Paper Towns Quentin Quotes

Maybe all the strings inside him broke.

You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit, man, because you're you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that's okay. They're them. I'm too obsessed with a reference website to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That's okay, too. That's me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You're funny, and you're smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.

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

I don't know how I look, but I know how I feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will… 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… But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in. It is the machine that kills the fascists

You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves.

The sky is like a monochromatic contemporay painting, drawing me in its illusion of depth, pulling me up.

Please stop," I said. "You're upsetting the black Santas.

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

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.

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.

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.

I always got very nervous whenever I heard that Margo was about to show up, on account of how she was the most fantastically gorgeous creature that God has ever created.

She loved so much misteries tha she became one

But there she is, and I am watching her through the Plexiglas, and she looks like Margo Roth Spiegelman, this girl I have known since I was two--this girl who was an idea that I loved.

I like the strings. I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is, I think. We're not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me to imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well – but never quite perfectly, you know?

Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives.

I had not cried for Margo until then, but now finally I did, pounding against the ground and shouting because there was no on to hear: I missed her I missed her I missed her I miss her.

I laugh, but I'm still thinking about ten-year-old Margo having a crush on ten-year-old me.

People I don't know die all the time. If I had a nervous breakdown every time something awful happened in the world I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never get struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

I hit at the dirt with my heels of my fists, and then pounded it again and again, the sand scattering around my hands until I was hitting the bare roots of the tree, and I kept it up, the pain shooting up through my palms and wrists. I had not cried for Margo until then, but now finally I did, pounding against the ground and shouting because there was no one to hear: I missed her I missed her I missed her I miss her.

Ben, there are more important things going on,” I answered. “DESIGNATED DRIVER!” “What?” “You’re my designated driver! Yes! You are so designated! I love that you answered! That’s so awesome! I have to be home by six! And I designate you to get me there! YESSSSSSS!” “Can’t you just spend the night there?” I asked. “NOOOO! Booooo. Booo on Quentin. Hey, everybody! Boooo Quentin!” And then I was booed. “Everybody’s drunk. Ben drunk. Lacey drunk. Radar drunk. Nobody drive. Home by six. Promised Mom. Boo, Sleepy Quentin! Yay, Designated Driver! YESSSS!

Traveling, I am finding, teaches you a lot of things about yourself" -Quentin

And even though it was ridiculously childish, in the end I had to call myself a faggot, which really annoyed me, because 1. I don't think that word should ever be used by anyone, let alone me, and 2. As it happens, I am not gay, and furthermore, 3. Chuck Parson made it out like calling yourself a faggot was the ultimate humiliation, even though there's nothing at all embarrassing about being gay.

The town was paper, but the memories were not. - Quentin "Q" Jacobsen

the secret of leaving, the secret I have only just now learned: leaving feels good and pure only when you leave something important, something that mattered to you." - Quentin

Perfection stands still while mortals walk past. - Quentin "Q" Jacobsen

Aber weißt du, was das Problem ist, Quentin? Du erwartest von den Leuten, dass sie besser sind, als sie sind.

Auf Reisen, stelle ich fest, lernt man eine Menge über sich selbst.

Vielleicht ist es mehr so, wie d vorher gesagt hast, dass wir Risse bekommen. Am Anfang sind wir alle wasserdicht, aber dann passieren Dinge [...].Und so bekommen wir Risse.

You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves...stop thinking Ben should be you, and he needs to stop thinking you should be him, and y'all just chill the hell out.

You know your problem,Quentin?You keep expecting people not to be themselves.I mean I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman,and for,like,never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit,man,because you're you.(...)And I like you.You're funny,and you're smart,and you may show up late,but you always show up eventually.

Of course he is. You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it’s going with my girlfriend — but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that’s okay. They’re them. I’m too obsessed with a reference Website to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That’s okay, too. That’s me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You’re funny, and you’re smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.

I’m not really in the mood.” “Can we call Ben then?” “No. Ben’s an asshole.” Radar looked at me sideways. “Of course he is. You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it’s going with my girlfriend—but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that’s okay. They’re them. I’m too obsessed with a reference Web site to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That’s okay, too. That’s me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You’re funny, and you’re smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.