Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the human desire for acceptance and the fear of judgment based on our true selves.
John Green's quote invites us to contemplate the complexities of human relationships and self-perception. It suggests that while we often seek approval from others, there is an underlying anxiety about how our true selves would be received if exposed. The possibility that people might judge us based on our inner thoughts and feelings raises questions about authenticity and vulnerability in relationships.
In practice
Using this quote to spark a discussion about mental health in a workshop.
Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?" "Sometimes people don't always understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?" I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.
Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.
I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.
I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle.
So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.
We kiss. Her hands are freezing on my face, and she tastes like coffee and the smell of the onion is still stuck in my nose, and my lips are all dry from the endless winter. And it's awesome.
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Poor Oscar. Without even realizing it he'd fallen into one of those Let's Be Friends Vortexes, the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love's version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.
Our country has a painful history of mistrust between police departments and people of color. The overuse of stop-and-frisk has made those divisions much worse.
What you want to do is put people in a position where they feel connected enough to you that they're willing to collaborate with you; they're willing to show you the things that they were scared to tell you about before.
I'm Asian, so they assumed I'm not an American and that I come from Japan. Restaurants would refuse to serve me, and places would refuse to give you a haircut.
They always threw their arms around and hugged me while crying our Yiddish endearments. Yet none of them believed in God. They believed in social justice, good works, Israel, and Bette Midler. I was nearly thirty before I met a religious Jew.
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