In general-like not just in fiction but in life-it doesn't work out well when someone imagines someone else as a manic pixie dream girl or an Edward Cullen or anything other than a full, complex human being. That said, while I've tried to reflect that in my books, I don't think I've always succeeded, because I am always running up against my own insufficiencies and biases etc.

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.

Do the thing you're good at. Not many people are lucky enough to be so good at something.

“I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus.” “Someone should tell Jesus,” I said. “I mean, it's gotta be dangerous, storing children with cancer in your heart.” “I would tell Him myself.” Augustus said, “but unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of His heart, so He won't be able to hear me.”

Caroline was always moody and miserable, but I liked it. I liked feeling as if she had chosen me as the only person in the world not to hate, and so we spent all this time together just ragging on everyone, you know?

Last words are always harder to remember when no one knows that someone's about to die.