paper-towns

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
ad34794	Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.	things-that-matter paper-towns nerdfighters	John Green
9a920e8	Maybe all the strings inside him broke.	paper towns quentin paper-towns	John Green
c2dfc75	Tonight, darling, we are going to right a lot of wrongs. And we are going to wrong some rights. The first shall be last; the last shall be first; the meek shall do some earth-inheriting. But before we can radically reshape the world, we need to shop.	margo paper-towns	John Green
b090257	I leave, and the leaving is so exhilarating I know I can never go back. But then what? Do I just keep leaving places, and leaving them, and leaving them, tramping a perpetual journey?	paper-towns leaving sad	John Green
9594e2e	"My heart is really pounding," I said. "That's how you know you're having fun," Margo said."	margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns	John Green
9895e0f	The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.	paper-towns	John Green
5e853f3	"It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it."	paper-towns	John Green
dac0c07	"Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added. Radar tapped a locker twice with his fist to show his approval, and then came back with another. "Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force." --	humor prom john-green paper-towns high-school dating	John Green
2939865	"Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added. Radar tapped a locker twice with his fist to show his approval, and then came back with another. "Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force."	humor prom john-green paper-towns high-school dating	John Green
422031d	I spy with my little eye a great story.	paper-towns	John Green
9c7c6d4	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.	paper-towns	John Green
e21defa	"The last time I was this scared, I peed myself." "The last time I was this scared," Radar says, "I actually had to face a Dark Lord in order to make the world safe for wizards."	paper-towns	John Green
d0053f5	A Margo for each of us--and each more mirror than window.	margo paper-towns	John Green
d9a6bbb	I know it's impossible for you to see your peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them--the bad kids and the good kids and all kids--as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for.	paper-towns	John Green
6e18fc7	I am thinking that I don't want this to happen. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. And to be honest, as the time slows down and my hands are in the air, I am afforded the chance to think one more thought, and I think about her. I blame her for this ridiculous, fatal chase--for putting us at risk, for making me into the kind of jackass who would stay up all night and drive too fast. I would not be dying were it not for her. I would have stayed home, as I have always stayed home, and I would've been safe, and I would have done the one thing I have always wanted to do, which is to grow up.	paper-towns	john green
a6e104c	Standing before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington's house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.	paper-towns	John Green
2743f5a	And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.	page-33 page-34 part-1 margo-roth-spiegelman john-green paper-towns	John Green
05a659d	But I had to kill you, because the only other possible ending was us doing it, which I wasn't really emotionally ready to write about at ten.' 'Fair enough,' I say. 'But in the revision, I want to get some action.	paper-towns	John Green
f354d7b	pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower!	funny humor graduation laughable minivan new-car-reaction new-car-smell john-green paper-towns complaining reaction new laugh	John Green
ee0790a	Leaving feels too good, once you leave.	page-229 paper-towns	John Green
b0530ac	To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I had done many of the things she might have done: I had engineered a most unlikely prom coupling. I had quieted the hounds of caste warfare. I had come to feel comfortable inside the rat-infested haunted house where she did her best thinking. I had seen. I had listened. But I could not yet become the wounded person.	margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns	John Green
848120f	It is so hard to leave-until you leave.	page-229 paper-towns	John Green
bfac78e	Physical space between us evaporates. We play the broken strings of our instruments one last time	myrna-mountweazel margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns	John Green
27db930	It was a lame string, for sure, but it was the one I had left and every paper girl needs at least one string, right? (58)	strings paper-towns	John Green
54d414a	But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all. Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else. I could never have imagined Margo's anger at being found, or the story she was writing over. But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in.	imagining john-green paper-towns	John Green
a373f22	On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are.	understanding-others john-green paper-towns	John Green
4d6abdb	As we walked, I kept taking glances at her through the crowd, quick snapshots: a photographic series entitled Perfection Stands Still While Mortals Walk Past.	page-14 part-1 margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns	John Green
b25d03f	Margo was so beautiful that even her fake smiles were convincing. (54)	margo-roth-spiegelman paper-towns	John Green
467bc90	I don't believe in prom,' I reminded her as she rounded a corner. I expertly angled my raisin bran to accomodate the g-forces. I'd done this before.	paper-towns	John Green
46cf2d5	I'm a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to the words in the middle. (32)	margo unfair john-green paper-towns	John Green
fccbcf8	I feel like I might start crying and that I'm going to cry pee.	young-adult humor pee paper-towns leaving	John Green
49cf5ef	So maybe we won't ever win the lottery, or marry royalty, or make that last second shot. That doesn't mean we won't have amazing adventures, meet exceptional people, and make indelible memories. The trick is to notice before it's too late.	paper-towns-movie paper-towns	John Green
ce5a52f	I left the only way you can leave. You pull your life off all at once - like a Band-Aid.	paper-towns leaving	John Green
aa81963	"Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt."	radar quentin-jacobsen paper-towns	John Green
0e31abd	A poem can't do its work if you only read snippets of it.	young-adult john-green paper-towns novel	John Green
d1ea006	You don't give a shit if people like you.	paper-towns	John Green
2939de4	"From the front Rdar announces, "Don't you go talking bad about GoFast bars. Do you want me to stop this car?" "Whenever I eat a GoFast bar," Ben says, "I'm always like, 'So this is what blood tastes like to mosquitoes."	paper-towns	John Green

ad34794

Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.

things-that-matter paper-towns nerdfighters

John Green

9a920e8

Maybe all the strings inside him broke.

paper towns quentin paper-towns

John Green

c2dfc75

Tonight, darling, we are going to right a lot of wrongs. And we are going to wrong some rights. The first shall be last; the last shall be first; the meek shall do some earth-inheriting. But before we can radically reshape the world, we need to shop.

margo paper-towns

John Green

b090257

I leave, and the leaving is so exhilarating I know I can never go back. But then what? Do I just keep leaving places, and leaving them, and leaving them, tramping a perpetual journey?

paper-towns leaving sad

John Green

9594e2e

"My heart is really pounding," I said. "That's how you know you're having fun," Margo said."

margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns

John Green

9895e0f

The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

paper-towns

John Green

5e853f3

"It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it."

paper-towns

John Green

dac0c07

"Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added. Radar tapped a locker twice with his fist to show his approval, and then came back with another. "Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force." --

humor prom john-green paper-towns high-school dating

John Green

2939865

"Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added. Radar tapped a locker twice with his fist to show his approval, and then came back with another. "Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force."

humor prom john-green paper-towns high-school dating

John Green

422031d

I spy with my little eye a great story.

paper-towns

John Green

9c7c6d4

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.

paper-towns

John Green

e21defa

"The last time I was this scared, I peed myself." "The last time I was this scared," Radar says, "I actually had to face a Dark Lord in order to make the world safe for wizards."

paper-towns

John Green

d0053f5

A Margo for each of us--and each more mirror than window.

margo paper-towns

John Green

d9a6bbb

I know it's impossible for you to see your peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them--the bad kids and the good kids and all kids--as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for.

paper-towns

John Green

6e18fc7

I am thinking that I don't want this to happen. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. And to be honest, as the time slows down and my hands are in the air, I am afforded the chance to think one more thought, and I think about her. I blame her for this ridiculous, fatal chase--for putting us at risk, for making me into the kind of jackass who would stay up all night and drive too fast. I would not be dying were it not for her. I would have stayed home, as I have always stayed home, and I would've been safe, and I would have done the one thing I have always wanted to do, which is to grow up.

paper-towns

john green

a6e104c

Standing before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington's house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.

paper-towns

John Green

2743f5a

And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.

page-33 page-34 part-1 margo-roth-spiegelman john-green paper-towns

John Green

05a659d

But I had to kill you, because the only other possible ending was us doing it, which I wasn't really emotionally ready to write about at ten.' 'Fair enough,' I say. 'But in the revision, I want to get some action.

paper-towns

John Green

f354d7b

pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower!

funny humor graduation laughable minivan new-car-reaction new-car-smell john-green paper-towns complaining reaction new laugh

John Green

ee0790a

Leaving feels too good, once you leave.

page-229 paper-towns

John Green

b0530ac

To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I had done many of the things she might have done: I had engineered a most unlikely prom coupling. I had quieted the hounds of caste warfare. I had come to feel comfortable inside the rat-infested haunted house where she did her best thinking. I had seen. I had listened. But I could not yet become the wounded person.

margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns

John Green

848120f

It is so hard to leave-until you leave.

page-229 paper-towns

John Green

bfac78e

Physical space between us evaporates. We play the broken strings of our instruments one last time

myrna-mountweazel margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns

John Green

27db930

It was a lame string, for sure, but it was the one I had left and every paper girl needs at least one string, right? (58)

strings paper-towns

John Green

54d414a

But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all. Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else. I could never have imagined Margo's anger at being found, or the story she was writing over. But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in.

imagining john-green paper-towns

John Green

a373f22

On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are.

understanding-others john-green paper-towns

John Green

4d6abdb

As we walked, I kept taking glances at her through the crowd, quick snapshots: a photographic series entitled Perfection Stands Still While Mortals Walk Past.

page-14 part-1 margo-roth-spiegelman quentin-jacobsen paper-towns

John Green

b25d03f

Margo was so beautiful that even her fake smiles were convincing. (54)

margo-roth-spiegelman paper-towns

John Green

467bc90

I don't believe in prom,' I reminded her as she rounded a corner. I expertly angled my raisin bran to accomodate the g-forces. I'd done this before.

paper-towns

John Green

46cf2d5

I'm a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to the words in the middle. (32)

margo unfair john-green paper-towns

John Green

fccbcf8

I feel like I might start crying and that I'm going to cry pee.

young-adult humor pee paper-towns leaving

John Green

49cf5ef

So maybe we won't ever win the lottery, or marry royalty, or make that last second shot. That doesn't mean we won't have amazing adventures, meet exceptional people, and make indelible memories. The trick is to notice before it's too late.

paper-towns-movie paper-towns

John Green

ce5a52f

I left the only way you can leave. You pull your life off all at once - like a Band-Aid.

paper-towns leaving

John Green

aa81963

"Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt."

radar quentin-jacobsen paper-towns

John Green

0e31abd

A poem can't do its work if you only read snippets of it.

young-adult john-green paper-towns novel

John Green

d1ea006

You don't give a shit if people like you.

paper-towns

John Green

2939de4

"From the front Rdar announces, "Don't you go talking bad about GoFast bars. Do you want me to stop this car?" "Whenever I eat a GoFast bar," Ben says, "I'm always like, 'So this is what blood tastes like to mosquitoes."

paper-towns

John Green