Read a lot. Read broadly... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored... Write a lot.
Interpretation
Reading and storytelling enhance creativity and communication skills.
John Green emphasizes the importance of reading widely and actively engaging with others through storytelling. By doing so, one not only expands their knowledge but also hones their ability to express ideas effectively. Paying attention to an audience's reactions can further refine one's storytelling skills, making communication more impactful.
In practice
In a workshop about effective communication, I could use this quote to emphasize the importance of engaging storytelling.
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.
We worship education but hate learning. We worship success but hate the successful. We worship fame but hate the famous.
Schools connect children to their communities. Jobs connect adults to their societies. Persons with autism deserve to walk the same path.
Or heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.
There are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.
I don't believe there are 'struggling' readers, 'advanced' readers, or 'non' readers.
The PhD system is the real root of the evil of academic snobbery. People who have PhDs consider themselves a priesthood, and inventors generally don't have PhDs.
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