An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

He liked all books, because he liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

Hassan’s deep laugh filled the car. “Shit, Colin made a funny. This place is like magic for you. Shame about how we’re gonna die here, though. I mean, seriously. An Arab and a half-Jew enter a store in Tennessee. It’s the beginning of a joke, and the punch line is ‘sodomy.’”

“Hassan Harbish. Sunni Muslim. Not a terrorist.” “Lindsey Lee Wells. Methodist. Me neither.”

“I’m not going to lie, kafir. I drank half a beer.” Colin scrunched his nose and sniffled. “See, drinking is haram. I told you, you do haram shit all the time.” “Yeah, well, when in Gutshot, do as the Gutshotians do.” “Your religious commitment is an inspiration to us all,” Colin deadpanned.

If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?”

The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.

I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him.

It’s so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don’t even know why you need it; you just think you do.”

I don’t think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing.

“And the moral of the story is that you don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.