Just a word of advice. Whenever you're furious with your parents or you think they're terrible, just remember, you vomited on them and they kept you.

I could stand up and go to her and kiss her. I could. But there is still too much to be ruined.

I hate the idea that, when it comes to books and learning, hard is often seen as the opposite of fun. It's strange to me that we should be so quick to give up on a book or a math problem when we are so willing to grapple, for centuries if necessary, with a single level of Angry Birds.

I always wondered if there was a purpose to the universe, if there was a plan, if there was some sort of organizing factor, hopefully that I played a role in.

Nothing (at least that can be done by humans) immortalizes anyone. The Fault in Our Stars will hopefully have a long and wonderful life, but it will eventually go out of print, and eventually the last person ever to read it will die, and then the characters will no longer live in any consciousness.Also, that is okay. That is good, actually. That is how it should be. One of the things the characters in this novel have to grapple with is the reality of temporaryness. What Gus in particular must reconcile himself to is that being temporary does not mean being unimportant or meaningless.

Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind.

She was not an adventure, she was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.