I don't really care how people read. I care if people read.
Interpretation
The emphasis is on the importance of reading rather than how one approaches it.
John Green expresses a belief that the fundamental value in reading lies not in the method or style of reading, but rather in the act itself. He encourages a perspective that prioritizes engagement with literature over strict adherence to traditional reading practices.
In practice
During a book club meeting to encourage members to embrace diverse reading styles.
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.
Learning is like a cow of desire. It, like her, yields in all seasons. Like a mother, it feeds you on your journey. Therefore learning is a hidden treasure.
Keep your hands moving. Writing is rewriting.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
I dream of a society that is continuously creating knowledge, where each individual is a part of this creation, where youngsters can pursue courses with freedom of choice, where technology is used for universal access of education and yet the importance of the Guru is retained.
Enter to learn; depart to serve.
How can we expect young people to be rooted in things such as character, morality and honesty? How is one supposed to be at once an arrow soaring skyward and an oak planted firmly in the ground? The meritocratic culture hones strivers on every aspect of their lives save one - how to cultivate character.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.