My responsibility is to try to tell true stories. To me a true story is always hopeful, but never simply, uncomplicatedly happy.

I think if you keep the box closed long enough you do kill the cat, actually.

Everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does.

I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was thirteen. (I didn’t tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.)

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

There is always the risk: something is good and good and good and good, then all at once it gets awkward.

You know how we make a Scotch and water in this home?" "No, sir," Gus said. "We pour Scotch into a glass and then call to mind thoughts of water, and then we mix the actual Scotch with the abstracted idea of water.