10 Quotes from ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ That Will Break Your Heart

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There’s something about seriously sad movies that just drives a dagger of love and passion into our souls. Especially if they’re adapted from a best-selling book, as is “The Fault in Our Stars.” The words John Green wrote left an indelible mark on every teenager — and most adults — who’ve read them.

In my review, I wrote: “‘The Fault In Our Stars’ doesn’t shy away from the inevitable harshness of life with cancer and never lets us forget that it’s possible to fall madly, deeply in love, even when that person you love is dying. As Hazel’s favorite book notes, ‘Pain demands to be felt,’ and you will feel pain while watching ‘The Fault In Our Stars.’ I guess that’s not a bad message to offer both kids and grownups. That you can feel pain and somehow find a way to live with it. That somehow, it’ll be okay.”

While perhaps not all of our favorite quotes from the book made it into the movie, many of them did, as noted by the wild applause in the theater every time a character said a treasured line. Here are ten quotes from the book that found their way to the big screen, along with where you can find them in the book (U.S. first edition hardback copy).

1. When Patrick asks Gus how he’s feeling: “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.” (chapter 1, page 11)

The Fault In Our Stars Gus

2. When Gus explains his cigarette metaphor: “It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing.” (chapter 1, page 20)

The Fault In Our Stars Gus Cigarette

3. When Hazel and Gus chat about “An Imperial Affliction”: “There is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.” (chapter 5, page 67)

The Fault In Our Stars Hazel and Gus

4. The moment “Okay” officially becomes a thing: “Maybe okay will be our always.” “Okay,” I said.” (chapter 5, page 73)

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5. When Hazel and Gus taste the stars in Amsterdam: “Do you know what Dom Perignon said after inventing champagne? He called out to his fellow monks, ‘Come quickly: I am tasting the stars.’” (chapter 11, page 163)

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6. When Gus tells Hazel he loves her … sigh …: “I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” (chapter 10, page 153)

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7. When Gus tells Hazel his cancer has returned: “The world is not a wish-granting factory.” (chapter 13, page 214)

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8. When Hazel reads her eulogy for Gus: “Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” (chapter 20, page 260)

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9. When Isaac reads his eulogy for Gus: “When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.” (chapter 20, page 258)

The Fault In Our Stars Hazel and Isaac

10. When Gus delivers one last message to Hazel: “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world … but you do have some say in who hurts you.” (chapter 25, page 313)

The Fault In Our Stars Hazel

Comments

15 responses to “10 Quotes from ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ That Will Break Your Heart”

  1. Sheryl Kraft Avatar

    Oh. Gulp. Just reading the quotes is making me teary. I dare not go see the movie; I would probably embarrass myself.

    1. sarah Avatar
      sarah

      i like the quote “pain is meant to be felt” because the quote is actually right pain is meant to be felt an imperial affliction. 🙂

      1. Sukesh Avatar
        Sukesh

        Pain demands to be felt.

  2. Kirke O'Delaney Avatar
    Kirke O’Delaney

    With just quotes made me tear up. Now, Love is a powerful thing to be felt by everyone. I might not get over with these quotes.

  3. Tess Avatar

    This is all really sweet, but I would recommend mentioning that there is some huge spoilers in this before people continue reading. I have yet to see the movie or read the book and now I already know everything that happens and who dies which was completely opposite on what I thought happened, so now the whole thing has been kind of ruined.

    I apologize for sounding so bitchy, I do appreciate what this page is showing, and this was a Stumblupon find; but it would be appreciated for future viewers.

    1. Jane Boursaw Avatar

      So noted! Will do better in future quotes posts.

    2. Brandy Avatar
      Brandy

      Your blaming this page for posting spoilers, yet you choose to continue reading KNOWING you have not seen the movie or read the book??????

      How is that any way this pages fault? You could have stopped reading when you knew what this page was about it clearly states what it’s about at the top of the page. Don’t blame others for your own inability to stop reading. They didn’t ruin the movie for you, you ruined it.

  4. sarah Avatar
    sarah

    the movies not so bad its just the ending that makes me cry. 🙁

  5. sarah Avatar
    sarah

    okay is forever.

  6. Taylor Avatar
    Taylor

    I like the quote “pain demands to be felt”

  7. Shellshocked Avatar
    Shellshocked

    Slightly off topic and a bit of a vent:

    Fwiw, I found out in Jan 2017 that my husband wrote to his mistress (of course, I knew nothing about their three and a half to four year long affair till Jan 2017) telling her that the end of page 313 really applied from him to her. When I saw him reading the book back in 2013, I asked him completely innocently and cluelessly if she had recommended the book as she, his long time coworker would often recommend books, movies and TV shows and we would take her suggestions. He looked me in the eye and lied and said she had not recommended it. I found out in March of 2017 that not only did she recommend the book, she had loaned him her copy, the copy that I saw him read.

    I love the quotes but I take exception to the idea that “you do have some say in who hurts you.” Yes, we did have a say re. my husband, I chose him as my husband but my family and I did not have any say in this woman (as my husband’s mistress) helping him hurt us all so deeply as a result of their long, deep, emotional relationship with the father of my children.

    I loved this story, but as with so much in my family’s and my life now, I look back and see it was all a big fat lie. The horror of it all includes the tarnishing (by the two of them) of so many things – movies, books, music, places … – my family and I held dear. Including both this book and the movie.

  8. okere daniel Avatar
    okere daniel

    the movie put me through smiles and tears,its bitter and sweet put together

  9. Keash Avatar
    Keash

    this is my favourite book in the whole wide world. youre extractions are among the best.

    also this one,

    never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius quote, ” The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.”… there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.

  10. Ella Rae Avatar
    Ella Rae

    I like the last quote. It is so true to people with and without pain. It tells so many of their stories in that one sentence. You can tell that Gus longs for Hazels touch and love as soon as he says it. I cried so much when I read that Gus died. I had to lay there and stop to wonder how it felt when he found out he had cancer again. I felt bad that Hazel had to lose the only guy really understood her. At the end I felt like Hazel and Issac were so connected that they might actually be brother and sister. Through their soul of course.

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