#alas

At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved. ↗

— John Green

#hurt

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. ↗

— John Green

#looking-for-alaska #pudge #thought

Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war ↗

— John Green

#young

We all use the future to escape the present. ↗

— John Green

#present

Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river. 'Why do you smoke so damn fast?' I asked. She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die. ↗

— John Green

#looking-for-alaska #christmas

I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what. ↗

— John Green

#alaska-young #fiction #looking-for-alaska #miles #fiction

Her underwear, her jeans, the comforter, my corduroys and my boxers between us, I thought. Five layers, and yet I felt it, the nervous warmth of touching – a pale reflection of the fireworks of one mouth on another, but a reflection nonetheless. And in the almostness of the moment, I cared at least enough. I wasn’t sure whether I liked her, and doubted whether I could trust her, but I cared at least enough to try to find out. Her on my bed, wide green eyes staring down at me. The enduring mystery of her sly, almost smirking, smile. Five layers between us. ↗

— John Green

#green #john #kissing #sex #sexual

Ya'll smoke to enjoy. I smoke to die. ↗

— John Green

#ya

You can't just make me different and then leave ↗

— John Green

#death #driving #drunk #dying #loss

This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle. ↗

— James L. Buckley

#ambition #controlled #corruption #democratic #democratic system