Categories | Literature & Fiction |
Author | John Green |
Publisher | Penguin Books; Reprint edition (April 8, 2014) |
Language | English |
Paperback | 352 pages |
Item Weight | 11.9 ounces |
Dimensions |
1.1 x 5.4 x 8.2 inches |
I. Book introduction
The Fault in Our Stars is a novel by John Green. It is his fourth solo novel, and sixth novel overall. It was published on January 10, 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, in which the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus: “Men at some time were masters of their fates, / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” The story is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer that has affected her lungs. Hazel is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she subsequently meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma.
An American feature film adaptation of the same name as the novel directed by Josh Boone and starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, and Nat Wolff was released on June 6, 2014. A Hindi feature film adaptation of the novel, titled Dil Bechara, which was directed by Mukesh Chhabra and starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Sanjana Sanghi, Saswata Chatterjee, Swastika Mukherjee and Saif Ali Khan, was released on July 24, 2020, on Disney+ Hotstar. The American film adaptation and the book enjoyed strong critical and commercial success, with the latter becoming one of the best-selling books of all time.
Plot
Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs, attends a cancer patient support group at her mother’s behest. At one meeting, Hazel meets a 17-year-old boy currently in remission named Augustus Waters, whose osteosarcoma caused him to lose his right leg. Augustus is at the meeting to support Isaac, his friend who has eye cancer. Hazel and Augustus strike a bond immediately and agree to read each other’s favorite novels. Augustus gives Hazel The Price of Dawn, and Hazel recommends An Imperial Affliction, a novel about a cancer-stricken girl named Anna that parallels Hazel’s own experience. After Augustus finishes reading her book, he is frustrated upon learning that the novel ends abruptly without a conclusion, as if Anna had died suddenly. Hazel explains the novel’s author, Peter van Houten, retreated to Amsterdam following the novel’s publication and has not been heard from since.
A week later, Augustus reveals to Hazel that he has tracked down Van Houten’s assistant, Lidewij, and, through her, has managed to start an e-mail correspondence with Van Houten. The two write to Van Houten with questions regarding the novel’s ending; he eventually replies, explaining that he can only answer Hazel’s questions in person. At a picnic, Augustus surprises Hazel with tickets to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten, acquired through the story’s version of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, “The Genie Foundation”.
Upon meeting Van Houten, Hazel and Augustus are shocked to discover that he is a mean-spirited alcoholic. Horrified by Van Houten’s hostile behavior towards the teenagers, Lidewij confesses to having arranged the meeting on his behalf. Lidewij resigns as Van Houten’s assistant and takes Hazel and Augustus to the Anne Frank House, where Augustus and Hazel share their first kiss. Later that night Hazel and Augustus lose their virginity to one another in Augustus’s hotel room, confessing their mutual love for each other.
The next day, Augustus reveals that his cancer has returned. Upon their return to Indianapolis, Augustus’s health continues to deteriorate, resulting in him staying in the ICU for a few days. Fearing his death, Augustus invites Isaac and Hazel to his pre-funeral, where they give eulogies. Augustus dies soon after, leaving Hazel heartbroken. Van Houten shows up at Augustus’s funeral to apologize to Hazel.
Hazel learns that Augustus had written an obituary for her, and reads it after Lidewij discovers it amidst Van Houten’s letters. It states that getting hurt in this world is unavoidable, but we do get to choose whom we allow to hurt us, and that he is happy with his choice, and hopes she likes hers too. The book closes with Hazel stating that she is happy with her choice.
About the Author (John Green)
John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTuber, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including The Fault in Our Stars (2012), which is one of the best-selling books of all time. John Green’s rapid rise to fame and idiosyncratic voice are credited with creating a major shift in the young adult fiction market. John Green is also well known for his work in online video, most notably his YouTube ventures with his brother Hank Green.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Green was raised in Orlando, Florida, before attending boarding school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Kenyon College, graduating with a double major in English and religious studies in 2000. Green then spent six months as a student chaplain at a children’s hospital. He reconsidered his path and began working at Booklist in Chicago while writing his first novel. His debut novel Looking for Alaska (2005) was awarded the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award. While living in New York City, Green published his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines (2006). Starting on January 1, 2007, John and his brother Hank launched the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, a series of vlogs submitted to one another on alternating weekdays; the videos spawned an active online-based community called Nerdfighteria and an annual telethon-style fundraiser called Project for Awesome, both of which have persisted and grown over time.
John Green moved back to Indianapolis in 2007, and published three novels over the next three years: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (2008, with Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle); his third solo novel, Paper Towns (2008); and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010, with David Levithan). From 2010 to 2013, John and Hank launched several online video projects, including VidCon, an annual conference for the online video community, and Crash Course (2011–present), a wide-ranging educational channel. Green’s 2012 novel, The Fault in Our Stars, and the 2014 film adaptation were massive commercial and critical successes, leading to several other film and television adaptations of his work. He was included in Time magazine’s 2014 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Green’s subsequent projects, his novel Turtles All the Way Down (2017) and The Anthropocene Reviewed (2018–2021), dealt more directly with his anxiety and obsessive–compulsive disorder. The Anthropocene Reviewed began as a podcast in January 2018, with Green reviewing different facets of the Anthropocene on a five-star scale. The podcast was then adapted into The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet (2021), his first nonfiction book. Since the mid-2010s, John Green has been a prominent advocate for global health causes: he is a trustee for Partners In Health (PIH), supporting their goal of reducing maternal mortality in Sierra Leone, and has worked with PIH and a number of organizations in fighting tuberculosis worldwide. Green’s second nonfiction book, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, is set to be released in March 2025.
II. Reviewer: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Here is a summary of the book Review “The Fault in Our Stars by John Green“. Helps you have the most overview of the book without searching through time. Please access “BookQuote.Net“ regularly or save it to keep track and update the latest information. |
1. ERIKA reviews The Fault in Our Stars
John Green.
John Green.
John Green.
You’re not like Peter Van Houten, are you?
What have you done to my brain…
and my heart…
I’m not gonna review how exquisite John Green can write, or how he can create characters as special as Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters, or how amazing he can tell a story. Despite the huge number of ratings and the spectacular average rating, this book is not perfect. You might find it unrealistic, because if there are many of us who see the life and its complexity like Hazel and Gus do, this world will be such a happy place. So like any other book, this one also might be a miss or a hit. If it’s a miss, then you can say it’s not worth the hype. But if it’s a hit, it hits hard.
Everything in this book: the characters, the story, the words, they all have the power to be an inspiration. If you haven’t read it, I suggest to take the chance.
2. CHAN reviews The Fault in Our Stars
john green deserves an apology from the not-like-other-girls vibes of the 2010s
he put his whole greenussy into this. and maybe his authorial voice doesn’t totally match up to a 16 year old girl’s. maybe the big words were big wordin’ a lil too hard. but teens are annoying. they care about philosophy and contemplate death. i was one of em!
i love the discussion of legacy. and grief. and normally i don’t fuck with quotable books but the quotes here… go hard.
ily john green. thank you for YOUR legacy.
3. NATALIYA reviews The Fault in Our Stars
So, book, you decided not to play fair, huh? You used Tearjerking 101, huh? You armed yourself with adorably precocious teenage characters delivering insanely quotable lines while dying from cancer, huh?
Well, guess what – “I’m not cryyyyying! It’s just been raining on my face…”
And so my hard-won cool image of a cold-hearted cynic has been saved by this line, courtesy of New Zealand’s 4th most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo:
Seriously, book, you know that most heartstrings cannot resist being tugged on in this fashion, especially when you are using kids who are off the charts on the precocious cuteness scale with all their precocious irony, precocious sarcasm, precocious world-weariness and precocious vocabulary.
Are you tired of reading the word ‘precocious’ yet? Too bad, since adorable and fragile precociousness is at the ‘literal heart’ of this book. That’s what alienated some readers – but I’m a sucker for precociousness in literature; guilty, your Honor!
——
Like with any literature, what you get out of this book varies based on how you choose to interpret it.
You can see it as a shameless use of a serious medical condition in children in order to make money and get recognition (because it’s kids dying from cancer, c’mon!)
Cancer in kids has been used as a tearjerker before. Google ‘TV tropes Littlest Cancer Patient’, please. Here, I will save you the trouble.
You can see it as a cutesy young adult love story. You can see it as a collection of quotable lines clearly put into the speech of teens by the middle-aged author. You can see it as yet another coming-of-age novel (there’s even a requisite trip/adventure in there, really). You can even see it as a book trying really hard to NOT be a stereotypical ‘cancer book’ – to the point where characters are stating so at length.
And you know what? All these are to some extent true.
But what I got out of it, what made me tear up a bit was the motif of fragility of life as seen by the children who have a limited supply of that life, basically a limited ‘infinity’. Reading it, I got a few flashbacks to Pediatric Oncology – the time in medical school when I realized that I’m not strong enough to be a pediatrician and see kids suffer and die.
Hazel Lancaster and Augustus Waters are the two children with cancer. She has terminal thyroid cancer and is tethered to an oxygen tank; he falls victim to metastatic osteosarcoma (before you scream ‘Spoiler!’ in outrage, I sincerely ask you – how could you not have seen it coming?) They introduce themselves in their cancer support group by stating their diagnoses – and my heart breaks a little at the thought of children learning to define themselves by their disease. Even their favorite book is the cancer book.
But no, “I’m not cryyyying….”
This is not a perfect book. It relies a little too heavily on tearjerking. Frequently, it gets to be a bit too full of itself, occasionally cringeworthy – sometimes to eye-rolling extent. But with the quotability factor and the smart precociousness still comes the real sadness and cuteness and feeling that clawed its way into my heart and made me love it despite the imperfections. Maybe I liked it because of associations and memories it brought with it rather than for its own merits – but hey, the emotions will stay with me for a while, whatever the reason for them may be.
I think this book would have a huge appeal to teenagers, its intended audience. The characters are relatable, they are intelligent, and the male lead manages to transform from ‘oh, rly, jerk?’ to a considerate and lovely young man. The parents are present in the lives of both teens and are portrayed in a very sympathetic light; definitely no ‘absent parent syndrome’ here! Plus, it has a healthy portrayal of teenage sexuality, unlike what we frequently see in young adult literature.
So great book? No. But I easily give it 3.75 stars and therefore rounding up to 4 stars (Is the fault in them? Go figure.)
“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”
4. JIM FONSECA reviews The Fault in Our Stars
[Edited 1/15/23]I didn’t intend to like this book. Not having read this author before, I thought, who is this guy who writes YA stuff and has a video blog? But I read it because so many of my GR friends have read it and rated it highly.
Indeed, it’s a great book and not just YA. It gives a brilliant picture of three bright young people (barely college-age) struggling to deal with cancer. How do they deal with it? With loving parents, friendship, sarcasm, cynicism, irony, tears and anger.
The main character, a young woman, not only has to “fight” terminal cancer but has to deal with knowing she, a single child, is the “alpha and omega of her parents’ suffering.” Her father is constantly in tears. She is devastated when she overhears her mother say, “I won’t be a mom anymore.”
She falls in love with a young man who lost a leg to cancer, but is in remission, and who has just lost a girlfriend to cancer. Initially she won’t return his affection because she thinks “I’m a grenade” and doesn’t want him to lose a second love. She corrects her parents when they say “Even if you die…” with “When I die…”
There are so many reviews that I will just focus on the good writing, much of which is dialog.
“But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is side effect of dying.”
“Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. Then, if it likes you, it takes the rest.”
“…my dad just kept telling me he loved me in this voice that was not breaking so much as already broken.”
“And yet I still worried. I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying.”
On phone calls with her boyfriend: “…we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone.”
“Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.” This statement could be the thesis for a philosophical treatise on consciousness.
She calls one of the more sterile hospitals a “prematorium.”
One young man accidentally puts his hand on the leg of another young man who is terminal. “I’m taken” he says.
And a real tear-jerker.
With the sale of 50 million books, John Green (b. 1977) is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Many of his books on Goodreads have ratings numbering in the millions – right up there with the Harry Potters. After Fault, his most popular books are Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns and Turtles All the Way Down.
The author from nytimes.com
5. TANBIR NAWAZ reviews The Fault in Our Stars
Touching
I recently finished reading and found it to be an incredibly moving and beautifully written story. The book delves deep into themes of love, loss, and the complexities of living with a terminal illness. The characters, Hazel and Augustus, are wonderfully developed, and their story is both heart-wrenching and inspiring.
‘Okay? Okay!’ ✨
6. TJDENVER reviews The Fault in Our Stars
Written with the sensitive, heartbreaking movie in mind
First things, first. I’m not an established fan of John Green. Just a reader who bought the book on the recommendation of all the excited reviews. Read it in a day, and I liked it. Appreciated the writer’s craft a bit more than the story.
There’s not a ton of story here. Two sick kids enjoy a meaningful transformative romance, adding more depth to their doomed lives. Tragic, pretty, honest, moving. Not a ton of surprises.
John Green is a talented writer. You’ll enjoy the author’s craft. As most chapters ended, I found myself thinking, “Well done, John.” He did an excellent job choosing words, creating rhythm, evoking emotion. He captured both Amsterdam and Indianapolis (the two settings for the story) very well. He makes you feel both the hope and the fear, mixing constantly on nearly every page.
The age of the characters felt about three years off. Instead of 16/17, they should have been 20. In fact, the author makes a point of making the teenage narrator an academically-advanced college student, although we never quite understand why she’s taking classes. It was almost as if the author was apologizing to us for having to make these characters four years younger than they should have been. Or, perhaps the author likes using college education as a hope mechanism.
The author’s portrayal of the perspective of young people with cancer felt incredibly authentic. Every cynical view felt real. The book holds you accountable for every dumb thing you’ve ever said, thought, or assumed about kids with cancer. Hazel’s use of her “sick kid with cancer’s Wish” was brilliant.
If I had one criticism, it’s the same one I had after reading PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER. The book feels written for the inevitable movie. The teenage romance at the center of the story is very sweet, and of course, the author makes you love the object of the narrator’s affection. Why Augustus had to be “hot” escapes me (do we feel more sorry for good looking kids with cancer?). I guess it’s a Team Edward thing… a tragic teenage boy with a hot body resonates more? Nothing difficult to film here – funny scenes, emotional moments, flawed-yet-noble parents, supporting characters with funny lines, and lots of dialogue that will easily transfer to the screen. I suppose that’s what most writers have in mind these days. Augustus will make a lovely launching point for the next Zac Efron – every young actor is going to want to be the hot, cool, sensitive, poetic boy with cancer. The young male actor who nails the Isaac role will also do well as the funny, not-as-hot-as-the-main-actor actor. Agents’ careers will be made and ruined according to who lands these roles. (Note to young actress, Shailene Woodley – please go more Jennifer Lawrence than Kristen Stewart in this role if you want to stand up next to your inevitably glowing co-star.)
Oh yeah, back to the book. My advice is that it’s a good read. Hardly my favorite of the year, but a good use of a lazy Saturday. You’ll feel more sensitive for having read it, you’ll appreciate good writing, and you’ll look forward to the soundtrack. Personally, I look forward to the day John Green writes a more audacious adult story without an eye so keenly trained on the film option.
7. JOSHUA reviews The Fault in Our Stars
An Unexpected Life-Changer. Seriously.
This book was an unexpected––but very definite––life changer. I’m in my mid-twenties, and wouldn’t have otherwise picked up this book, but I had an obligation to do so, and I’m very glad I heeded it.
Given that it’s been almost two years since I read it, and its effects are still as vibrant today as they ever were – I can confidently attest that this book stands the test of time. Shortly after reading it, I wrote a little diary entry about my experience, which fairly-adequately conveys the emotions I experienced…
“It was late. It was a fairly warm evening for a January in Utah, dry, and still. The darkness outside was the kind you could almost smell. It was calm, silent, and the stars were so visible, it was almost as if the moon was calling for backup in order to light the city below.
I was on the couch nearest the front window in my living room, and I had been there for about 7 hours that day – getting up only to eat and go to the bathroom, and when I ate, I brought the food right back onto the couch so I could continue to read. It had been such a long time since I was able to get so engrossed in a book. Let alone a fictional book, primarily geared toward an adolescent audience.
And yet here I was, devouring page after page. I had a goal in mind, a bigger purpose for reading the book, otherwise I wouldn’t have spent all day reading it, let alone would I have justified breaking my 3-year-long “fast” from reading fiction. But as I read the last few chapters, the goal didn’t matter anymore. I was emotional. I was full of insights and perspective. And most of all, I was anxious to finish the book so I could go and speak with my wife.
As I teared up, reading the last few lines of the book, I got up and began to look for my wife. She had been playing the drums for the better half of the day, and working on a video that she would be publishing the following morning. But almost by magic, she walked into the front room just as I decided to go looking for her.
She saw the look in my eyes, and knew I needed her presence and full attention. I looked deeply into her eyes and gently placed my hand on her cheek. I could tell she was uncomfortable just enough at first, having been working on her video, it was a bit of an adjustment to pull herself completely into the moment. But it didn’t matter to me. Not then.
I poured my heart to her, as tears streamed down my face. “I love you, Mari. It is such a privilege that I get to love you. How lucky am I that I get that opportunity?”
As I expressed my heart’s intent openly, she began to open up. I’m intimately familiar with that look in her eyes, where her pupils begin to widen, her deep, dark brown retinas begin to blend with the shade of her pupils, and they glow. It’s a sweet feeling, swimming in a little sea of infinity. As the author John Green put it, “some infinities are bigger than others.” And this moment was our little infinity, stretching out beyond space and time, a connection that could not be penetrated by fear or shadows, or distracted by noise and excitement. This was love, and it was melting us in the moment. It felt like our ceremony on our wedding day, but so much more simple. This was raw authenticity, immersed in the honor and privilege of having the opportunity to love one another.”
I can’t give all of the credit to the book, because I proactively created such a deep, integrated experience facilitated by the emotion the book inspired. But the feeling has never faded. Every day, I am thankful for the privilege of getting to love my wife. Whether she’s being a complete joy to be around, as we explore and experiment and create great things together and converse late into the night, or if she’s frustrating me, doubting herself and questioning her worth, letting her anger for the hurt in the world get the best of her – I just feel damn lucky and privileged to get to love her.
I highly recommend you get this book, immerse yourself in it, and make manifest whatever emotions it may ignite within you.
8. S. BLAKE reviews The Fault in Our Stars
I can’t get enough
Let me begin by explaining this book has changed my entire philosophy on reading. I am not a reader – I have never been a reader. This is a fact that has caused great frustration to my family as they have tried to convince me to pick up books since I was a child with little success. I’m certainly capable of reading and even concentrated in English in college as I love writing and literary analysis, but something about actually reading a book has never appealed to me. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed reading some books, but I’ve just never quite understood why so many people can find them so profoundly life changing. And then I picked up The Fault in Our Stars.
I picked up this book on a whim. I decided I had free time and so I may as well make an attempt to read something. The plot summary appealed to me and so I grabbed The Fault in Our Stars. I was pretty immediately hooked.
Green’s writing is positively exquisite. This is the type of book that SHOULD be placed in the hands of teens because he tells a story that they can relate to but does not dumb anything down for them. The language is rich, the characters are well-developed, and the reader will undoubtedly be enamored with them by the end; even at 24, I am.
I noticed a number of people saying that this isn’t realistic, that this is not how teenagers talk. With the exception of Kaitlyn (who Green describes as “an extremely sophisticated twenty-five-year-old British socialite stuck inside a sixteen-year-old body” – i.e. not meant to sound like a typical teen), I disagree. None of the characters ever felt fake to me and their way of speaking just made the already eccentric and unique characters more eccentric and unique, which was fitting. They are not meant to be the perfect depiction of teenagers; they are meant to be flawed (even Hazel and Augustus point out their hamartia). The language that’s used by Augustus and Hazel is just another part of who they are.
This book did, of course, make me cry – but not as much as some others that I’ve read and actually less than I anticipated. Certainly, The Fault in Our Stars is worth shedding more than a few tears for, but more than anything, it got me thinking. About life, about oblivion, about heartbreak, and in the choices we make (even when those choices hurt you). I think these thoughts are more important than the tears I shed and those I didn’t shed. Still, Green is an absolute master at making you FEEL. There were times while reading this book that I was literally laughing out loud while crying and I don’t know how anyone else could make the word “okay” turn into the most romantic word in the world.
I’m already trying to choose which of Green’s books to pick up next. Considering I’ve never been a reader and average maybe a book every six months, max, this is a major feat for me. The Fault in Our Stars made a reader out of me. It made me feel in the way that almost no books ever do. It made me fall in love with a fictional romance between two teenagers and want it to never end. It made me laugh, cry, and think.
I truly believe this is a book worth reading and I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks they need the wisdom of an Augustus Waters and a Hazel Grace in their life.
9. JACI reviews The Fault in Our Stars
Holy holy holy I waited so long for this novel, so long. I wish so bad I could give it more than 5 stars. John Green is absolutely amazing, amazing, amazing. The Fault in Our Stars had me laughing and crying, then laughing more and crying more. I will reread this over and over again, just like the rest of his novels. Oh wow, was it ever worth the wait. Thank you, John Green, for being so damn spectacular.
10. JESSICA reviews The Fault in Our Stars
i think most people will remember the first book that made them cry.
The Fault in Our Stars was mine.
this was a story of love, and loss, of grief, and hope, and all the infinities in between. words are incapable of expressing how tender and open my heart felt after reading this. it taught me what it meant to truly empathise with others. it taught me what it means to live. it taught me how to find the positive in the most hopeless of situations. and because of that, i know am a better person after closing this book than i was when i first opened it.
and to john green, i cannot tell you how thankful i am for this little infinity. you gave me forever within the numbered pages, and im grateful.
↠ 5 stars
III. The Fault in Our Stars Quotes by John Green
The best book quotes from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
“But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.”
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
“You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”
“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”
“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
“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.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.”
“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. 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. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”
“Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should’ve gotten more.’
‘Seventeen,’ Gus corrected.
‘I’m assuming you’ve got some time, you interupting bastard.
‘I’m telling you,’ Isaac continued, ‘Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness.
‘But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.’
I was kind of crying by then.”“Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence”
“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”
“I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?”
“Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence”
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. 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 betrayal”
“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.”
“You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”
“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”
“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”
“Headline?” he asked.
“‘Swing Set Needs Home,'” I said.
“‘Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'” he said.
“‘Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'” I said.”“I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.”
“But I believe in true love, you know? I don’t believe that everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever, but everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does.”
Excerpted from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
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