I hadn’t read a real series like that since I was a kid, and it was exciting to live again in an infinite fiction.

We have bottled all the stars this evening, my young friend.

That's how writing works, at least for me: even the stuff that doesn't work out gets funneled into the stuff that does work out.

The world may be broken, but hope is not crazy.

Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something. Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book. OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS?!

We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad.

Oh, God, Alaska, I love you. I love you,' and the Colonel whispered, 'I'm so sorry, Pudge. I know you did,' and I said, 'No. Not past tense.