It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.

Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.

If you don't say the honest thing, it never becomes true.

...Kaitlyn never wore open-toed shoes on account of how she hated her feet because she felt her second toes were too long, as if the second toe was a window into the soul or something.

And so much depends, I told Augustus, upon a blue sky cut open by the branches of the trees above. So much depends upon the transparent G-tube erupting from the gut of the blue-lipped boy. So much depends upon the observer of the universe.

It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.

If by that you mean that I dislike celebrity magazines, prefer food to anorexia, refuse to watch TV shows about models, and hate the color pink, then yes. I am proud to be not really a girl.