How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten […] and this will have been for naught […] And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does." (1.64)
This is part of Hazel's diatribe at Support Group that totally wins over Augustus. Because, you know, there's nothing sexier to a seventeen-year-old boy than a girl who can talk about how you're all going to die and be forgotten. Right?
Quote #2
Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that makes the diversity of life on earth possible. (4.4)
Instead of thinking of herself as an individual, Hazel finds it more comforting to think of herself as part of a big scheme in the universe. How does this affect the way she thinks about her identity?
Quote #3
The only solution was to try to unmake the world, to make it black and silent and uninhabited again, to return to the moment before the Big Bang, in the beginning when there was the Word, and to live in that vacuous space alone with the Word. (7.3)
Hazel has very strange pain regulation methods. Do you think she thinks these big thoughts because she's contemplating her mortality? Or is she just a deep kid through and through?
Quote #4
Dr. Maria shrugged. "It would increase some risks," she acknowledged, but then turned to me and said, "But it's your life." (8.20)
Is it really Hazel's life? How much control does she have over her own existence? Do little choices like this make her feel more in control?
Quote #5
I tried to tell myself that it could be worse, that the world was not a wish-granting factory, that I was living with cancer not dying of it, that I mustn't let it kill me before it kills me (8.41)
Hazel doesn't want to let cancer rule her life. And we have to say, once she meets Augustus, she does a pretty good job of letting go and making things happen.
Quote #6
"If you don't live a life in service of a greater good, you've gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won't get either a life or a death that means anything." (11.97)
Augustus feels like he has a responsibility to make something of himself before he dies—for the sake of the universe. That's a lot of pressure.
Quote #7
"That's what I believe. 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." (14.36)
Dads are wise, don't you think? Sometimes we can get inside our heads a little too much, but is that really a bad thing?
Quote #8
"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." (20.59)
Even though Hazel and Gus had a limited amount of time together, it was valuable enough to count as infinity. What a sweet and heartbreaking way to see it.