Home / Authors / John Green

John Green

John Green Quotes

Author

John Green is an American author known for his young adult literature. His works often explore themes such as adolescence, love, family, and identity, and have gained popularity among young readers. Green's books have won numerous literary awards and have become bestsellers.

Filter quotes by topic

All People Real John Green Knows Said Ifs Thinking Way Hipster World Hazel Grace Want Towns Feels Life Alaska Persons Book Looking For Alaska Book Augustus

Famous John Green Quotes

“I'm sitting her thinking, -God, I swear I will take a vow of silence and move to a monastery and worship you for all my days if you just this once provide me with an invisibility cloak, come on, come on, please please invisibility cloak now now now-. It's very possible that Jane is thinking the same thing, I have no idea, because she's not talking either, and I can't look at her on account of how I'm blinded by embarrassment.”

“Harry Potter isn’t real? Oh no! Wait, wait, what do you mean by real? Is this video blog real? Am I real if you can see me and hear me, but only through the internet? Are you real if I can read your comment but I don’t know who you are or what your name is or where you’re from or what you look like or how old you are? I know all of those things about Harry Potter. Maybe Harry Potter’s real and you’re not.”

Ifs Knows Life Looks Mean I Can Real Reality Names Waiting Internet Who You Are Video Comment Harry Potter Potters Blogs Old You I Can Read

Author:John Green

“If you act out of a paranoid fear of something happening, you will always make that thing happen.”

Ifs Happens Happenings Things Happen Paranoid

Author:John Green

“You can't just make yourself matter and then die, Alaska, because now I am irretrievably different, and I'm sorry I let you go, yes, but you made the choice. You left me Perhapsless, stuck in your goddamned labyrinth. And now I don't even know if you chose the straight and fast way out, if you left me like this on purpose. And so I never knew you, did I? I can't remember, because I never knew.”

Ifs Knows Way Made I Can Different Matter Remember Purpose Dies Choices Left Sorry Stuck I'm Sorry Alaska Labyrinth Letting You Go You Left Me

Book:Looking for Alaska

Source: Looking for Alaska

“Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.”

People Ifs Way Persons Book Matter Stories Use Eye Jobs Reading Attention Teacher Seeing Deserve Metaphor Symbols English Teacher

Author:John Green

“Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.”

People Ifs Years Can Do Stupid College Graduates Stupid People Campus College Life College Campus College Days Back To College College Years College Experience

Author:John Green

“And I wondered if hurdlers ever thought, you know, 'This would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.”

Ifs Knows Faster Hurdle

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.”

Ifs Humans Consciousness Worry Organisms Oblivion Inevitability Fault In Our Stars

Book:An Abundance of Katherines

Source: An Abundance of Katherines

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”

Ifs Important Real Done Remember Felt Hours Memories Loss Pleasure Grief Taken Losing

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”

Ifs World Choices Stars Hurt This World Romantic Determination Faults Self Determination Hazel Grace Fault In Our Stars Hurting You

Author:John Green

“The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.”

Ifs Looks Real House Our Lives Happenings Architecture Weird Things

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.”

People Ifs Want Trying Looks Persons Doe Hurt Sadness Love You Fronts Cry Mere Teeth Look Up Throat Devoted Ceilings Doing You Augustus

Author:John Green

“I can almost imagine a happiness without her, the ability to let her go, to feel our roots are connected even if I never see that leaf of grass again.'”

Ifs Feels I Can Ability Imagine Roots Connected Grass Leafs Leaves Of Grass Let Her Go

Book:Paper Towns

Source: Paper Towns

“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.”

Ifs Knows Mean Dies Greater Greater Good Augustus Augustus Waters

Author:John Green

“What can we do?" Mom asked again. I shrugged. But she kept asking, as if there were something she could do, until 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.”

Ifs Way Kind Hours Middle Arms Mom Dad Asking My Dad Legs My Mom Tides Lap Couches

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“I wanted to know that he would be okay if I died. I wanted to not be a grenade, to not be a malevolent force in the lives of people I loved.”

People Ifs Knows Would Be Wanted Force Okay Died Grenade

Book:The John Green Collection

Source: The John Green Collection

“I am in the midst of a soliloquy! I wrote this out and memorized it and if you interrupt me I will completely screw it up,' Augustus interrupted. 'Please to be eating your sandwich and listening.”

Ifs Listening Please Eating Midst Screws Sandwiches Interrupted Augustus

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“No, I don’t think you’re gonna be single forever, and also I don’t understand your obsession with romantic love. There are other ways to have fulfilling relationships that can sustain you and make your life great and fun other than having a sexualized relationship. It’s not the only kind of fulfilling human interaction. So, even if you are single forever, that doesn’t mean that you’ve had some kind of failed life.”

Ifs Thinking Way Humans Kind Mean Fun Forever Obsession Interaction Romantic Love Fulfilling

Author:John Green

“Caroline was always moody and miserable, but I liked it. I liked feeling as if she had chosen me as the only person in the world not to hate, and so we spent all this time together just ragging on everyone, you know?”

Ifs Knows World Persons Feelings Together Hate Chosen Miserable Moody Time Together

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“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.”

Ifs Knows Men World Mean Real Beautiful Choices Hurt Worry This World Lucky Tired Likes Old Man Smarter Vans So Lucky Beautiful You Hazel Grace Fault In Our Stars Being Mean

Author:John Green

“If I could do it all over again," he said, his speech slow and vaguely mangled by his massive lower lip, "I'd just let myself be trampled to death by the Satan Pig.”

Ifs Said Speech Lips Satan If I Could Massive Pigs

Book:An Abundance of Katherines

Source: An Abundance of Katherines

“He'd fought hard, Lida told me, as if there was another way to fight.”

Ifs Way Hard Fighting Another Way

Author:John Green

“I think if you went back to the eighteenth century and you asked a fifteen year old boy, 'Would you like to marry a woman who has had plastic bags needlessly inserted into her breasts?', that fifteen year old boy would probably be like, 'what's plastic?'.”

Ifs Thinking Years Boys Century Breasts Bags Plastic Fifteen Fifteen Years Plastic Bags Fifteen Years Old Nerdfighter

Author:John Green

“I wouldn't have cared if my girlfriend was a Jaguar-driving Cyclops with a beard - I'd have been grateful just to have someone to make out with.”

Ifs Has Beens Grateful Driving Girlfriend Beard My Girlfriend Make Out Jaguars Cyclops

Book:Looking for Alaska

Source: Looking for Alaska

“but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever.”

Ifs Sun Forever Collapse Fault In Our Stars

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“If we'd put them in a vase in the living room, they would have been everyone's flowers. I wanted them to be my flowers.”

Ifs Has Beens Wanted Rooms Flower Living Room Vases

Author:John Green

“It's almost as if the way you imagine my dead self says more about you than it says about either the person I was or the whatever I am now.”

Ifs Way Persons Self Imagine

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“I’ll give you my strength if I can have your remission.”

Ifs Giving I Can Remission

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“Agustus asked if I wanted to go with him to Support Group, but I was really tired from my busy day of Having Cancer, so I passed.”

Ifs Wanted Support Groups Tired Busy Cancer Hazel Grace Support Groups Busy Day

Author:John Green

“I can't imagine us saying these things to each other out loud. But even if I can't imagine hearing these words, I can imagine living them. I don't even picture it. Instead I'm in it. How I would feel with him here. That peace. It would be so happy, and it makes me sad because it only exists in words.”

Ifs Feels I Can Would Be Imagine Hearing Loud

Author:John Green

“And I agreed, but still, she owed us an explanation. If she was up there, down there, out there, somewhere, maybe she would laugh.”

Ifs Stills Laughing Explanation

Book:Looking for Alaska

Source: Looking for Alaska

“I was so frustrated with him. "I just want to be enough for you, but I never can be. This can never be enough for you. But this is all you get. You get me, and your family, and this world. This is your life. I'm sorry if it sucks. But you're not going to be the first man on Mars, and you're not going to be an NBA star, and you're not going to hunt Nazis.”

Ifs Men World Want Firsts Real Enough Stars This World Sorry Nba Frustrated Mars Nazi I'm Sorry Hunts

Author:John Green

“...Kaitlyn never wore open-toed shoes on account of how she hated her feet because she felt her second toes were too long, as if the second toe was a window into the soul or something.”

Ifs Long Soul Felt Feet Window Accounts Shoes Hated Toes

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“It is very sad to me that some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don’t care if that mark is a scar.”

People Ifs World Care Mark Leaving Don't Care Scar I Hate You Very Sad

Author:John Green

“But I could always tell in her eyes if she got really pissed at me, and her eyes were still pretty smiley”

Ifs Stills Eye Her Eyes Smiley

Author:John Green

“But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.”

Ifs Happens Together Towns Unlikely Margo Roth Spiegelman

Book:The John Green Collection

Source: The John Green Collection

“By saying you don’t care if the world falls apart, in some small way you’re saying you want it to stay together, on your own terms.”

Ifs World Way Want Care Together Fall Term Don't Care Falling Apart

Author:John Green

“He took a bite, swallowed. "God. If asparagus tasted like that all the time, I'd be vegetarian, too." Some people in a lacquered wooden boat approached us on the canal below. One of them, a woman with curly blond hair, maybe thirty, drank from a beer then raised her glass towards us and shouted something. "We don't speak Dutch," Gus shouted back. One of the others shouted a translation: "The beautiful couple is beautiful.”

People Ifs Beautiful Speak Hair Couple Raised Glasses Boat Beer Thirty Vegetarian Bites Translations Drank Dutch Canals Asparagus Gus

Author:John Green

“It just goes to show, if you try to ruin someone's life, it only gets better. You just don't get to be a part of it.”

Ifs Trying Shows Ruins Get Better

Book:Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. The, if it like you, it takes the rest.”

Ifs Sometimes Like You Checks Limbs

Book:An Abundance of Katherines

Source: An Abundance of Katherines

“If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You'd see Jesus on the cross, and you'd see a dude get stabbed in the neck, and you'd see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.”

People Ifs Kids Jesus Sea Dying Painting Honor Battle Glory Crosses Cancer Illness Hopefully Necks Someday Yellow Plague Martyr Fever Parades Biting Dead People Smallpox People Dying Yellow Fever

Author:John Green

“Also, it was a bit hopeless," he said. "A bit defeatist." "If by defeatist you mean honest, then I agree." "I don't think defeatism is honest, " Dad answered. "I refuse to accept that.”

Ifs Thinking Mean Said Bits Accepting Honest Dad Agree Refuse Hopeless

Book:The Fault in Our Stars

Source: The Fault in Our Stars

“I wondered if there would ever be a day when I didn't think about Alaska, wondered whether I should hope for a time when she would be a distant memory - recalled only on the anniversary of her death, or maybe a couple of weeks after, remembering only after having forgotten.”

Ifs Thinking Should Would Be Remember Memories Week Couple Forgotten Alaska

Book:Looking For Alaska Special 10th Anniversary Edition

Source: Looking For Alaska Special 10th Anniversary Edition

“I just want you to be happy. If that’s with me or with someone else or with nobody. I just want you to be happy.”

Ifs Want Happiness Wish Happy Happiness And Love Well Wishes Best Wishes

Author:John Green

“Me: "If you want me to be a teenager, don't send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot." Mom: "You don't take pot, for starters." Me: "See, that's the kind of thing I'd know if you got me a fake ID.”

Ifs Knows Want Kind I Can Support Groups Mom Drink Clubs Teenager Fake Pot Want Me You Want Me Vodka Starters If You Want Me Support Groups Teenage Life You Got Me

Book:Looking for Alaska

Source: Looking for Alaska

“If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.” “So you’re into it.” “Withholding judgment! When can I see you?” “Certainly not until you finish An Imperial Affliction.” I enjoyed being coy. “Then I’d better hang up and start reading.” “You’d better,” I said, and the line clicked dead without another word. Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.”

Ifs Said Eye Reading Lines Judgment Enjoyed Gentleman His Eyes Affliction Flirting Hang Ups Withholding

Author:John Green

“He may be a malevolent sorcerer, but Tiny Cooper is his own goddamned man, and if he wants to be a gigantic skipper, then that's his right as a huge American.”

Ifs Men Want May Huge Tiny Skipper

Author:John Green

“People are such idiots. As if there's something wrong with being in love.”

People Ifs Idiot Being In Love

Author:John Green

“If by that you mean that I dislike celebrity magazines, prefer food to anorexia, refuse to watch TV shows about models, and hate the color pink, then yes. I am proud to be not really a girl.”

Ifs Mean Shows Hate Girl Watches Color Tvs Proud Models Refuse Magazines Dislike Tv Shows Anorexia

Book:Let It Snow: Three Holiday Stories

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Stories

“Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?”

People Ifs Wonder Like You Abundance

Book:An Abundance of Katherines

Source: An Abundance of Katherines

About the Author

Born: August 24, 1977
Known for: Author
Quotes: 1927

Related Topics

People Real John Green Knows Said Ifs Thinking Way Hipster World Hazel Grace Want Towns Feels Life Alaska Persons Book Looking For Alaska Book Augustus

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Fault in Our StarsRelated source material

Paper TownsRelated source material

Looking for AlaskaRelated source material

An Abundance of KatherinesRelated source material

Looking For Alaska Special 10th Anniversary EditionRelated source material

Will Grayson, Will GraysonRelated source material

Turtles All the Way DownRelated source material

The John Green CollectionRelated source material

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered PlanetRelated source material

Let It SnowRelated source material

Similar Authors

David LevithanBrowse related quotes
Sarah DessenBrowse related quotes
Neil GaimanBrowse related quotes
George SaundersBrowse related quotes
Margaret AtwoodBrowse related quotes
Taylor SwiftBrowse related quotes
Meg CabotBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Jodi PicoultBrowse related quotes
Kristen StewartBrowse related quotes