Peter Van Daans Quotes

No, I'm not afraid, except when it comes to things about myself, but I'm working on that. ~ Anne Frank

Dear Mr. Peter Van Houten
(c/o Lidewij Vliegenthart),

My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster. My friend Augustus Waters, who read An Imperial Affliction at my recommendationtion, just received an email from you at this address. I hope you will not mind that Augustus shared that email with me.

Mr. Van Houten, I understand from your email to Augustus that you are not planning to publish any more books. In a way, I am disappointed, but I'm also relieved: I never have to worry whether your next book will live up to the magnificent perfection of the original. As a three-year survivor of Stage IV cancer, I can tell you that you got everything right in An Imperial Affliction. Or at least you got me right. Your book has a way of telling me what I'm feeling before I even feel it, and I've reread it dozens of times.

I wonder, though, if you would mind answering a couple questions I have about what happens after the end of the novel. I understand the book ends because Anna dies or becomes too ill to continue writing it, but I would really like to mom-wether she married the Dutch Tulip Man, whether she ever has another child, and whether she stays at 917 W. Temple etc. Also, is the Dutch Tulip Man a fraud or does he really love them? What happens to Anna's friends-particularly Claire and Jake? Do they stay that this is the kind of deep and thoughtful question you always hoped your readers would ask-what becomes of Sisyphus the Hamster? These questio ~ John Green

I think it's a good idea to tie Peter Mandelson to a van. Such an act would be cruel and barbaric and inhuman. But it would at least cheer everyone up a bit. ~ Jeremy Clarkson

Peter Rabbit's not a rabbit. Peter Rabbit is a proxy for the child who reads the book, and they imagine themselves in the rabbit's position. ~ Chris Van Allsburg

The shirt was a screen print of a famous Surrealist artwork by René Magritte in which he drew a pipe and then beneath it wrote in cursive Ceci n'est pas une pipe. ("This is not a pipe.")

"I just don't get that shirt," Mom said.

"Peter Van Houten will get it, trust me.

There are like seven thousand Magritte references in An Imperial Affliction."

"But it is a pipe."

"No, it's not," I said. "It's a drawing of a pipe. Get it? All representations of a thing are inherently abstract. It's very clever."

"How did you get so grown up that you understand things that confuse your ancient mother?" Mom asked. "It seems like just yes-terday that I was telling seven-year-old Hazel why the sky was blue. You thought I was a genius back then."

"Why is the sky blue?" I asked.

"Cuz," she answered. I laughed. ~ John Green

As one Iraqi said, "It is like I am standing naked in a room with a big hat on my head. Everyone comes in and helps put flowers and ribbons on my hat, but no one seems to notice that I am naked. ~ Peter Van Buren

When the ANSI C standard was under development, the pragma directive was introduced. Borrowed from Ada, #pragma is used to convey hints to the compiler, such as the desire to expand a particular function in-line or suppress range checks. Not previously seen in C, pragma met with some initial resistance from a gcc implementor, who took the "implementation-defined" effect very literally - in gcc version 1.34, the use of pragma causes the compiler to stop compiling and launch a computer game instead! The gcc manual contained the following: The "#pragma" command is specified in the ANSI standard to have an arbitrary implementation-defined effect. In the GNU C preprocessor, "#pragma" first attempts to run the game "rogue"; if that fails, it tries to run the game "hack"; if that fails, it tries to run GNU Emacs displaying the Tower of Hanoi; if that fails, it reports a fatal error. In any case, preprocessing does not continue. - Manual for version 1.34 of the GNU C compiler ~ Peter Van Der Linden

You certainly wouldn't want to invest much time in an argument with someone who would believe it in the first place. ~ Peter Van Inwagen

My favorite book, by a wide margin, was An Imperial Affliction, but I didn't like to tell people about it. Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you withthis weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read thebook. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.It wasn't even that the book was so good or anything; it was just that the author, Peter Van Houten, seemed to understand me in weird and impossible ways. An Imperial Affliction was my book, in the way my body was my body and my thoughts were my thoughts. ~ John Green

What if Van Gogh had taken medication for his mental illness? Would the world have been deprived of a great artist? ~ Peter D. Kramer

In some respects Abbott proved to be the id of Australia's modern conservative movement: hyper-adversarial, willing to occupy itself in opposition to whatever social issues were preoccupying the left. Owing more to American political culture than the British inheritance Abbott claimed to value, contemporary Australian conservatism makes the grave error of believing in things other than power and stability. ~ Peter Van Onselen

It looks to me as if Darwinians are like someone who, having observed that tugboats sometimes maneuver ocean liners in tight places by directing high-pressure streams of water at them, concludes that he has discovered the method by which the liners cross the Atlantic. ~ Peter Van Inwagen

New problems: Mrs. Van Daan is desperate, talks about a bullet through her head, prison, hanging, and suicide. She's jealous that Peter confides in me and not her. ~ Anne Frank

Van Houten nodded and said, "Did you close the deal with that chick yet?" Whereupon I encountered for the first and only time a truly speechless Augustus Waters. "I," he started, "um, I, Hazel, um. Well." "This boy appears to have some kind of developmental delay," Peter Van Houten said to Lidewij. ~ John Green

Peter Van Houten was the only person I'd ever come across who seemed to (a) understand what it's
like to be dying, and (b) not have died. ~ John Green

Your grandfather were a quiet and secret man he had been ripped from his home in Tipperary and transported to the prisons of Van Diemen's Land I do not know what was done to him he never spoke of it. When they had finished with their tortures they set him free and he crossed the sea to the colony of Victoria. He were by this time 30 yr. of age red headed and freckled with his eyes always slitted against the sun. My da had sworn an oath to evermore avoid the attentions of the law so when he saw the streets of Melbourne was crawling with policemen worse than flies he walked 28 mi. to the township of Donnybrook and then or soon thereafter he seen my mother. Ellen Quinn were 18 yr. old she were dark haired and slender the prettiest figure on a horse he ever saw but your grandma was like a snare laid out by God for Red Kelly. She were a Quinn and the police would never leave the Quinns alone. ~ Peter Carey

The minister said, "Let us pray," but as everyone else bowed their head, I could only stare slack-jawed at the sight of Peter Van Houten. After a moment, he whispered, "We gotta fake pray," and bowed his head. ~ John Green

That is why I took up the gun - not to shoot, not to kill, not to destroy, but to stop those who would do evil, to protect the vulnerable, to defend democratic values, to stand up for the freedom we have to talk ... about how we can make the world a better place. ~ Peter Van Uhm

She didn't understand why it was happening," he said. "I had to tell her she would die. Her social worker said I had to tell her. I had to tell her she would die, so I told her she was going to heaven. She asked if I would be there, and I said that I would not, not yet. But eventually, she said, and I promised that yes, of course, very soon. And I told her that in the meantime we had great family up there that would take care of her. And she asked me when I would be there, and I told her soon. Twenty-two years ago. ~ John Green

It used to be widely held that evil was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able tell, this thesis is no longer defended ~ Peter Van Inwagen

There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like the band. ~ Peter Hammill

It would be Spiderman. I'd love to be Peter Parker. ~ Casper Van Dien

More people seem to know the Van der Graaf Generator material than my solo work - thanks, I suppose, to their parents' lingering vinyl collections. ~ Peter Hammill

Wow," I said. "Are you making this up?"
"Hazel Grace, could I, with my meager intellectual capacities, make up a letter from Peter Van Houten featuring phrases like 'our triumphantly digitized contemporaneity'?"
"You could not," I allowed. "Can I, can I have the email address?"
"Of course," Augustus said, like it was not the best gift ever. ~ John Green

Arnie pulls at my T-shirt. I shove his hand away. He pushes down the toilet handle and the bathroom fills with that flush sound. Tucker says, "You taking a dump?"
"No."
"Liar. I heard the flush. You were taking a dump."
"But I ... "
"I just wish you'd admit it. We got to be honest with each other."
"But ... "
"I heard the flush, Gilbert. You can't fool Tucker Van Dyke. ~ Peter Hedges

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

Where is my chance to be somebody's Peter Van Houten?' He hit the steering wheel weakly, the car honking as he cried. He leaned his head back, looking up. 'I hate myself I hate myself I hate this I hate this I disgust myself I hate it I hate it I hate it just let me fucking die. ~ John Green

At some point, for all eternity, there will be no more unmerited suffering: this present darkness, "the age of evil", will eventually be remembered as a brief flicker at the beginning of human history. Every evil done by the wicked to the innocent will have been avenged, and every tear will have been wiped away ~ Peter Van Inwagen

School and a year into remission. You had to be pretty sick for the Genies to hook you up with a Wish. "I got it in exchange for the leg," he explained. There was all this light on his face; he had to squint to look at me, which made his nose crinkle adorably. "Now, I'm not going to give you my Wish or anything. But I also have an interest in meeting Peter Van Houten, and it wouldn't make sense to meet him without the girl who introduced me to his book." "It definitely wouldn't," I said. "So I talked to the Genies, and they are in total agreement. They said Amsterdam is lovely in the beginning of May. They proposed ~ John Green

As a city powered by our country's knowledge economy, Toronto will continue to benefit from developing, attracting and retaining the world's most promising young researchers at the University of Toronto. Our government will continue to invest in research awards that lead to long-term social and economic benefits for Canadians. ~ Peter Van Loan

Determinism is the thesis that is true at every moment that the way things then are determines a unique future, that only one of the alternative futures that may exist relative to a given moment is a physically possible continuation of the state of things at the moment. Or, if you like, we may say that determinism is the thesis that only one continuation of the state of things at a given moment is consistent with the laws of nature. ~ Peter Van Inwagen

I will never forget the moment when Peter van Pels and I saw a group of selected men. Among those men was Peter's father. The men were marched away. Two hours later, a lorry came by, loaded with their clothing. ~ Otto Frank

What is a priest doing being a doctor geology?" said Du Pre.

Father Van Den Heuvel turned back from his diggings.

"The Catholic Church," he said, "favors education as the only way to fight off good ideas. They have gotten good at it, having been fighting off good ideas for the last millenium and a half, and they don't learn. ~ Peter Bowen, Nails

Love and sacrifice are not the same thing, but they are inseparable. To think of Christ and to think of the Cross is not the same thing, but the association is so close that the implication is immediate. Where love has been preached without sacrifice, it has not led to love but to license. ~ Hubert Van Zeller

[God] wants your adoration. He wants your confessions. He wants your thankfulness. He wants your requests. But most of all, He wants you and your love for Him with all your heart, strength, mind, and soul. What a joy it is to be so wanted by the Creator of everything. ~ Van Harden

I feel that there's nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Whatever can die is beautiful - more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world. Do you understand me? ~ Peter S. Beagle

Armstrong: I like documentation. I don't think a program is finished until you've written some reasonable documentation. And I quite like a specification. I think it's unprofessional these people who say, "What does it do? Read the code." The code shows me what it does. It doesn't show me what it's supposed to do. I think the code is the answer to a problem. ~ Seibel Peter

I know this hasn't been a seamless narrative. I've had to shatter the story and string its fragments out along a death lasting decades. ~ Peter Watts

I can't read or write music. When I want to remember something, I try to remember all the keys on the piano. Which is what I still do. I put the numbers on the keys. And that's got to become music again. ~ Melvin Van Peebles

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Suicide is a choice and I think if we work with that with kids, we'll get somewhere. ~ Peter Lynch

Flogging. The only solution to every problem. I warrant even the culprit himself doesn't know! It was just - his turn! ~ Peter Ustinov

It is difficult to know oneself, but it isn't easy to paint oneself either. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

While in college, I used to get my ideas from photographs in 'National Geographic.' I started painting palm trees and motorboats. ~ Peter Saul

In a heated debate, the novice at working with mental models will have to make an effort to identify the assumptions he is making and why. Often the beginner's efforts in a discipline are characterized by time displacement: only after the debate, does one see one's assumptions clearly and distinguish them from the "data" and reasoning upon which they are based. ~ Peter M. Senge

It's human nature to keep doing something as long as it's pleasurable and you can succeed at it - which is why the world population continues to double every 40 years. ~ Peter Lynch

The large organization has to learn to innovate, or it won't survive. ~ Peter Drucker

Oh, fatherhood has a very humanising effect on a bloke like me in the military. As a dad, you become absolutely aware of your own human frailty and a need to be nurturing and compassionate and fatherly ~ Peter Cosgrove

Way across the country where the hillside mountains glide, the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child. ~ Van Morrison

Batman can create as many crappy trophies as he wants. They don't change a thing. They're built on lies and sand. And they will fall. Like his whole damn world. It's important for me to stay on mission. No distractions. I'm here to make sure I can follow his moves throughout the city. Not get caught up in his imaginary nostalgia. There's nothing to be gained getting caught up in his gravity. Nothing. ~ Peter J. Tomasi