Quote

I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn’t get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn’t gotten to be a person yet.

John Green

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John Green
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: August 24
Author
Businessperson
Critic
Editor
Film Producer
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Podcaster
Singer
Indianapolis
Indiana
John Michael Green
Persons
Gratitude
Owed
Best
Everybody
Noticed
Person
Attention
Hadn
Thinking
Universe
Gotten
Everyone
Notice
Felt
Wanting
Didn
Debt
Also
Anymore
Repay

More quotes by John Green

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But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail
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The minister said, “Let us pray,” but as everyone else bowed their head, I could only stare slack-jawed at the sight of Peter Van Houten. After a moment, he whispered, “We gotta fake pray,” and bowed his head.
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I know it's impossible for you to see your peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them--the bad kids and the good kids and all kids--as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for.
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If I could do it all over again, he said, his speech slow and vaguely mangled by his massive lower lip, I'd just let myself be trampled to death by the Satan Pig.
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Caroline is no longer sufffering from personhood.
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No headboards were broken.
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Mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'I don't want to deal with things today' and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless...
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Stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling.
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At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze.
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One of the reasons that metaphor and symbolism are important in books is because they are also important to life. Like, for example say you're in high school and you're a boy and you say to a girl: Do you like anyone right now? - that's not the question you're asking. The question you're asking is, do you like me right now.
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What's that? The laundry basket? No, next to it. I don't see anything next to it. It's my last shred of dignity. It's very small.
John Green
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I believe in that line from An Imperial Affliction. 'The risen sun too bright in her losing eyes.' That's God, I think, the rising sun, and the light is too bright and her eyes are losing but they aren't lost.
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He responded a few minutes later. Okay. I wrote back. Okay. He responded: Oh, my God, stop flirting with me!
John Green
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For a moment, she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered, “Run run run run run,” and took off, pulling me behind her.
John Green
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Books are like tweets, except longer.
John Green
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All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.
John Green
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So why don't you go home for vacations?' I asked her. I'm just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them.
John Green
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In the end the listening exposes you even more than it exposes the people you're trying to listen to.
John Green
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The Colonel explained to me that 1. this was Alaska's room, and that 2. she had a single room because the girl who was supposed to be her roommate got kicked out at the end of last year, and that 3. Alaska had cigarettes, although the Colonel neglected to ask whether 4. I smoked, which 5. I didn't.
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We have to live with ambiguity. We have to give ourselves over to it. The question is: How? How are we going to live in a universe where important questions will always go unanswered?
John Green