Looking For Alaska Quotes

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

If you took all the killing in Star Wars and replaced it with fucking, you'd have an R-rated movie instead of PG. You ask me what's wrong with society? That's what's fucking wrong with society, that's everything that's wrong with society. From the age we're old enough to watch Star Wars we're told that sexuality is something we should be shy and timid about, while violence makes us heroes. Something we were designed to do is secret and shameful. Something we should never do is how we get things done. Star Wars is a great movie, don't get me wrong, but if you think its more acceptable for children than Looking For Alaska, because of the latter's sexual content, then your view of what it means to be human is seriously disturbed. ~ Max Davine

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

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

When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. ~ John Green

Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river.
'Why do you smoke so damn fast?' I asked.
She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die. ~ John Green

Ya'll smoke to enjoy. I smoke to die. ~ John Green

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. ~ John Green

The labyrinth blows, but I choose it. ~ John Green

In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweat and sunshine and vanilla, ~ John Green

Tuesday - we had school for the first time. Madame O'Malley had a moment of silence at the beginning of French class, a class that was always punctuated with long moments of silence, and then asked us how we were feeling.

"Awful," a girl said.

"En français," Madame O'Malley replied. "En français. ~ John Green

It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things. ~ John Green

And on that thin-mooned night, I could see little more than her silhoutte except for when she smoked, the burning cherry of the cigarette washing her face in pale red light. ~ John Green

I learned that myth doesn't mean a lie; it means a traditional story that tells you something about people and their worldview and what they hold sacred. Interesting. ~ John Green

This one's for Alaska Young! ~ John Green

Why don't we break up? I guess I stay with her because she stays with me. And that's not an easy thing to do. ~ John Green

I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. And I steeled myself to say them as I stared up at that starriest night, convinced myself that she felt it, too, that her hand so alive and vivid against my leg was more than playful, and fuck Lara and fuck Jake because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that and my lips parted to speak and before I could even begin to breathe out the words, she said, It's not life or death, the labyrinth. ~ John Green

My Mother just lost my book... Looking for Alaska!! I'm still looking for you!! ~ Ingrid Espinoza-Hueck

If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless. ~ John Green

I thought at first she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her-green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs-would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere.

I still think that, sometimes. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just a matter, and matter gets recycled. ~ John Green

It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering? ~ John Green

What you must understand about me is that I'm a deeply unhappy person. ~ John Green

After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out - but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it. Chip/Colonel ~ John Green

When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart,
you'd stop suffering when they did. ~ John Green

'Looking For Alaska' by John Green is a very great book. I feel like every teenage girl says John Green's 'Fault In Our Stars,' but 'Looking For Alaska' is better. ~ Alessia Cara

People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to. ~ John Green

I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what. ~ John Green

More than anything, I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone
who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness, and then I leaned forward, my forehead against the back of Takumi's headrest, and I
cried, whimpering, and I didn't even feel sadness so much as pain. ~ John Green

ALSO BY JOHN GREEN Looking for Alaska ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... An Abundance of Katherines ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Paper Towns ... ... ... ... ... ... Will Grayson, Will Grayson WITH DAVID LEVITHAN ~ John Green

I finally found something that can stop the fox. The fox cannot summit Strawberry Hill. - Takumi ~ John Green

That didn't happen, of course. Things never happened the way I imagined them. ~ John Green

Why do you smoke so damn fast?"
"Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die. ~ John Green

She'd obviously read the book many times before, and so she read flawlessly and confidently, and I could hear her smile in the reading of it, and the sound of that smile made me think that maybe I would like novels better if Alaska Young read them to me. ~ John Green

Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. ( ... ) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present. ~ John Green

Yeah," I said. "What is that? A bird? "It's the swan," he said. "Wow. A school with a swan. Wow."
"That swan is the spawn of Satan. Never get closer to it than we are now. ~ John Green

Teenagers think they're invincible ~ John Green

We skipped stones across the creek, which sounds dumb but it wasn't. I don't know. Like the way the sun is right now, with the long shadows and that kind of bright, soft light you get when the sun isn't quite setting? That's the light that makes everything better, everything prettier, and today, everything just seems to be in that light. ~ John Green

I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life.. ~ John Green

And I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart slowly, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and nothing but herself and her mom in those last moments as she spent as a person. ~ John Green

I didn't know what to say to her - I was caught in a love triangle with one dead side. ~ John Green

The Colonel explained to me that 1. this was Alaska's room, and that 2. she had a single room because the girl who was supposed to be her roommate got kicked out at the end of last year, and that 3. Alaska had cigarettes, although the Colonel neglected to ask whether 4. I smoked, which 5. I didn't. ~ John Green

How long have you been dating her?' I asked.
Nine months. We never got along. I mean, I didn't even briefly like her. Like, my mom and my dad- my dad would get pissed, and then he would beat the shit out of my mom. And then my dad would be all nice and they'd have a honeymoon period. But with Sara, there's never a honeymoon period. God, how could she think I was a rat? I know, I know: Why don't we break up?' He ran a hand through his hair, clutching a fistful of it atop his head, and said, ' I guess I saty with her because she stays with me. And that's not an easy thing to do. I'm a bad boyfriend. She's a bad girlfriend. We deserve each other. ~ John Green

But there was so much todo: cigarettes to smoke, sex to have, swings to swing on. I'll have more time for reading when I'm old and boring. ~ John Green

We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken. ~ John Green

What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous. ~ Anonymous

How will we ever get out, straight and fast, of this labyrinth of suffering? ~ John Green

Make sure you're not expecting cute. This isn't Looking For Alaska. ~ Hannah Moskowitz

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. ~ John Green

We go fish, we also catch fighting fish, looking for birds and it was for kampong people, the paddy field was our the play field for the children. ~ Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

...sometimes what you go looking for isn't as important as what you leave behind. ~ Ilona Andrews

Rule number one of the wizarding business. Never let them see you sweat. People expect us to know things. It can be a big advantage. Don't screw it up by looking like you're as confused as everyone else. Bad for the image. ~ Jim Butcher

Now, I'm no longer looking for the enemy. So I no longer see the enemy. ~ Shonda Rhimes

I definitely see myself continuing to transition into more acting roles. I'll always be a coach. I'm always going to have a training center, always going to work with guys that are looking for some input and want help. I love commentating, and that's something I can always go back to and enjoy doing. ~ Randy Couture

I'm not looking for sympathy at all. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

They have to sort out their problems and the best way for us is to trade with the world don't be this inward looking bloc and above all you take back control over all the decision you have made .we are one in 28 with another 5 countries joining ..we will become increasing insignificant so lets take back control. ~ Ruth Davidson

We're looking for quantum donuts," said Mike. ~ Peter Clines

You never know what to expect on encountering royalty. I've seen 'em stark naked except for wings of peacock feathers (Empress of China), giggling drunk in the embrace of a wrestler (Maharani of the Punjab), voluptuously wrapped in wet silk (Queen of Madagascar), wafting to and fro on a swing (Rani of Jhansi), and tramping along looking like an out-of-work charwoman (our own gracious monarch). ~ George MacDonald Fraser

People are always thinking they can use the Lord to get their own way-- all they have to do is pray and God's gonna take away all their suffering and give them what they whatever they ask for. But it don't work that way. God's doing His business, and it's up to us to be serving Him, not the other way around."

Then why do people pray at all? My papa asked Jesus to help him escape with me when I was just a little girl. But Jesus didn't help us."

Praying ain't about asking for your own way. It's all about talking things over with God, just like you and me are talking things over. In the end, you have to be trusting the Lord to do what's best."

So the Lord thought it was best that my papa died and my mama was sold?"

Delia slowly shook her head. "I don't know, honey, I just don't know. The hardest thing of all to understand is why a loving God keeps letting us suffer... I don't know all the answers myself. I seen my share of suffering, believe me. But there two things I do know for sure. One is that God loves us... And the second thing is that God's always in control of everything that happens. When bad things come our way and it starts looking like He don't love us, all I can say is that maybe we ain't knowing everything He knows."

Kitty's tears started falling again. "I still don't understand."

Remember what you told me about the fighting up in Charleston? How you was standing on that porch, not able to see what's ~ Lynn Austin

We need better options for securing the Internet. Instead of looking primarily for top-down government intervention, we can enlist the operators and users themselves. ~ Jonathan Zittrain

All actors are looking for that role that's going to define who they are. When it happens, it's a good thing. ~ Jeffrey Pierce

Leta walked to the door and opened it with a ready smile for Colby Lane. And found herself looking straight into the eye of a man she hadn't seen face-to-face in thirty-six years.
Matt Holden matched her face against his memories of a young, slight, beautiful woman whose eyes loved him every time they looked at him. His heart spun like a cartwheel in his chest.
"Cecily said it was Colby," Leta said unsteadily.
"Strange. She phoned me and asked if I was free this evening." His broad shoulders shrugged and he smiled faintly. "I'm free every evening."
"That doesn't sound like the life of a playboy widower," Leta said caustically.
"My wife was a vampire," he said. "She sucked me dry of life and hope. Her drinking wore me down. Her death was a relief for both of us. Do I get to come in?" he added, glancing down the hall. "I'm going to collect dust if I stand out here much longer, and I'm hungry. A sack of McDonald's hamburgers and fries doesn't do a lot for me."
"I hear it's a presidential favorite," Cecily mused, joining them. "Come in, Senator Holden."
"It was Matt before," he pointed out. "Or are you trying to butter me up for a bigger donation to the museum?"
She shrugged. "Pick a reason."
He looked at Leta, who was uncomfortable. "Well, at least you can't hang up on me here. You'll be glad to know that our son isn't speaking to me. He isn't speaking to you, either, or so he said," he added. "I suppose he won't talk to you?" he add ~ Diana Palmer

As I say, the happiness with which the pleasure-seekers gathering on this pier greeted this small event would tend to vouch for the correctness of my companion's words; for a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

…little people like me have to keep the true story alive. That way, when the revolution ends, and people come looking for the history, we can say, 'Here it is – we kept it for you. ~ Mauriel Joslyn

I'm not running around looking for love and validation. ~ Sophie B. Hawkins

Compared to that, the way for me has always been muddy. Growing up I confused everyone, including myself. I was ostracised, blamed for not looking or behaving as clearly girl or boy. How could I explain that it felt like I was elements of both, inextricably mixed? I ran from the questions, but more waited around every corner. When ~ Kim Westwood

A pastor who counsels an abuse victim to:
- Submit to her husband
- Pray harder, or
- Be a better wife
can't help her. She should not feel guilty about looking elsewhere for help. ~ Caroline Abbott

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with it's path high above, and it's two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of a gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ~ Hayley Williams

I often find things at thrift stores and library sales that I never could have been looking for. In those cases, the research is done after the fact to figure out what, exactly, I've found. It's surprising how much out there still has no online presence. ~ Michael Dumontier

You guys looking for my dad? People are always, like, looking for him, and he's never around. Daddy is so not here. And I mean that literally and spiritually. ~ Eoin Colfer

Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: ~ Sam Harris

Now tell me the truth," he said. "Why are you doing this?" She cringe from him. "I told you why." "I know you still love me." He smiled. "I can see it in your face." Mimi sneered. "We are with Lucifer now; we have always been false." "I don't believe it for one second," Kingsley whispered, looking into her eyes tenderly. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

It strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death. ~ Charlotte Bronte

I am not looking for greatness. I am only looking for acceptance of me, as myself, in my modest and humble existence in this world. ~ Mark Louis Hudson

What triggers a poem for me is not the same as what triggers an essay. My mind is geared to looking for, or to watching out for, the image that attracts my attention or the phrase or the strange juxtaposition that strikes me bodily, or an odd question or supposition. ~ Pattiann Rogers

Reading is like skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and skiing are graceful, harmonious, activities. When done by a beginner, both are awkward, frustrating, and slow.
Learning to ski is one of the most humiliating experiences an adult can undergo (that is one reason to start young). After all, an adult has been walking for a long time; he knows where his feet are; he knows how to put one foot in front of the other in order to get somewhere. But as soon as he puts skis on his feet, it is as though he had to learn to walk all over again. He slips and slides, falls down, has trouble getting up, gets his skis crossed, tumbles again, and generally looks- and feels- like a fool.
Even the best instructor seems at first to be of no help. The ease with which the instructor performs actions that he says are simple but that the student secretly believes are impossible is almost insulting. How can you remember everything the instructors says you have to remember? Bend your knees. Look down the hill Keep your weight on the downhill ski. Keep your back straight, but nevertheless lean forward. The admonitions seem endless-how can you think about all that and still ski?
The point about skiing, of course, is that you should not be thinking about the separate acts that, together, make a smooth turn or series of linked turns- instead, you should merely be looking ahead of you down the hill, anticipating bumps and other skiers, enjoying the feel of th ~ Mortimer J. Adler

If you are looking for a friend that will never change, go to the shelves, you'll find it there. It will never change and will stay the same today and forever. ~ Wency June Z. Libot

Don't try to change the world; just change yourself. Why? Because the whole world is only relative to the eyes that are looking at it. Your world actually only exists for as long as you exist and with the death of you, includes the death of your world. Therefore, if there is no peace in your heart; you will find no peace in this world, if there is no happiness in your life; you will find no happiness anywhere around you, if you have no love in your heart; you will not find love anywhere and if you do not fly around freely inside your own soul like a bird with perfectly formed wings; then there will never be any freedom for you regardless if you are on a mountaintop removed from all attachments to all of mankind! Even the mountaintop cannot give you freedom if it is not already flying around there inside your own soul! So I say, change yourself. Not the world. ~ C. JoyBell C.

It's hard for bands to stick it out because people grow up, and it never really pays off. If you're looking for some sort of payoff, it's not gonna happen. ~ Thurston Moore

"What are you looking for?" "Gandolf," I cracked, trying not to laugh. He pursed his lips. "I'm serious. You need to listen. ~ Liz Schulte

Because a person has to be either working or looking for work to be counted as part of the labor force, an increase in the number of people too discouraged to continue their search for work would reduce the unemployment rate, all else being equal - but not for a positive reason. ~ Ben Bernanke

End of the day, the quick and the dead are the same. Everyone's just looking for a home. ~ J.R. Ward

What's a buckle-bunny?"
She grinned. "It used to be a description of the girls who hung around rodeo cowboys looking to hook up. Now it means any Texas gold digger who's looking for a sugar daddy."
"I'm not a gold digger."
"No, you advise them in your column. You tell them to support themselves and get their priorities straight."
"Everyone should listen to me," I said, and Haven laughed, lifting her glass.
-Ella & Haven ~ Lisa Kleypas