Quotes by John Green

Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Linsey Lohan. Why is that?

History reminds us that revolutions are not events, so much that they’re processes – that for tens of thousands of years, people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today; just as today, we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions.

The opportunity of studying history, is the opportunity to experience empathy.

The marks humans leave are too often scars.

Even then, it hurt. The pain was always there, pulling me inside of myself, demanding to be felt. It always felt like I was waking up from the pain when something in the world outside of me suddenly required my comment or attention.

Thats the thing about pain. It demands to be felt...

The world, he said, is not a wish-granting factory, and then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness.

Well to be fair, I said, I mean she probably cant handle it. Neither can you, but she doesnt have to handle it. And you do.

Fights were recounted, battles won amid wars sure to be lost; hope was clung to; families were both celebrated and denounced; it was agreed that friends just didnt get it; tears were shed; comfort proffered.

That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

Once we got out of Jefferson Park, we rolled down the one window that worked so the world would know we had good taste in music.

You shall love your neighbourWith your crooked heart,It says so much about love and brokenness -- its perfect.

The Degree to which I am blessed staggers me... the degree to which I take that for granted shames me.-Streetwalking with Jesus

What can we do? Mom asked again.I shrugged.But she kept asking, as if there were something she could do, until I just kind of crawled across the couch into her lap and my dad came over and held my legs really tight and I wrapped my arms all the way around my moms middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in.

Apparently, the world is not a wish-granting factory.

She loved so much misteries tha she became one

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books. I tramp a perpetual journey All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. The final three stanzas of Song of Myself were also highlighted. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to your nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one places search another, I stop some where waiting for you It became a weekend of reading, of trying to see her in the fragments of the poem shed left for me. I could never get anywhere with the lines, but I kepr thinking about them anyway, becase I didnt want to disappoint her. She wanted me to play out with the string, to find the place where she had stopped and was waiting for me, to follow the bread crumb trail until it dead-ended into her.

I will play out the string. I will not betray your trust. I will find you.

Could the two people who are making out please be quiet? the Colonel asked loudly from his sleeping bag. Those of us who are not making out are drunk and tired.

War didnt scare me. I just didnt want to go all the way-hell over there to fight one. I had a reputation after that--I pretended I shot myself by accident, but everyone knew. I never did lose that reputation, but now most everyone is dead, and yall aint got any stories from them, so you have to believe mine by default: They were cowards, too. Everyone is.