Breaking up isn't something that gets done to you; its something that happens with you.

The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle of a sentence.

I nodded. I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really, really liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else. I liked his voice. I liked that he took existentially fraught free throws. I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I liked that he had two names. I’ve always liked people with two names, because you get to make up your mind what you call them: Gus or Augustus? Me, I was always just Hazel, univalent Hazel.

She is close enough to me that I can see her, because even now there is the outward sign of visible light, even at night in this parking lot on the outskirts of Algoe. After we kiss, our foreheads touch as we stare at each other. Yes, I can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness.

He missed his imagined future.

I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.

The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.