Whether the author intended a symbolic resonance to exist in her book is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it's there. Because the book does not exist for the benefit of the author, the book exists for the benefit of YOU. If we as readers can have a bigger and richer experience with the world as a result of reading a symbol and that symbol wasn't intended by the author, WE STILL WIN.

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 have a crush on a girl with such cliché wishes.

Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something. Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book. OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MARRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS?!

But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.

They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing.

...It sounded like a dragon breathing in time with me, like I had this pet dragon who was cuddled up next to me and cared enough about me to time his breaths to mine.

I kept waiting for that loneliness and nervousness to make me want to go back. But it never did.