Lidewij Quotes & Sayings

Van Houten nodded and said, "Did you close the deal with that chick yet?" Whereupon I encountered for the first and only time a truly speechless Augustus Waters. "I," he started, "um, I, Hazel, um. Well." "This boy appears to have some kind of developmental delay," Peter Van Houten said to Lidewij. — John Green

His memory is compromised,' Lidewij said. 'If only my memory would compromise,' Van Houten responded. — John Green

Do you know why I left America, Lidewij? So that I would never again have to encounter Americans."
"But you are an American."
"Incurably so, it seems. — John Green

Van Houten was still staring at the ceiling beams. He took a drink. The glass was almost empty again. 'Lidewij, I can't do it. I can't. I can't.' He leveled his gaze to me. 'Nothing happens to the Dutch Tulip Man. He isn't a con man or not a con man; he's God. He's an obvious and unambiguous metaphorical representation of God, and asking what becomes of him if the intellectual equivalent of asking what becomes of the disembodied eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg in Gatsby. Do he and Anna's man get married? We are speaking of a novel, dear child, not some historical enterprise. — John Green

How do I know you're not the killer?" MeShack asked.
A smirk plastered on Zulu's face. "Because you would've been the first victim. — Kenya Wright

Good people do bad things," I tell her. "All the time. It's called being human. — Karina Halle

There are no watertight compartments in our inmost nature. — Alexis Carrel

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. — John Galsworthy

Estimates show that small businesses contribute 60-80 percent of the net new jobs annually. — Michael K. Simpson

I missed the future. Obviously I knew even before his recurrence that I'd never grow old with Augustus Waters. But thinking about Lidewij and her boyfriend, I felt robbed. I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up that you can't make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again. — John Green

One of my favorite games when I was a kid was 'murder/suicide'. Dad would show us a photo and ask us: 'Is it a murder or a suicide ?' — Colleen Doran

Yours most sincerely,
Peter Van Houten
c/o Lidewij Vliegnthart
"WHAT?!" I shouted aloud. "WHAT IS THIS LIFE? — John Green

The moment you become miserly you are closed to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing. The moment you start clinging to things, you have missed the target
you have missed. Because things are not the target, you, your innermost being, is the target
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you; not much money, but a rich you; not many things, but an open being, available to millions of things. — Osho

Lidewij,
I believe Agustus Waters sent a few pages from a notebok to Peter Van Houten shortly before he (Augustus) died. It is very important to me that someone reads these pages. I want to read them, of course, but maybe they weren't written for me. Regardless, they must be read. They must be. Can you help?

Your friend,
Hazel Grace Lancaster

"She responded late that afternoon."

Dear Hazel,

I did not know that Augustus had died. I am very sad to hear this news. He was such a very charismatic young man. I am so sorry, and so sad.
I have not spoken to Peter since I resigned that day we met.
It is very late at night here, but I am going over to his house first thing in the morning to find this letter and force him to read it.
Mornings were his best time,
usually.

Your friend,
Lidewij Vliegenthart

p.s. I am bringing my boyfriend in case we have to physically retsrain Peter. — John Green

Simple honesty is so remarkable a quality. It is of the very essence of Integrity. — Gordon B. Hinckley