“Let me tell you, dying is a lot harder on the living than it is on the dead. Death really only hurts those left behind.”— Tom Fontana, Augustus Hill, Harold Perrineau, imdb.com
“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”— Unknown, amazon.com
“The grief. It came crashing in like a tidal wave. The very thought of it still sends a shiver down my spine: makes me wince a little. The weight of it. Those vacant, anguished expressions, and the way we nestled into each other, softly, and the endless cups of too-strong tea that were made by distra…”— Kathy Brown, thoughtcatalog.com
“And then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“And only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation. I couldn't unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn't want to.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“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…”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“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.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“That was the worst part about having cancer, sometimes: The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“The pain was always there, pulling me inside of myself, demanding to be felt. It always felt like I was waking up from the pain when something in the world outside of me suddenly required my comment or attention.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“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, and then I just started muttering stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid over and over again until the so…”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com