B And S Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to B And S. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E.B. White
Life is to be enjoyed, not endured
Gordon B. Hinckley
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B. Yeats
Try a little harder to be a little better.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
W.E.B. Du Bois
I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E.B. White
True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one's companion.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Stand a Little Taller: Counsel and Inspiration for Each Day of the Year)
For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.
W.B. Yeats (Selected Poems and Four Plays)
I don't recommend shadow travel if you're scared of: a) The dark b) Cold shivers up your spine c) Strange noises d) Going so fast you feel like your face is peeling off In other words, I thought it was awesome.
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
The hardness of a diamond is part of its usefulness, but its true value is in the light that shines through it.
B.K.S. Iyengar (Light on Life)
Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
W.E.B. Du Bois
If Life Gets Too Hard To Stand, Kneel.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.
Gordon B. Hinckley
You have not failed until you quit trying.
Gordon B. Hinckley
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
W.E.B. Du Bois
Let us never forget to pray. God lives. He is near. He is real. He is not only aware of us but cares for us. He is our Father. He is accessible to all who will seek Him.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)
In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.
Gordon B. Hinckley
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
E.B. White
A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.
W.B. Yeats
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
Puck Magazine
Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
E.B. White
Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
W.B. Yeats
Good books are as friends, willing to give to us if we are willing to make a little effort.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.
Gordon B. Hinckley
After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Terry Pratchett (Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1))
I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.
Jordan B. Peterson
Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine.
Gordon B. Hinckley
It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great purpose in heart.
Gordon B. Hinckley
The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)
Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.
Gordon B. Hinckley
When you have something to say, silence is a lie.
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
E.B. White (Letters of E. B. White)
It Is Our Duty To Remember
Steve Snyder (Shot Down: The True Story of Pilot Howard Snyder and the Crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth)
What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.
Marshall B. Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life)
What can be explained is not poetry.
W.B. Yeats
Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.
Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." (Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven)
W.B. Yeats (The Wind Among the Reeds)
Be grateful, be smart, be clean, be true, be humble, be prayerful.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Way To Be!: 9 Rules For Living The Good Life)
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
Lyndon B. Johnson
That's you," Wrath said. You shall be called the Black Dagger warrior Dhestroyer, descended of Wrath son of Wrath." "But you'll always be Butch to us," Rhage cut in. "As well as hard-ass. Smart-ass. Royal pain in the ass. You know, whatever the situation calls for. I think as long as there's an ASS in there, it'll be accurate." "How about bASStard?" Z suggested. "Nice. I feel that.
J.R. Ward (Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #4))
If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.
William S. Burroughs
Andrea raised her hand. “This is the hand that slapped Aunt B.” “Maybe you should have it gold-plated.” “Here, you can touch it, since you’re my best friend.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Slays (Kate Daniels, #5))
In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice.
Alice B. Toklas
You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable. . . it's your choice
Gordon B. Hinckley
Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.
W.B. Yeats (In the Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age)
It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
You're going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don't do. You don't get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you're going to take. That's it.
Jordan B. Peterson
WINE comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and sigh.
W.B. Yeats
The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire. Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology. Is there any problem that could not be solved among people who possessed the humility and largeness of spirit and soul to do either -- or both -- when needed?
Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)
When You Are Old" WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B. Yeats
Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.
W.B. Yeats
Aim high, but do not aim so high that you totally miss the target. What really matters is that he will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you the freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy.
Gordon B. Hinckley
And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.
Gordon B. Hinckley
When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He or She starts with an impossibility.
Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
B.F. Skinner
Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work.
Gordon B. Hinckley
You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
If we could follow the slogan that says,"Turn off the TV and open a good book" we would do something of substance for a future generation.
Gordon B. Hinckley
You can't plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.
Gordon B. Hinckley
There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C...(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy.... Well, this one left them all behind.
William Goldman (The Princess Bride)
Yesterday was surreal. At times K was almost back to herself…funny…interested and relatively mobile. She was tactile and we kissed…she whispered naughty comments into my ear…achingly beautiful…I love her so much
Peter B. Forster (More Than Love, A Husband's Tale)
A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." [Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]
E.B. White
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
Susan B. Anthony
Colin decided then and there that the female mind was a strange and incomprehensible organ - one which no man should even attempt to understand. There wasn't a woman alive who could go from point A to B without stopping at C, D, X, and 12 along the way.
Julia Quinn (Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Bridgertons, #4))
You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others....
Gordon B. Hinckley
If you don't say what you think then you kill your unborn self.
Jordan B. Peterson
I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet.
Susan B. Anthony
Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...
Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
It is both relaxing and invigorating to occasionally set aside the worries of life, seek the company of a friendly book...from the reading of 'good books' there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.
Susan B. Anthony
I learned the bad guys are not always bad, the good guys are not always good, and to quote Captain Barbossa, the parameters are like rules, mostly guidelines. And that it takes a little bit of bad boy to fight the evil in the world. --Terri Mitchell
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Phantom in the Night (B.A.D. Agency, #2))
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.
Susan B. Anthony
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
The remedy for most marital stress is not in divorce. It is in repentance and forgiveness, in sincere expressions of charity and service. It is not in separation. It is in simple integrity that leads a man and a woman to square up their shoulders and meet their obligations. It is found in the Golden Rule, a time-honored principle that should first and foremost find expression in marriage.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)
My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage at all pedestrians while ringing their bell loudly, the concept of avoiding people being foreign to them. My dream holiday would be a) a ticket to Amsterdam b) immunity from prosecution and c) a baseball bat.
Terry Pratchett
I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively, instead of skeptically and dictatorially.
E.B. White
You're fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it's obvious you're nobody. You haven't got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you're looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That's pretty heavy. That's worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You've got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one.
Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
THAT crazed girl improvising her music. Her poetry, dancing upon the shore, Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew not where, Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing Heroically lost, heroically found. No matter what disaster occurred She stood in desperate music wound, Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph Where the bales and the baskets lay No common intelligible sound But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea
W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
If you can't understand why someone is doing something, look at the consequences of their actions, whatever they might be, and then infer the motivations from their consequences. For example if someone is making everyone around them miserable and you'd like to know why, their motive may simply be to make everyone around them miserable including themselves.
Jordan B. Peterson
If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.” She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.” But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it. I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away. You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. “Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.” Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
Sarah Kay
It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.
Cheryl Strayed (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)
Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue.
Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really still isn't up! I don't have time to work out if I am a women's libber! There seems to be a lot to it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?' I understand. So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your pants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist.
Caitlin Moran (How to Be a Woman)
In spite of everything I loved you, and will go on loving you―on my knees, with my shoulders drawn back, showing my heels to the headsman and straining my goose neck―even then. And afterwards―perhaps most of all afterwards―I shall love you, and one day we shall have a real, all-embracing explanation, and then perhaps we shall somehow fit together, you and I, and turn ourselves in such a way that we form one pattern, and solve the puzzle: draw a line from point A to point B... without looking, or, without lifting the pencil... or in some other way... we shall connect the points, draw the line, and you and I shall form that unique design for which I yearn. If they do this kind of thing to me every morning, they will get me trained and I shall become quite wooden.
Vladimir Nabokov
Rules for Living by Olivia Joules 1. Never panic. Stop, breathe, think. 2. No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you. 3. Never change haircut or color before an important event. 4. Nothing is either as bad or good as it seems. 5. Do as you would be done by, e.g. thou shalt not kill. 6. It is better to buy one expensive thing that you really like than several cheap ones that you only quite like. 7. Hardly anything matters: if you get upset, ask yourself, "Does it really matter?" 8. The key to success lies in how you pick yourself up from failure. 9. Be honest and kind. 10. Only buy clothes that make you feel like doing a small dance. 11. Trust your instincts, not your overactive imagination. 12. When overwhelmed by disaster, check if it's really a disaster by doing the following: (a) think, "Oh, fuck it," (b) look on the bright side, and if that doesn't work, look on the funny side. If neither of the above works then maybe it is a disaster so turn to items 1 and 4. 13. Don't expect the world to be safe or life to be fair.
Helen Fielding (Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination)
Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse. 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.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)