If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.” “So you’re into it.” “Withholding judgment! When can I see you?” “Certainly not until you finish An Imperial Affliction.” I enjoyed being coy. “Then I’d better hang up and start reading.” “You’d better,” I said, and the line clicked dead without another word. Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.

He may be a malevolent sorcerer, but Tiny Cooper is his own goddamned man, and if he wants to be a gigantic skipper, then that's his right as a huge American.

You see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town.

I stood under the awning for a moment, but finally I decided that being in a bad mood with your friends beats being in a bad mood without them.

Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you—they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.

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.

It is so hard to leave-until you leave.