Quote 41
And yet still I worried. I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying. (5.4)
Thinking about death can make any of us a little anxious. Actually dying, well, that's a whole different ballgame.
Quote 42
I digress, but here's the rub: The dead are visible only in the terrible lidless eyes of memory. The living, thank heaven, retain the ability to surprise and to disappoint. (7.43)
Does Peter Van Houten prefer people who are alive or dead? Is he haunted by mortality or is he just a jerk?
Quote 43
If I could just stay alive for a week, I'd know the unwritten secrets of Anna's mom and the Dutch Tulip Guy. (8.100)
Hazel thinks about everything in terms of how long she can survive. Is that a pessimistic way to live her life?
Quote 44
Augustus Waters died eight days after his prefuneral, at Memorial, in the ICU, when the cancer, which was made of him, finally stopped his heart, which was also made of him. (21.1)
Hazel and Augustus spent a lot of time contemplating their mortality. But was Hazel prepared for this moment?
Quote 45
My parents came in then, looking expectant, and I just nodded and they fell into each other, feeling, I'm sure, the harmonic terror that would in time come for them directly. (21.3)
Quote 46
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. (2.13)
There have been entire YA books written about girls getting their periods. For Hazel, this major life change is just a blip on the radar.
Quote 47
did the totally middle-schooly thing wherein I put my hand on the couch about halfway between us to let him know that it was okay to hold it (2.92)
These moments remind us that, no matter what other craziness is going on in Hazel's life, in some ways she's just a normal kid. Who's really bad at flirting, we might add.
Quote 48
I laughed again, and told him that having most of your social engagements occur at a children's hospital also did not encourage promiscuity (8.36)
And then, of course, we're brought right back to reality. Hazel and Augustus don't have a normal teenage life. Seven minutes in heaven is a lot harder to coordinate in a hospital closet.
Quote 49
The whole affair was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic. (12.219)
Leave it to Hazel to tell the readers what it was like to lose her virginity. Is this landmark event any different for her and Augustus given their situations?
Quote 50
All I wanted was an old-fashioned Teenager Walkout, wherein I stomp out of the room and slam the door to my bedroom and turn up The Hectic Glow and furiously write a eulogy. (20.22)
Any teenager will agree that one of the keys to growing up is suddenly not getting along with your parents. How does Hazel's relationship with her parents differ from a normal teenager-parent relationship?
Quote 51
I wondered if my wall would look like this if I died, or if I'd been out of school and life long enough to escape widespread memorialization. (21.13)
Hazel's obviously grown way faster than lot of her peers, but unfortunately that means that a lot of them have forgotten about her, too.
Quote 52
I kept thinking there were two kinds of adults: There were Peter Van Houtens—miserable creatures who scoured the earth in search of something to hurt. And then there were people like my parents, who walked around zombically, doing whatever they had to do to keep walking around. (22.52)
Which kind of adult will Hazel be? Which kind of adult would Augustus have been?