She’s the kind of person who either dies tragically at twenty-seven, like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, or else grows up to win, like, the first-ever Nobel Prize for Awesome.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the extremes of life, suggesting that one may either face early tragedy or achieve remarkable success.
John Green's quote explores the dichotomy of life paths, where individuals may experience tragic endings at a young age, akin to iconic figures like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, or conversely, they may realize extraordinary success, represented here by the imaginative idea of winning a 'Nobel Prize for Awesome.' This highlights the unpredictable nature of life, where potential and outcomes can vary dramatically.
In practice
In a graduation speech, a speaker might use this quote to remind students of the unpredictable nature of their futures.
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.
Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.
Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.
The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.
One day humanity will play with law just as children play with disused objects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use but to free them from it for good.
There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.