Vlogbrothers Quotes

Being silly is still allowed, not excluded by adulthood. What's excluded by adulthood is thoughtlessness, so be thoughtful and silly

You are always a little bit wrong

I wish I knew how to quit you, Tumblr.

Don't forget to be awesome

My life is really stressful and before finding the vlogbrothers, nerdfighteria, you guys, I wasn't you know dead, but I really do feel like I have so much more in my life.

I do think the idea of living your life to the fullest is a little flawed. Like, why is jumping out of an airplane inherently better than reading a book? Or why is living a life that looks good on instagram inherently more meaningful than a life lived quietly? I just don't buy it.

Let me just acknowlege that the function of grammar is to make language as efficent and clear and transparent as possible. But if we’re all constantly correcting each other’s grammar and being really snotty about it, then people stop talking because they start to be petrified that they’re going to make some sort of terrible grammatical error and that’s precisely the opposite of what grammar is supposed to do, which is to facilitate clear communication.

Good morning Hank,it's Tuesday.

I follow and cultivate my own curiosity. I think curiosity is one of the top two or three human characteristics. It's something that I really like about myself. [...] I want to understand stuff! I want to understand people! Following my curiosity so frequently leads me to better life decisions and better business decisions but also - just feeling better! You're never going to feel bad about your whole life if you loved people and you were curious. I mean, that's kind of all I want!

A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those are two very different things. For the first one, that you want to write a book, I think is an excellent idea and you should totally do that because teenagers who want to write, you should be writing. You should be writing all the time like a maniac. Don't worry about the second bit, just yet because A. You need a lot of practice. You need to do it for, I'm not kidding, years. And then once you are published, it's a business. It's a job. Plus, every author I know was that teenager who sat in their room and read and wrote. That's who becomes an author, but that's what you have to do for a while before you become an author.

A woman needs a strong man to take care of her like a fish needs a bicycle.

We are the superhero. None of us, individually, but all of us together.

The story of humanity is not a story of a few people who had huge, gigantic effects on the world. That's only the story we hear, because it's the easy story to tell. Caring for ourselves and other people is the only thing that has ever mattered to the future of our species.

Here's to celebrating light where we find it. And making light where we don't.

Ansel: Is it on? John: It is on. Shailene: Ansel paints miniatures. John: Do you really paint miniatures? Shailene: You're going to freak out when you see what he does. Ansel: Do you paint miniatures too? John: Miniature what? No, I'm sorry. Honest to -- I'm sorry to disappoint you though. Miniature whats? Shailene: Uh, miniature Godzillas. Ansel: No I don't paint Godzillas.

I read to be moved, in every sense of the word, To go to places I haven't been, and to glimpse worlds I otherwise couldn't see, including the worlds deep within myself.

John: What is the point of being alive? Hank: You taught me this: There isn't one unless you decide on one. And sometimes you don't know you're deciding and you're deciding anyway. John: And what did I decide? Hank: I think it's a combination of making stupid podcasts with your brother, writing lovely things, and taking care of your family. And also educating people. John: Alright. Yeah, that works. I think I can live with that.

Why do writers use symbolism?” Okay, so let’s say you have a headache and you wanna tell someone about it and you say, “I have a headache!” and other people are like, “Yeah, whatever. Everybody gets headaches.” But your headache is not a regular headache, it’s a serious headache, so you say, “My brain is on fire!” to try to help these people understand that this is a headache that needs attention! That’s a metaphor, right? And you use it so that you can be understood. Now let’s say you want to take those same imagistic principles but apply them to a much more complex idea than having a headache, like, for instance, the yearning that one feels for one’s dreams. And you can see the dream but you can’t cross the bay to get to the green light that embodies your dream. And you want to talk about how socio-economic class in America is a barrier – a bay-like barrier, some would say – that stands between you and the green light and makes that gap unbridgeable. Now, you can just talk about that stuff directly, but when you talk about it symbolically, it becomes more powerful, because instead of being abstract it becomes kind of observable…. So I think that’s why.

We got here the only way people get anywhere good: together

When we vote, when we talk to our friends about what matters to us, when we choose whose lives we pay attention to [in medicine], we are deciding what our future is going to look like.

Does John Green have a Hollywood Star? A John Green does but he is not me. He was a composer who won five Academy Awards for scoring such movies as An American in Paris and West Side Story. Although today he is mostly forgotten which is a nice reminder that no matter what you do the tides of time will wash away your sandcastles. So there's no sense in reaching for some foolhardy notion of immortality when there is real work to be done with real people, right now.

Nothing is simpler than despair, but I don't think any simple story tells the whole story. So all hail complexities

Hank Green's Secrets of Productivity: 1.) I have convinced myself that if I am not using all of the tools I have in my disposal to do the maximum amount of good [...] then I am less of a good person than I could otherwise could be. [...] 2.) I intentionally put myself in situations where people who I care about and who I respect rely on me to do things, which is very motivating. [...] 3.) I don't get caught up in doing everything perfectly. [...] I just want to try stuff and if it explodes... it exploded! And I learned! 4.) I love giving other people responsibility. I love putting them in difficult situations and saying: "Figure this out. Help me do this." And if they do it wrong or if they do it differently than how I would have done it, I don't get mad as long as they're learning, because there's no way to get good at stuff except to do it and fail and learn. [...] 5.) I follow and cultivate my own curiosity. I think curiosity is one of the top two or three human characteristics. It's something that I really like about myself. [...] I want to understand stuff! I want to understand people! Following my curiosity so frequently leads me to better life decisions and better business decisions but also - just feeling better! You're never going to feel bad about your whole life if you loved people and you were curious. I mean, that's kind of all I want!

Hank: This is my one beautiful existence, and over the course of my life I will spend years of my life watching television; years of my life pooping; years of my life on twitter. How ok is that? [...] One thing that I really want to get away from is the idea that time is wasted when you are not producing something. [...] John: I do think that there might be some value in asking yourself: "What do I want to do while I'm here? What do I want to do with my time?" And part of the answer for that should, I think, be: "I want to distract myself from the pain of meaninglessness.

It's such a cool story that Paul Newman was like, "I like making salad dressing, but I'm good [financially]." It just shows that working hard doesn't have to be about getting rich or more rich or whatever. It's about adding value to the world.

What I found was an ability to enjoy writing again, because I stopped making it about wanting to be the best, or wanting to be better than some past version of myself, or better than other people I admire a lot who write YA fiction. Instead of seeing it as a pyramid, or something that you're trying to get to the top of; I started seeing it as a huge ball that I'm trying to, like, contribute one layer of paint to. Lots of other people are contributing layers of paint, and through that the ball gets more beautiful and more interesting, and also bigger. And instead of me needing to be at the top of my game somehow, what I can really do I think in the end, is contribute in a small way to a very big conversation that's very old. And that's what art is for me.

You have to have enough before you can realise that more isn't going to make you much happier. That happens with audience, and that happens with money. And eventually you get to a point (and not everyone gets here), [where it's no longer about the audience or the money anymore and instead it turns to] "What's FUN though? What do I LIKE doing? What is the weird thing I can do that's interesting?

Governments, industries, scientists, and the public must collaborate in a concerted effort to develop and implement policies that promote sustainability, protect freshwater habitats, and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Public awareness and advocacy are equally crucial, fostering a collective commitment to safeguarding the diversity of life on our planet.

Maybe it wasn't just a sneeze, maybe it was a momentary lapse in judgement

Almost every form of meaning is constructed. We convince ourselves and each other that this stuff matters because that's how we get stuff done.