All at once, I couldn’t figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object through a toroidal object. It seemed like the stupidest thing I could possibly be doing.

What about the rest of your life?" She shrugged. "What about it?" "Aren't you worried about, like, forever?" "Forever is composed of nows," she says.

I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them.

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.

Half-drunk on well-creamed gas station coffee and the exhilarating loneliness of a freeway in nighttime.

I have guts, just not when it counts.

She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.