YOU are valuable and rare and worthy of love.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the author intended a symbol to be there, because the job of reading is not to understand the authors intend. The job of reading is to see into other people as we see ourselves.

depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.

Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war

Do you have a Wish?' he asked, referring to this organization, The Genie Foundation, which is in the business of granting sick kids one wish. 'No' I said. 'I used my Wish pre-Miracle.' 'What'd you do?' I sighed loudly. 'I was thirteen,' I said. 'Not Disney,' he said. I said nothing. 'You did not go to Disney World.' I said nothing. 'HAZEL GRACE!' he shouted. 'You did not use your one dying Wish to go to Disney World with your parents.' 'Also Epcot Center,' I mumbled. 'Oh, my God,' Augustus said. 'I can't believe I had a crush on a girl with such cliché wishes.

You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.

All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.