It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate; I had dying declarations.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the speaker finds value and joy in understanding the final thoughts of others, contrasting this with more common indulgences.
In this quote, John Green expresses a unique appreciation for the 'last words' or final declarations of individuals, highlighting a fascination with mortality and the reflections people share before they pass. This contrasts with more typical indulgences, like enjoying chocolate, framing the act of learning about dying declarations as a deep and meaningful pursuit that resonates with the complexities of life and death.
In practice
This quote would fit perfectly in a speech about the significance of legacies left behind.
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.
Everyone has a story, and the story changes, and the more I can root into the truth of things - it's so hard - I don't think anyone ever really puts it all together. But somewhere along the way it all became fused.
If one is not happy, one has lost the very purpose of life.
If you live life with the intention of making a difference in others' lives, your life will be full not empty.
The world is like a dropped pie most of the time. Don't kill yourself trying to put it back together. Just grab a fork and eat some of it off the floor. Then carry on.
Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options
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