Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

And so that is the question I leave you with in this final: What is your cause for hope?

Nerdfighter pwns woot. Everyone knows that.

Walt Whitman is HOT! I mean, that guy could sound his barbaric yawps over the roofs of my world any time.

Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.

He responded a few minutes later. Okay. I wrote back. Okay. He responded: Oh, my God, stop flirting with me!

The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.