Once in a while you find a book that makes you cry. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to find one that makes you laugh. And once in a very great while you find a book that does both at the same time.
John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is such a book. This remarkable story makes you think about life in deep ways. Does life have a purpose? What do we mean by “quality of life”?
It is this depth, I think, that accounts for the way The Fault In Our Stars has touched millions of readers worldwide. More than 10 million readers have bought copies of this book so they can read it again and again.
The Fault in Our Stars is the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old cancer patient who meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an amputee and former basketball player. As I read the book I found myself jealous of the purity of Gus and Hazel’s love.
Although The Fault in Our Stars is about dying teenagers, its real subject is life.
But what really gives depth to this story is not just the beautifully written love story, but also the way Hazel and Augustus communicate with each other. There is deep wisdom and substantial beauty in the words of these teens.
Here are 100 unforgettable The Fault in Our Stars quotes that will make you think twice and think hard. Fair warning: You’ll want to read these with a box of tissues handy.
#1 You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.
How many times have you heard that you don’t have a choice, that you must do something? You must go to college because otherwise you will not find a job. Right?
Not right. You have a choice. You always have a choice.
Every day you have a choice to celebrate all the good things in your life and all the people who you care about. When the going gets tough, you have a choice about how to react. You’re in charge of your outlook, and your perspective can be empowering if you choose it to be.
#2 There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.
Life is not fair. Some people are dealt lousy hands.
Green reminds us that life is measured in meaning, not in days. Whether it is a minute or a century long, life demands that we experience both joyful and sad moments.
That’s what Hazel and Augustus do. It is because of the fault in their stars that they meet and that they get to experience something amazing.
#3 As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.
This line slays me. It’s one of the most beautiful lines I ever read.
Rarely do people experience love at first sight. Usually we fall in love slowly without noticing it until we realize that we are mad about him or her. With this simple, true, powerful line Green reminds us of what it feels like to fall in love.
#4 The world is not a wish-granting factory.
Sad but true. We cannot wish upon a shooting star and expect that miracles will happen. There are miracles, but they don’t come when we call them. Generally we have to work really, really hard to make our wishes come true.
#5 Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.
Even when you are aware that what you have is not going to last, who can say that life’s possibilities are less than infinite?
As Gus explains, within every minute there are infinite possibilities you can choose from. His life was larger than other infinities such as time and death.
#6 You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.
Nothing lasts forever. But sometimes we experience something so intense, so unforgettable that it remains forever. It becomes a part of us, a part we cherish forever. Getting a forever within numbered days is the best we can hope for.
#7 I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.
What is life to you – an adventure? a dance?
No matter how you view life, you should try to maintain a positive outlook. You may struggle or have problems, but remember to stay positive. John Green reminds us that every cloud has a silver lining.
#8 You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.
I agree 150 percent with this. I want my choice to be good.
If we have to suffer (and apparently we do) then at least we can choose to be hurt by someone we love, someone who is worth it.
#9 Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted person ever could.
Eyes will never see the beauty of a soul. It can be only felt with our hearts. May you always “see” the beauty of the souls surrounding you.
#10 It’s hard as hell to hold on to your dignity when the risen sun is too bright in your losing eyes.
Green here manages to describe the feelings of a defeated person with great beauty.
It really is hard as hell to stay noble and dignified when you are thrown down and defeated. It’s not easy to get back up.
But remember: The defeated one is not the one who is knocked down, but the one who remains there.
#11 But I believe in true love, you know? I don’t believe that everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever, but everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does.
I think this is one of the most romantic lines in this or any book.
I don’t know about you, but I believe in true love. Maybe I’ve watched too many romantic movies or read too many fairytales. It’s possible. But I surely believe that everyone should have true love.
Thank you, John Green, for writing this line.
#12 My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.
Do you sometimes feel that your mind is full of thoughts that just keep running around in a disorganized way? The most profound human thoughts are sometimes the most difficult to pin down and express in words.
#13 That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.
Could you ignore the flame of a fire? No? Green says pain is like that too.
When a pain is deep enough, you can’t make it go away by ignoring it. When it is present, it demands to be acknowledged. That acknowledgment becomes your key to moving on.
#14 The marks humans leave are too often scars.
I wish I could refute Green, but sadly he is right. I have been hurt by a few people in my life, both unintentionally and intentionally, and I believe so have most people.
Scars remind us that we are human. The scars are painful but we should learn to cherish them. It is only through pain and disappointment that character is forged.
#15 Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them.
People sometimes make promises they don’t really comprehend, promises which require much more from them than it seems. They don’t understand that they’ve made a promise or they don’t understand the magnitude of the commitment they’ve made. People also make promises too lightly.
Remember all of this the next time you make a promise.
#16 There’s no way of knowing that your last good day is Your Last Good Day. At the time, it is just another good day.
The universe gives us each a finite number of days. It’s a sort of present. We don’t know when the music will stop, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the dance while it lasts?
#17 Grief does not change you Hazel. It reveals you.
This line reminds me of an old saying: Difficult times show true colors, hard times reveal true friends and the good will be blessed through pain.
Green knows this well. Hard times have always revealed the strength and beauty of people’s character.
#18 Everyone wants to lead an extraordinary life.
I don’t think that when you wake up you tell yourself, “I want to have a completely and utterly lousy day,” do you? Every one of us wants to live a fulfilled life full of amazing memories so that at the end of the journey we can say, “I lived and I mattered.”
#19 I love you present tense.
This moment is your life. Yesterday is only a memory and tomorrow is only imagined. Only today exists.
Humans have an awful tendency to live in the past or the future while disregarding the only thing they can influence – the present. Green reminds us that life (and love) are experienced only in the here and now.
#20 You are going to live a good long life filled with great and terrible moments you cannot even imagine yet!
I wish somebody would tell me this when I am feeling down, because it encompasses everything I believe in. Life is not good, nor is it bad. Life is what you make of it.
Even if everything looks bleak, you can be sure that something great awaits you.
No one can say what will happen tomorrow.
#21 Maybe “okay” will be our “always.”
Each couple has its own way of communicating. We create private languages with secret terms of endearment. If you cannot have always, at least you can have the beauty of now.
#22 Love is keeping the promise anyway.
Love endures in face of all difficulties. Love is doing difficult or unpleasant things for the sake of your partner. Love is following through even when it becomes hard to keep the promise you have given. That is love.
#23 Oh, I wouldn’t mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.
Have you ever fallen in love with somebody you know is going to break your heart? (That’s a rhetorical question. Everyone does this at one time or another.)
Love is always a risk. But it’s such a wonderful prize that the risk is worth it. A great love is worth having even if there is a likelihood that it will end in heartbreak.
#24 The real heroes anyways aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
Most of us go through our lives half-asleep, not aware of what is happening around us.
There are others, however, people who pay attention to the world and all its wonders. They don’t take life for granted; they marvel again each morning at all life has to offer.
These are the people who notice what is going on, the beauty as well as the injustice. This quality, this habit of awareness, Green says, is a prerequisite for heroes. I think he’s right.
#25 Our fearlessness shall be our secret weapon.
Courage requires strength: strength to stand up and fight even when the odds are not good. It is fearlessness that empowers us to follow our dreams and achieve our goals.
If you are an underdog facing long odds, you can’t count on strength to save you. But you may prevail if you launch yourself against fate with the totality that only fearlessness brings.
#26 When was the last good kiss you had?
If you cannot remember your last good kiss or your last great orgasm, you should really think hard about your life.
I like the way this question automatically makes us stop and contemplate memorable kisses we have enjoyed. Some questions are purely intellectual, and this seems to be one of them. You could answer it with a date: August 13, about 7:15 p.m. But that’s not what happens. The question launches you into an altered state of consciousness in which you are reliving love and romance.
#27 You’ve gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel.
A mentor once told me, “You know in which races you just participate and which races you run to win.” I was irritated at the time. I was struggling to do my best and I wanted to throw myself with full exertion at every challenge.
On reflection, I realize that how valuable his advice was. We really do have to pick our battles. We figure out what is really important to us and make those fights a priority.
Picking our battles isn’t really about our relationship with the challenges that face us. It’s a matter of self-definition, of identifying our values and living consistently with them. The battles you consider worth fighting? That’s who you are.
#28 So I wasn’t lying, exactly. I was just choosing among truths.
What would our life look like without lovely white lies? Pretty boring, I guess.
I do not support lying, but sometimes you cannot tell your loved ones the whole truth, especially if you want to protect them from worrying.
I once traveled in a train compartment with a stranger who turned out to be a thief. He got away with some minor things and it was all very exciting. When my parents asked, however, I told them my trip was just fine. There was no need to mention the fact that I traveled in an inexpensive compartment that was also frequented by criminals. They would have worried for no reason.
And after all, the thief part of the story is just one of the many truths about that trip. The answer I gave my parents was also true.
#29 I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.
Love is redemptive. It makes meaning out of life, no matter that we are a short-lived species on a minor planet circling a small star at the far end of a nondescript galaxy.
When love knocks at your door, you have to open it. What if you ignored the knock and then the world ended suddenly? Wouldn’t you regret the day you didn’t spend loving?
#30 Easy comfort isn’t comforting
I don’t know about you, I absolutely hate the platitudes people use when they’re trying to cheer someone up.
“Cheer up – he’s not worth it. There are plenty of fish in the sea.”
“Unemployed? Don’t worry. Something will surely come up.”
I know people mean well, but these easy comforts are about as meaningful as “have a nice day.”
Real comfort doesn’t come from a mass-market greeting card. It comes from recognition and appreciation of who we are.
#31 He called out to his fellow monks, “Come quickly I am tasting stars.”
What a wonderful feeling it is when you know that what you are experiencing is rare and amazing. And really…every moment of life is unique, never to be duplicated or repeated. Every experience is rare and amazing if you have the eyes to see.
#32 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.
Green’s statement about houses applies equally to faces, to the public facades we create in daily life. Appearance and reality. Exterior and interior.
Our lives seem to take place in the world, but in truth they happen between our ears as we weave experience into a meaningful tapestry. Life is a story made of events that are significant only because of the importance we assign to them.
#33 You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.
There is nothing more beautiful than a woman being herself: confident, strong, secure in the knowledge that she is unique in her own way.
#34 Keep your shit together.
I am always on the verge of giving this advice to my friends, and to myself as well.
Life is full of drama and highs and lows and all kinds of hullaballoo. It’s so easy to get lost and so hard to maintain focus.
Some of the great quotes in The Fault in Our Stars are expressed poetically in beautiful language, and some are great even though they come wrapped in plain language. I guess you know which kind this one is.
#35 You’re arguing that the fragile, rare thing is beautiful simply because it is fragile and rare. But that’s a lie, and you know it.
Hazel asserts that disease does not make the diseased wiser or more beautiful. The pity with which the suffering are sometimes showered taste worse than any medicine.
#36 And yet still I worried. I like being a person. I wanted to keep at it.
Capacity to feel is what makes us human. You don’t have to die to experience death, because we can also have a death-in-life existence. But as long as we feel, death will not take us.
#37 What a slut time is. She screws everybody.
“Wow, today I turn 40. How did time pass by so quickly?” It does. For you and for everyone.
You think you have the time to achieve all the things you want in life, so you postpone the immediate opportunity for the sake of some potential future opportunity. But time does not wait.
#38 I wondered if hurdlers ever thought, you know, “This would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.”
Sometimes giving up is the easiest thing to do. But do you want to give up something which means so much to you?
Hurdles are the hard part of being a hurdler, but they’re also the essential part. Without hurdles, the hurdler is just some guy running around a track.
Sometimes we are defined by our response to the adversities we face. The hurdles aren’t obstacles. They make us who we are.
#39 You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.
Nothing brings back the lost, no matter what we are willing to trade for them. This is the price of being human and having the capacity to feel.
The only thing we have left is to talk and write about them, and in this way ease our own pain. This keeps them alive in our memory, but Green reminds us that memory is not life. The lost are still lost even though we write fine words about them.
#40 Without pain, how could we know joy?
Imagine living in a world without pain and sadness.
It would be a wonderful world, but would we really know how good it was? We need pain so we can appreciate joy.
If you don’t believe me, remember how great you felt your first healthy day after recovering from a bad headcold. Remember that exhilarating sense of vitality, the simple pleasure of breathing through unblocked nasal passages? You never feel that healthy until you’ve been sick. Green is saying that joy and pain work the same way.
#41 It is a good life, Hazel Grace.
It is a great life. Yes, there are ups and downs. Yes, there is pain. Yes, life is all too brief. But life is sweet despite all that.
#42 You say you’re not special because the world doesn’t know about you, but that’s an insult to me. I know about you.
Every person is special in his own way.
When you feel that you are not good enough or rich enough or famous enough, just remember that you are loved. You, loved, just the way you are. You are special.
#43 It´s a metaphor: you see, you put the killing thing right between your teeth, you just don’t give it the power to do its killing.
Gus is referring to cigarettes in this passage, but he’s really talking about cancer.
Cancer makes Gus a victim. It controls his health and even dictates that he will die. In that situation, many people accept that they are victims of fate and disease.
Gus resists seeing himself that way, and that’s what this passage is about. The cigarette is deadly. Cigarettes cause cancer, the same disease that is robbing Gus of his future. But Gus gets the last word. He puts the cigarette between his lips and then he doesn’t light it. The cigarette is impotent. It can’t hurt Gus because he’s in control. It’s that feeling of being in control that Gus craves and needs as cancer ravages his body.
Yes. The cigarette is a metaphor.
#44 “I missed the future.”
Knowing that you won’t be there to experience life is simply heart-breaking.
That’s true of cancer patients, of course, but it’s also true of all of us. Life goes on, and we won’t be there to taste it.
#45 It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.
Green has put his finger on one of the great flaws in human psychology. No matter what we get, we are dissatisfied. There is always another goal to pursue.
What would it take for you to say, “I am completely satisfied with what I have”? Can you imagine holding that feeling as a truth – not just for a moment, but for years? I can’t, honestly. I, too, am afflicted by what Green calls “the voracious ambition of humans.”
#46 I will not tell you our love story, because – like all real love stories – it will die with us, as it should.
Every love story dies with the people who lived it.
You can tell the story, but that’s like a movie based on the translation of a book. It’s just not the same.
Every love story is something wonderful and sacred, just for the lovers. And that is as it should be.
#47 I was thinking about the word handle, and all the unholdable things that get handled.
Life can be difficult to handle.
I’ve faced things I thought I couldn’t handle, like the death of a loved one. But guess what? I handled it.
It’s not easy but when you set your mind to it you discover that the sky is the only limit.
#48 The dead are visible only in the terrible lidless eye of memory. The living, thank heaven, retain the ability to surprise and to disappoint.
The dead can’t change. They are beyond growth and surprise and love and wonder. The living exist in a world of change and possibility. The living can choose and act, can delight us and sadden us. That’s what it means to be alive.
#49 You of all people know it’s possible to live with pain.
We protest that pain is too much for us, that we can’t endure it. But we do. In The Fault in Our Stars, young people afflicted with cancer find a way to live with the physical pain and the terrible pain of knowing they are dying.
The challenge is not to die in pain, but to live with pain. That’s why this sad book is really a story of triumph.
#50 I knew that the time would now pass for me differently than it would for him – that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and losses while he would not. And for me, that was the final and truly unbearable tragedy: Like all the innumerable dead, he’d once and for all been demoted from haunted to haunter.
This lovely passage is part of Green’s extended meditation on the nature of death. Here, Green says an essential characteristic of the dead is their inability to accumulate new experiences. That’s obvious, of course, but in another way it is a subtle and profound point.
Green’s characters are preoccupied with death, and for good reason. Understanding the nature of death ultimately helps them come fully alive.
#51 It is the nature of stars to cross.
Hazel loves this line written by her favorite author, Peter Van Houten.
To her, it means that our destiny is somehow out of our hands, that it is dictated by fate – by the stars.
#52 Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy…well.
Some of the quotes on this page are deep and true, while others are just true. I guess this one falls into the latter category.
There actually is a deeper truth here. The experience of being stared at has no inherent meaning. It is not rewarding or embarrassing or flattering or scary until you perceive it and assign it meaning. That’s one of the themes of the book – the events in our lives have meaning because we assign them meaning. To have a meaningful life, you can live the same life as everyone else…you just have to see meaning in the things you experience.
#53 You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail.
Has you ever fallen for a person completely and utterly?
It is scary to think what kind of influence that person has on us. It’s so scary that some people run away from love. But that’s not the answer, and romantic movies teach us that running away never works anyway: Hugh Grant will wind up sharing a taxi with us eventually, so we might as well give in and fall for him.
This passage shows that Gus is determined and it sets the stage for his abiding love for Hazel.
#54 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.
Dying is horrible. Talking about it isn’t easy.
Hazel’s sharp wit reveals how strong she is. This is what makes us admire her even more. If you can face the future as she does, and still joke about it, you’re awesome.
#55 So much depends upon the observer of the universe.
It is our outlook on events that determines their meaning.
We experience this at the end of a long relationship. The next day we can lament what we’ve lost and second-guess ourselves, or we can look forward and move into renewed futures.
Only you can choose what each day means.
#56 Don’t worry. Worry is useless. I worried anyway.
I don’t think that people will ever stop worrying about things. It doesn’t matter that we know that it is useless, somehow worry is still there lending drama to our lives.
#57 In the darkest days, the Lord puts the best people into your life.
This line comes from a discussion between Gus, who is religious, and Hazel, who is not. But it’s not really about religion. It’s about the way the world always seems to offer up what we need, just when we need it.
I can relate to this quote. During my darkest days I met people who helped me a lot. It’s probably a coincidence…but it seems that it’s just the way the world works.
#58 I believe humans have souls, and I believe in the conservation of souls.
The conservation of energy is a fundamental concept in physics. It states, basically that for a given system, energy is neither created nor destroyed. It can be transformed (for example, motion can create friction, and the energy of motion can be transformed into heat) but not destroyed. When Einstein defined the relationship between energy and matter, a corresponding law of conservation of matter was recognized.
The phrase “conservation of souls” is an homage to these laws. It suggests that souls are somehow fundamental aspects of the universe and that they persist. Souls can be transformed (when someone dies, for instance) but they don’t disappear.
#59 Pain is like fabric: The stronger it is, the more it’s worth.
Good things are worth the wait. But sometimes to receive the good in life, we must accept suffering.
It is strange when you think about it, that you have to suffer to feel good. But if you didn’t suffer, would you appreciate the good as much as you do?
#60 Nothing gold can stay.
This line is from Robert Frost. It means that nothing lasts forever.
Remember this when you are experiencing difficult times, but also when you are enjoying the good ones. Knowing that what you have is transient will only make you appreciate it more!
#61 As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the Ocean: Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it. “What’s that?” Anna asked. “Water,” the Dutchman said. “Well, and time.”
The epigraph of The Fault in Our Stars reveals one of the main themes in the books – time. Time brings us together and time eventually separates us. Time reveals truths and time conceals truths. Time brings us to life and time poisons us. And in the end, time takes everything with it.
#62 We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim – as you will be – of the universe’s need to make and unmake all that is possible.
The idea that humans experience life so the universe has eyes to see itself with has been expressed many times, but never more beautifully than this.
#63 Even cancer isn’t a bad guy really: Cancer just wants to be alive.
Green is right. The same way people want to remain alive, so do diseases. We all want to be alive. It’s all a struggle to perist across time and create meaning. But sometimes only the strongest survive.
#64 I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?
Nobody wants to hurt their loved ones. But if you are suffering from a terminal disease, you can’t protect them forever.
#65 People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
What is more important in life, quality or quantity? Does it matter how many people love you, or how much they love you?
Being loved deeply by a few is heroic and triumphant. I would not want anything more and I won’t settle for anything less.
#66 Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.
It is better, they say, to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That’s what Hazel discovers in this passage.
More, she understands what it will be like for the people she leaves behind, the people who care for her, when she dies. She understands deep in her bones that she can’t protect them and that they don’t need her protection anyway. They want and need as much of her as they can get while she is still breathing.
#67 Funerals, I had decided, are for the living.
Funerals have always been for the living: for the mourners, for the loved ones, for friends and acquaintances. It is an event where you can share your pain openly and freely with other people, but not with the deceased. I hate funerals.
#68 Her primary reason for living and my primary reason for living were awfully entangled.
Some people are meant to be together, just like two pieces of a puzzle that fit each other perfectly. Be it destiny or coincidence, some stars are meant to cross.
#69 I even tried to tell myself to live my best life today.
It’s hard being positive when things are not going as planned. Even when you know that the hard times which you are experiencing are temporary, it doesn’t make it easier. Keep your head high and do your best always.
#70 My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me.
This is a profound observation. We look at cancer, at tumors, as something separate. But they aren’t. They are our own cells, full of our own DNA.
It’s no good pretending that you are not sick, that illness will miraculously disappear if you ignore it.
Are you at this moment shutting your eyes in front of the pain you feel?
71 #You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence.
This quote reinforces the transitory nature of life and the abruptness of death. It reminds us that we must always live life to the fullest, because you can’t know when it will all end, and your To Do list will cease to matter.
#72 It’s hard to explain, but talking to them felt like stabbing and being stabbed.
Don’t you just hate being around people who bring out the worst in you, people who make being nice excruciatingly difficult?
Don’t allow them to bring you down to their level. Surround yourself with positive people as much as you can and you will soon experience the benefits.
#73 It’s embarrassing that we all just walk through life blindly accepting that scrambled eggs are fundamentally associated with mornings.
Hazel is right. Why do we have to eat scrambled eggs in the morning? why not at midnight?
Think about all the rules we follow without questioning them, without even really acknowledging them.
One of the things Gus and Hazel discover about cancer is that it gives them freedom to break all those rules. And that same freedom is available to all of us, no matter how healthy we are.
#74 Depression is not a side-effect of cancer. Depression is a side-effect of dying.
This is so true. But when you are dying, almost everything is a side-effect of dying. Still, we do not die until our last breath. Why must we die before our time by spending so much time feeling fear and dread?
#75 Who am I to say that these things might not be forever? Who is Peter Van Houten to assert as fact the conjecture that our labor is temporary? All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park; an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children.
The Fault in Our Stars is full of passages about existence and the meaning of life. Some characters come into the book to express contrary views. Green is right when he focuses this debate on the present moment in which we are living, a moment in which change is the only constant.
#76 If you were more trouble than you’re worth, we’d just toss you out on the streets.
This line makes me laugh so much.
It’s hard, sometimes, to tell people how much we love them – especially when they are sad or having a crisis of self-confidence. I’m going to use this line the next time a dear friend is feeling blue.
#76 Cancer kids are essentially side-effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life on earth possible.
Sometimes, what enables life and its many forms is also what is killing it. That’s the irony of life.
#77 How strange and how lovely it is to be anything at all.
True life begins when you realize that you can be anything you want.
More importantly, do you believe that you can be anything you want? If you did believe it, how would your life be different?
#78 I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it – or my observation of it – is temporary?
Existence is a miracle. Each and every one of us is at the center of the universe. (Einstein proved that assertion mathematically; I’m not making it up.)
This line implies that universe is aware of the life in it, that life exists for the benefit of the universe. It may not be true, but it is a lovely idea.
#79 …you clench your teeth, you look up, you tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry and you say all of this to yourself while you are looking up at the ceiling , and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.
Our loved ones are the ones know our worst and our best sides, and they are the ones who can hurt us the most.
Have you ever wished that you would never hurt the person you love and clench your teeth and swallow all your tears and smile back?
#80 We all want to be remembered.
Nikola Tesla, Michael Jordan…these people are remembered for the legacy they left behind. Not all of us can be famous inventors or entrepreneurs. But we can be stars within the small universe of people we love and who love us. It is more than enough.
#81 He wasn’t perfect or anything. He wasn’t your fairy-tale Prince Charming or whatever. He tried to be like that sometimes, but I liked him best when that stuff fell away.
One of the best things about The Fault in Our Stars is that it is so realistic. This could happen to any of us.
The fact that this is not just a cliché-ridden romance is what makes it worth your time.
#82 The world wasn’t made for us, we were made for the world.
This is another assertion that humans exist for the benefit of the universe. Green explores this theme throughout the book.
#83 I fear oblivion. I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.
This line contains a deep truth about our fear of death.
We know nothing of what we will experience after we die. Literally nothing. Yet we fear it. Just as the blind man fears darkness, which he can never truly experience.
#84 It would be awesome to fly in a superfast airplane that could chase the sunrise around the world for a while.
Don’t you love this idea? I mean it’s so funny, creative and daring that I want to try it!
#85 All salvation is temporary.
This thought-provoking line can be interpreted in many ways. What is salvation? Does it exist at all? Does it dissipate upon our deaths?
Ultimately, we have to find our own answers to these questions.
#86 Omnia Cellula e Cellula.
Cells come from cells and life comes from life. What you give is what you get. Action and reaction. This statement from medical history is central to The Fault in Our Stars, which is ultimately about defining the nature of life itself…through a close examination of death.
#87 There is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.
There is a glory in dying for something, choosing to sacrifice for greater good or your loved ones. But what glory is there in dying of something that you cannot control? Death in that case is just a physical transition. It can have meaning only if you give it meaning through the way you live.
#88 I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe, but that has not been my experience.
When I was a teenager I thought I would figure life out when I grow older.
Guess what? I find myself older but not wiser.
Maybe that’s the secret of life: the struggle to find answers. Once you’ve found the answers, there is nothing left to do.
#89 I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.
Gus and Hazel suffered from terminal cancer. It is understandable that they chose to indulge themselves in simple pleasures. Life is short, and they had to gather the pleasure they could while they still could.
But we are all terminal. Life is short for all of us. So we all need to enjoy life’s simple pleasures while we can.
#90 People always get used to beauty, though.
The world is full of wonders, but eventually we come to take them for granted. It’s tough – but important – to retain awareness of life’s beauty.
#91 Even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever.
Dying may be the defining characteristic of human consciousness. Whatever is born must die. This line is painfully true. It describes the truth of human existence. Neither we nor our children’s children nor ultimately our planet itself will endure forever.
#92 We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.
There is a struggle in this book between the idea that the universe needs us, relies on us for its experience of itself, and the idea that the universe is a soulless mechanical object and that life’s meaning comes only from inside ourselves.
The trick, I think, is to understand that the two statements are both true, and deeply compatible.
#93 No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can’t go all the way round.
Sometimes putting all of your effort into something is just not enough. Sometimes circumstances cannot be overcome no matter how hard you try.
But that doesn’t mean you should give up. If anything comforts you it is the fact that you have tried and done your best.
#94 Hazel Grace, when you’re as charming and physically attractive as myself, it’s easy enough to win over people you meet. But getting strangers to love you…now, that’s the trick.
Getting strangers to love you requires more than a pretty face. It requires personality and charisma.
But are they still strangers in that case?
#95 The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with.
Here, Hazel speaks of how memory is lost when her friend is taken from her. She is as unable to appreciate her memories as a universe with no people in it.
#96 In freedom, most people find sin.
We all want to be free from the constraints life places on us. But when we finally achieve that much-desired freedom we find that we cannot utilize it to the utmost benefit. We fall deeply into sin. Don’t believe me? Consider what happens to people who win the lottery.
#97 Suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.
This is a metaphor. Just as chocolate still tastes wonderful even though broccoli exists, so life can be wonderful and delicious even though terminal cancer exists.
#98 There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after.
That time existed, but we can know almost nothing about it. It’s as if that time doesn’t count, because no one was there to give it meaning.
#99 Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.
In a way, I think this is true of The Fault in Our Stars.
#100 There are books…which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.
I feel that way sometimes, that sharing a book I love will make it less special somehow. Reading a book is such an intimate act, after all, and the reactions in your head are yours alone.
Ultimately, however, it’s better to share. When we read the same books and experience the same ideas, we learn new ways of relating to each other. Our experience of the world and its wonders is more aligned. We have more common ground for making connections.
That is one good reason for sharing these The Fault in Our Stars quotes. John Green’s book presents a beautiful, moving, profound way of seeing the world. When we share those words, we also share that new perspective.
Gus and Hazel would surely approve of that.
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