Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed.

Hazel has to realize that her mom was wrong when she said, “I won’t be a mother anymore.” The truth is, after Hazel dies (assuming she dies), her mom will still be her mom, just as my grandmother is still my grandmother even though she has died. As long as either person is still alive, that relationship survives. (It changes, but it survives.)

How are the eyes?' 'Oh, excellent,' he said. 'I mean, they're not in my head is the only problem.

..there she is, and I am watching her through plexiglass, and she looks like Margo Roth Spiegelman, this girl I have known since I was two–this girl who was an idea that I loved. And it is only now, when she closes her notebook and places it inside a backpack next to her and then stands up and walks toward us, that I realize that the idea is not only wrong by dangerous. What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.

A paper town for a paper girl.

Right, except I'm not going to lie to my mom, because what kind of (man) lies to his own mother?

Okay, maybe I'm not such a shitty writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations.