How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I went to Support Group for the same reason that I'd once allowed nurses with a mere eighteen months of graduate education to poison me with exotically named chemicals: I wanted to make my parents happy. (1.28)
Hazel may be a grumpy teen, but despite her griping and groaning, she still goes to Support Group. Why? Because her parents tell her to. She's always looking out for them, even when it makes the little time she has left on earth a little less awesome for her.
Quote #2
It occurred to me that the reason my parents had no money was me. I'd sapped the family savings with Phalanxifor copays, and Mom couldn't work because she had taken on the full-time profession of Hovering Over Me. (5.135)
Uh oh. Hazel's getting the guilt-bug pretty young. Does that mean that everything she does for her parents—going to Support Group, for example—is out of guilt?
Quote #3
"You are not a grenade, not to us. Thinking about you dying makes us sad, Hazel, but you are not a grenade. You are amazing. You can't know, sweetie, because you've never had a baby become a brilliant young reader with a side interest in horrible television shows" (6.98)
Hazel throws a pretty loaded (and depressing) metaphor at her parents, but Dad sets her straight.
Also, throughout the book we are hit over the head with the fact that no one but a fellow cancer kid can understand what Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac are going through. Here, we get another angle: no one but a fellow cancer parent can understand what Hazel's parents are feeling.
Quote #4
I hated hurting him. Most of the time, I could forget about it, but the inexorable truth is this: They might be glad to have me around, but I was the alpha and the omega of my parents' suffering. (8.15)
If you ask us, Hazel's also the alpha and omega of teenage angst. Why does she feel like she's just a source of suffering to her parents? Is it because of the way her parents act around her or does it come from inside Hazel?
Quote #5
Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds out that I did hear. She said, "I won't be a mom anymore." (8.16)
Wow. No wonder Hazel keeps this statement with her. It's a lot of pressure to be responsible for your mom's loss of identity.
Quote #6
"True," Lidewij said. "I do not know how you go on, without your family. I do not know." As I read […] I thought of Otto Frank not being a father anymore. (12.147)
This might be just about the worst thing to say to Hazel, who seems absolutely obsessed with how her parents will go on after she's gone. What other adults does Hazel compare her parents to?
Quote #7
Gus's father: "Our children are weird."
My dad: "Nicely phrased." (15.13-14)
Touché, parents. Touché. It's little touches like this that remind us that these are just normal kids with normal parents. Well, normal and a little weird, of course.
Quote #8
She put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. It felt weird. "You know we love you, Hazel, but right now we just need to be a family." (15.20)
Is it wrong of Augustus's mom to shut out Hazel like that? Or is the power of family stronger than the power of teenage love?
Quote #9
I hadn't gotten to know his half sisters, really, but they both hugged me anyway. Julie was sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to a secret Gus in precisely the same voice you would use to tell an infant he was adorable (19.19)
Grief really does bring families together. Do you think Hazel will become close with Augustus's family after his death?
Quote #10
I just kind of crawled across the couch into her lap and my dad came over and held my legs really tight and I wrapped my arms all the way around my mom's middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in. (21.30)
Maybe parents do understand. And no matter how annoying they can be, they really are the ultimate comfort.