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.

Oh, my god," Augustus said. "i can't believe i have a crush on a girl with such cliché wishes." "i was thirteen," i said again, although of course i was only thinking "crush crush crush crush crush". I was flattered but changed the subject immediately.

It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.

People thought he was a glutton for punishment, that he liked getting dumped. But it wasn't like that. He could just never see anything coming, and as he lay on the solid, uneven ground with Hassan pressing too hard on his forehead, Colin Singleton's distance from his glasses made him realize the problem: myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

Nothing really mattered that much, not the good things and not the bad ones. We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous.

The times that were most fun seemed always to be followed by sadness now, because it was when life started to feel like it did when she was with us that we realized how utterly gone she was.

All of us, poor & rich alike, have been conditioned by our upbringings. Impoverished men & women may become lulled into a state of "learned helplessness" without hope to change their lives. Likewise, the wealthy can walk in a state of "learned blindness" ignoring the desperation of the local & global poor.