Quote 1
"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 2
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 3
"It's total bulls***," he said. "The whole thing… He was such a bright kid. It's bulls***. I hate it. But it was sure a privilege to love him, huh?" (22.56)
Hazel's dad really does always know the right thing to say. And we have a feeling he's talking about how much Hazel loves Augustus because of how much he loves Hazel.
Quote 4
"I don't know what I believe, Hazel. I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe, but that has not been my experience." (14.34)
No one's got it all figured out. Hazel's dad admits this to her, and maybe it helps to know that even if she did live to adulthood, it wouldn't mean that she'd have more insight than she does now.