John Green > Quotes

“Some infinities are bigger than others.”
― John Green

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”
― John Green

“We did not spend our days gazing into each other's eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention.”
― John Green

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep... slowly, then all at once.”
― John Green

“Sometimes, when you read a book, it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will not be put back together unless each living person reads it.”
― John Green

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green

“We just sat there quiet for a long time, which was fine, and I was thinking about way back in the very beginning in the Literal Heart of Jesus when Gus told us that he feared oblivion, and I told him that he was fearing something universal and inevitable, and how really, the problem is not suffering itself or oblivion itself but the depraved meaninglessness of these things, the absolutely inhuman nihilism of suffering. I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed. But what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us—not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us, as individuals.”
― John Green

“I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and 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.”
― John Green

“If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.”
― John Green

“More than anything, I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness.”
― John Green

“I don't want to give in to despair; I don't want to take refuge in the detached ridicule of emotion. I don't want to be cool if cool means being cold to or distant from the reality of experience.”
― John Green

“When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is 'You like stuff'. Which is not a good insult at all, like, 'you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human conscience'.”
― John Green

“We are powerful enough to light the world at night, to artificially refrigerate food, to leave Earth's atmosphere and orbit from outer space. But we cannot save those we love from suffering. This is the story of human history as I understand it-the story of an organism that can do so much, but cannot do what it most wants.”
― John Green

“From here, the White River will flow into the Wabash River, and then into the Ohio, and then into the great Mississippi River, and then into the Gulf of Mexico. Even after that, it will keep going—freezing, melting, evaporating, raining, flowing, being neither created nor destroyed. Looking out at this river reminds me of sitting at the edge of that creek with Todd, and how his love helped carry me through those years, and how in some ways it is still carrying me.”
― John Green

“What a blessing to be Earth loving Earth.”
― John Green

“Just in the last two centuries, tuberculosis caused over a billion human deaths. One estimate, from Frank Ryan's "Tuberculosis: The Greatest Story Never Told", maintains that TB has killed around one in seven people who've ever lived. COVID-19 displaced tuberculosis as the world's deadliest infectious disease from 2020 through 2022, but in 2023, TB regained the status it has held for most of what we know of human history. Killing 1,2500,000 people, TB once again became our deadliest infection. What's different now from 1804 or 1904 is that tuberculosis is curable, and has been since the mid-1950s. We know how to live in a world without tuberculosis. But we choose not to live in that world.”
― John Green

“Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.
― Augustus Waters”
― John Green

“my question has no answer”
― John Green

“Somos capaces de iluminar el mundo por la noche, refrigerar artificialmente los alimentos, ir más allá de la atmósfera para situarnos en la órbita terrestre. Pero no podemos salvar a nuestros seres queridos del sufrimiento. Esta es la historia de la humanidad tal y como yo la veo: la de un organismo que puede hacer muchas cosas, pero no la que más ansía.”
― John Green

“O islamismo, o cristianismo e o budismo, cada qual tem seu fundador- Maomé, Jesus e Buda, respectivamente. E, pesando nesses fundadores, acho que podemos concluir que cada um deles nos trouxe uma mensagem radical de esperança. Para a Arábia do século VII, Maomé trouxe a promessa de que todos poderiam encontrar felicidade e vida eterna no único Deus verdadeiro. Buda nos trouxe a esperança de sermos capazes de transpor o sofrimento. Jesus nos disse que os últimos serão os primeiros e que até os coletores de imposto e os leprosos- os renegados- tem razão para ter esperança. Assim, a pergunta que eu lhes faço neste trabalho é a seguinte: O que lhes dá esperança?”
― John Green