Stories Quotes by John Green

“Rule 1 of stories: no interrupting.”

— John Green

I spy with my little eye a great story.

— John Green

The right story needs the right telling.

— John Green

As long as we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story.

— John Green

This was what I liked most about my friends: just sitting around & telling stories.

— John Green

Read a lot. Read broadly... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored... Write a lot.

— John Green

That's why those tapes we made are going to be so great one day, because they'll tell stories that time has swallowed…

— John Green

“stories don’t just make us matter to each other—maybe they’re also the only way to the infinite mattering he’d been after for…

— John Green

“I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter -- maybe less than a lot, but always…

— John Green

The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves

— John Green

You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.

— John Green

My responsibility is to try to tell true stories. To me a true story is always hopeful, but never simply, uncomplicatedly happy.

— John Green

Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as…

— John Green

I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not true. Every reading of a…

— John Green

Gratitude is the proper response for the absolute astonishment of getting to be alive, and aware, and an essential part of this…

— John Green

Whenever I'm asked what advice I have for young writers, I always say that the first thing is to read, and to…

— John Green

Breaking down that wall is the kind of story that might have a happy middle - oh, look, we broke down this…

— John Green

I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really really liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else. I liked…

— John Green

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only…

— John Green

“You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and…

— John Green

Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there…

— John Green

The challenge is the same whether or not I'm collaborating: to empathize with your reader and to tell a story that will…

— John Green

We live in this irreparably broken world, and I don't wish to deny reality, but the amazing thing to me is not…

— John Green

Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to…

— John Green

I nodded. I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really, really liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else.…

— John Green

I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books a supposed to be likable. Books are not in the…

— John Green

All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they…

— John Green

And the moral of the story is that you don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. And the second…

— John Green

Writing is something you do alone. It's a profession for introverts who wanna tell you a story but don't wanna make eye…

— John Green

I think all true stories are hopeful stories. I don't think there's any room for nihilism.

— John Green

I wanted to, you know, get my story out in the world, which, it turns out, is a very misguided notion.

— John Green

As a reader, I don't feel a story has an obligation to make me happy. I want stories to show me a…

— John Green

But you want to see shapes; you want to see stories, so you pick them out of the sky.

— John Green

He knew he couldn't tell stories, that he always included extraneous details & tangents that interested only him.

— John Green

One of those moments he knew he'd remember and look back on, one of those moments that he'd try to capture in…

— John Green

And he found himself thinking that maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other - maybe they're also the only…

— John Green

I learned that myth doesn’t mean a lie; it means a traditional story that tells you something about people and their worldview…

— John Green

Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the…

— John Green

Writing fiction is an inherently political activity because people-even imaginary ones-do not live in vacuums... From Twilight to Romeo and Juliet to…

— John Green

Here's my answer to the very real existential crisis that grips me midway through everything I've ever tried to do: I think…

— John Green