Gemma Masson > Gemma's Quotes

“Historical reality has two sides. One is made ​​up of facts, events, material realities, and one of the ideas, images and dreams.”
― Jacques Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination

“I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

"Augustus," I said.

"I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. 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.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“May I see you again?" he asked. There was an endearing nervousness in his voice.

I smiled. "Sure."

"Tomorrow?" he asked.

"Patience, grasshopper," I counseled. "You don't want to seem overeager.

"Right, that's why I said tomorrow," he said. "I want to see you again tonight. But I'm willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow." I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious," he said.

"You don't even know me," I said. I grabbed the book from the center console. "How about I call you when I finish this?"

"But you don't even have my phone number," he said.

"I strongly suspect you wrote it in this book."

He broke out into that goofy smile. "And you say we don't know each other.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great sat-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won't be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because-like all real love stories-it will die with us, as it should. I'd hoped that he'd be eulogizing me, because there's no one I'd rather have..." I started crying. "Okay, how not to cry. How am I-okay. Okay."

I took a few deep breaths and went back to the page. "I can't talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a Bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“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, The Fault in Our Stars

“Ma'am," Augustus said, nodding toward her, "Your daughter's car has just been deservingly egged by a blind man. Please close the door and go back inside or we'll be forced to call the police.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“We are literally in the heart of Jesus," he said. "I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus."
"Someone should tell Jesus," I said. "I mean, it's gotta be dangerous, storing children with cancer in your heart."
"I would tell Him myself," Augustus said, "but unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of His heart, so He won't be able to hear me.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Augustus," I said. "Really. You don't have to do this."
"Sure I do," he said. "I found my Wish."
"God, you're the best," I told him.
"I bet you say that to all the boys who finance your international travel," he answered.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Augustus Waters," I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Issac:"I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters."
Computer: "I don't understand-"
Issac: "Me neither. Pause”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Are you currently at your house?" he asked.
"Um, no," I said.
"That was a trick question. I knew the answer, because I am currently at your house.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Augustus: "I can still dominate your blind ass at Counterinsurgence,"
Isaac: "I'm pretty sure all asses are blind,”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“His hand reached for her boob over her shirt and pawed at it, his palm still while his fingers moved around. I wondered if that felt good. Didn't seem like it would, but I decided to forgive Isaac on the grounds that he was going blind. The senses must feast while there is yet hunger and whatever.
"I think he's hurting her boob," I said.
"Yes, it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I could be worse, you know."

"How?" I asked, teasing.

"I mean, I have a work of calligraphy over my toilet that reads, 'Bathe yourself in the comfort of God's words,' Hazel. I could be way worse."

"Sounds unsanitary," I said.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“But it is a pipe."
"No, it's not," I said. It's a drawing of a pipe. Get it? All representations of a thing are inherently abstract. It's very clever.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
...
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.

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.

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox.
...
But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
...
What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. 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 like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I opened the door. He looked down at my shirt and smiled. "Funny," he said.
"Don't call my boobs funny," I answered.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Never say 'no' to adventures. Always say 'yes,' otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.”
― Ian Fleming

“Great minds are always feared by lesser minds.”
― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate

“History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.”
― Robin Hobb

“if love doesnt come first and linger after, if love cant wait and endure disappointment and seperation, then its not love.”
― Robin Hobb, Golden Fool

“Diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.”
― Robin Hobb

“Look forward, not back. Correct your course and go on. You can't undo yesterday's journey.”
― Robin Hobb, The Mad Ship

“The past is no further away than the last breath you took.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Errand

“What a man can take with a sword, a woman can give by her flesh alone. Life.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate

“Stop longing. You poison today’s ease, reaching always for tomorrow.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Errand

“Lord Maccon was built like a brick outhouse, with opinions twice as unmoving and often equally full of crap.”
― Gail Carriger, Blameless

“Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.

Wolves have no kings”
― Robin Hobb