovable object, as this set of codified and unbreakable rules. But when you consider that one can rearrange the
letters in PRESBYTERIANS and spell
BRITNEY SPEARS, it reminds us that
language (and the stories we tell with
language) can be twisted and molded. ~ John Green

Babies are made through an act that you will eventually find intriguing but for right now will just sort of horrify you, and also sometimes people do stuff that involves baby-making parts that does not actually involve making babies, like for instance kiss each other in places that are not on the face. ~ John Green

She sang lead, and I belted out the background voice that just repeated, "You're everything everything everything," and I felt like I was. 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 you. ~ John Green

That's what I was thinking about before you came. I was thinking about your mattering business. I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do."
"You don't even know why you need to be world-famous; you just think you do. ~ John Green

The store that was Agloe no longer stands. But I believe that if we were to put it back on our maps, someone would eventually rebuild it. ~ John Green

When you say nasty things about people, you should never say the true ones, because you can't really trully and honestly take those back ... ~ John Green

I missed the future. ~ John Green

The easiest way to solve a mystery is to decide that there is no mystery to solve. ~ John Green

High School made me realize that the people who say they will never change, are always the ones who change the most. ~ John Green

But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out there, he said, ~ John Green

You live for pretentious metaphors. ~ John Green

Oh come on. He's not gonna survive 17 bullet wounds, is he? (Spoiler Alert: He does.) ~ John Green

I picked you. And then you picked me back. And that's like a promise.
At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer, 'Til dawn do us part. ~ John Green

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful. ~ John Green

Pain demands to be felt, he said, which was a line from An Imperial Affliction. ~ John Green

Dad always told me that you can judge people by the way they treat waiters and assistants. By this measure, Peter Van Houten was possibly the world's douchiest douche. ~ John Green

I like being liked. Is that crazy? ~ John Green

Sometimes it seems the universe just wants to be noticed. ~ John Green

I can no more choose my thoughts than choose my name. ~ John Green

Do you know what your problem is? You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. ~ John Green

She's still taking on water. A dessert blessing, an ocean curse ~ John Green

New wars started even before the old ones were won. ~ John Green

As far as I can tell, there are two basic (kissing) rules: 1. Don't bite anything without permission. 2. The human tongue is like wasabi: it's very powerful, and should be used sparingly. ~ John Green

... but it is the nature of stars to cross ~ John Green

But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all. Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else. I could never have imagined Margo's anger at being found, or the story she was writing over. But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in. ~ John Green

You should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as happy ending. There is so much to lose. ~ John Green

I think that it's a universal urge to have our pain not be felt alone and to have our joys not be felt alone. ~ John Green

Books are beautiful for reading and they're also beautiful for holding. ~ John Green

She liked you.. You thought she was quietly discussing precalc, when she was clearly talking about having hot sex with you. Which is why you need me. ~ John Green

I kept reading.
I miss you already, bro.
I love you, Augustus. God bless and keep you.
You'll live forever in our hearts, big man.
(That particularly galled me, because it implied the immortality of those left behind:
You will live forever in my memory, becauuse I will live forever! I AM YOUR GOD NOW, DEAD BOY! I OWN YOU! Thinking you won't die is yet another side effect of dying.)
You were always such a great friend I'm sorry I didn't see more of you after you left school, bro. I bet you're already playing ball in heaven. ~ John Green

But mothers lie. It's in the job description. ~ John Green

You just, like, hate yourself? You hate being yourself?"
"There's no self to hate. It's like, when I look into myself, there's no actual me - just a bunch of thoughts and behaviors and circumstances. And a lot of them just don't feel like they're mine. They're not things I want to think or do or whatever. And when I do look for the, like, Real Me, I never find it. It's like those nesting dolls, you know? The ones that are hollow, and then when you open them up, there's a smaller doll inside, and you keep opening hollow dolls until eventually you get to the smallest one, and it's solid all the way through. But with me, I don't think there is one that is solid. They just keep getting smaller. ~ John Green

graffiti in the stall read: CALL DANA FOR BLOW. Colin wondered whether Dana provided fellatio or cocaine, ~ John Green

NOTHING HAS EVER LOOKED LIKE THAT EVER IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY, ~ John Green

I'd never been religious, but he told us that religion is important whether or not we believed in one, in the same way that historical events are important whether or not you personally lived through them. ~ John Green

I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not true. Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together. ~ John Green

Throughout the book, she refers to herself as "the side effect," which is just totally correct. Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible. ~ John Green

This is what I liked most about my friends: just sitting around and telling stories. Window stories and mirror stories. ~ John Green

It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again. That is probably true ~ John Green

If I had a nervous breakdown every time something awful happened in the world, I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat. ~ John Green

The boys I'm acquainted with are vastly uninteresting. -Kaitlyn ~ John Green

I'm not sure why, but I've always been pretty keen on the male forearm. ~ John Green

She's adorable ." "How would you know?" "I'm gay, not blind. Her hair's all poofy and she's got a great nose. I mean, a great nose. And, what? What do you people like? Boobs? She seems to have boobs. They seem to be of approximately normal boob size. What else do you want? ~ John Green

And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned. ~ John Green

The labyrinth sucks, but I choose it ~ John Green

Everything's uglier up close. ~ John Green

That's the thing about history: YOU make it. ~ John Green

TINY (singing): I was born this way Big-boned and happily gay I was born this way. Right here in the U.S. of A It's pointless to wonder why I ended up so G-A-Y From the very first day The rainbow's come my way I've got brown hair, big hips, blue blue eyes. And one day I'm gonna make out with guys, guys, guys! ~ John Green

Being gay is not an excuse for being a dick. ~ John Green

Leaving senior year like:
its hard to leave to you leave, then its the eased goddam thing you've ever done. ~ John Green

It's embarrassing that we all just walk through life blindly accepting that scrambled eggs are fundamentally associated with mornings. ~ John Green

Nerd life is so much better than regular life. ~ John Green

What happens in the band room stays in the band room. ~ John Green

There's your labyrinth of suffering. We are all going. Find your way out of that maze. ~ John Green

I always had this secret suspicion that I was special. ~ John Green

The champagne had been donated by one of Gus's doctors - Gus being the kind of person who inspires doctors to give their best bottles of champagne to children. ~ John Green

God, we are so cool. And by cool, I mean retarded. ~ John Green

Why are you acting like such a brat? ~ John Green

The next morning I had Twentieth-Century American Poetry at MCC. This old woman gave a lecture wherein she managed to talk for ninety minutes about Sylvia Plath without ever once quoting a single word of Sylvia Plath. ~ John Green

What a mistake it was to distill the poem into something worthless ~ John Green

carrying a vague but constant fear ~ John Green

Perhaps a special wing at the Museum of Crazy should be erected in my honor. ~ John Green

Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying. ~ John Green

That deep, can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth sleep. ~ John Green

We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. ~ John Green

She spoke quietly then, the tiniest crack in her voice, and all at once Lacey Pemerton was not Lacey Pemberton. She was just - like, a person. ~ John Green

To be abandoned like that! Shut out when you most need to be loved. ~ John Green

I promise you that it will be okay," the Duke said, her voice measured, quiet.
"You're good at that," I said. "At, like, saying crazy things in a way that makes me believe them. ~ John Green

and in freedom, most people find sin. ~ John Green

In general-like not just in fiction but in life-it doesn't work out well when someone imagines someone else as a manic pixie dream girl or an Edward Cullen or anything other than a full, complex human being. That said, while I've tried to reflect that in my books, I don't think I've always succeeded, because I am always running up against my own insufficiencies and biases etc. ~ 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. ~ John Green

It scares me sometimes. Wishing it to work ~ John Green

I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn't get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn't gotten to be a person yet (Page 294). ~ John Green

Thoughts are just a different kind of bacteria, colonizing you. ~ John Green

She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. ~ John Green

Dad: "You're a survivor yourself, then?" Augustus: "I am. I didn't cut this fella off for the sheer unadulterated pleasure of it, although it is an excellent weight-loss strategy. Legs are heavy!" Dad: ~ John Green

We are not as frail as the strings would make us believe. ~ John Green