An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls, #1)

by Hank Green

The power that each of us has over complete strangers to make them feel terrible and frightened and weak is amazing.

“When you’re faced with something you don’t understand, I think the most natural thing but also the least interesting thing you can be is afraid,”

The trick to looking cool is not caring whether you look cool. So the moment you achieve perfect coolness is simultaneously the moment that you actually, completely don’t care.

You can only do so much pretending before you become the thing you’re pretending to be.

Knowing something is a bad idea does not always decrease the odds that you will do it.

Basically, do your best to mock and deride their connection to and appreciation of you because, deep down, you dislike yourself enough that you cannot imagine anyone worthwhile actually wanting to be with you. I mean, if they like you, there must be something wrong with them, right?

weren’t so insecure, I would have had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to spend every day of my life getting really good at seeming confident.

I’d cut a string if I ever felt it holding me back.

thousands of people who scraped by filtering reality through their ideology and then yelling really loudly at the internet.

My annoyance became frustration, which became anger, which became hate, and hate is a long-burning fuel.

It’s so much harder to actually define yourself and work to imagine the best possible future than it is to tear down others’ ideas.