Turtles All the Way Down

by John Green

The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.

Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

“Your brain seems like a very intense place,”

True terror isn’t being scared; it’s not having a choice in the matter.

We are about to live the American Dream, which is, of course, to benefit from someone else’s misfortune.”

I didn’t know precisely what I was afraid of, but it wasn’t this.

“Holmesy has most of the major fears,”

“What are you thinking about?” And they want you to be, like, “I’m thinking about you, darling,” but you’re actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren’t for the bacteria in their guts, and how that sort of means that cows do not exist as independent life-forms, but that’s not really something you can say out loud, so you’re ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird.

Supposedly everyone has them—you look out from over a bridge or whatever and it occurs to you out of nowhere that you could just jump. And then if you’re most people, you think, Well, that was a weird thought, and move on with your life. But for some people, the invasive can kind of take over, crowding out all the other thoughts until it’s the only one you’re able to have, the thought you’re perpetually either thinking or distracting yourself from.

You should unwrap that Band-Aid and check to see if there is an infection.

You don’t actually want to do this; it’s just an invasive. Everyone has them. But you can’t shut yours up.

You need to check for infection; just check it so we can calm down, and then fine, okay, you excuse yourself to the bathroom and slip off the Band-Aid to discover that there isn’t blood, but there might be a bit of moisture on the bandage pad. You hold the Band-Aid up to the yellow light in the bathroom, and yes, that definitely looks like moisture.

The spiral tightens, like that, forever.

“I don’t mind worriers,” I said. “Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome.”

“Everyone is gross. People and their gross bodies; it all makes me want to barf.”

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” —WILLIAM JAMES

I don’t know what superpower William James enjoyed, but I can no more choose my thoughts than choose my name.

When I was little, I used to tell Mom about my invasives, and she would always say, “Just don’t think about that stuff, Aza.” But Davis got it. You can’t choose. That’s the problem.

She told me she wanted to see me in ten days. You can kind of measure how crazy you are based on how soon they want to see you back. Last year, for a while, I’d been at eight weeks. Now, less than two.

I think, You will never be free from this. I think, You don’t pick your thoughts. I think, You are dying, and there are bugs inside of you that will eat through your skin. I think and I think and I think.

I wasn’t only crazy.

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t have a fever, do I?” She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “I don’t think so. Do you feel sick?” “Just tired, I think.” Mom turned on the TV, and I told her I was going to lie down and do some homework.

Now, it was an irritation, like it was to Daisy, like it was to anyone who got close to me.

His brain was spinning right alongside mine. I couldn’t make myself happy, but I could make people around me miserable.

The worst part of being truly alone is you think about all the times you wished that everyone would just leave you be. Then they do, and you are left being, and you turn out to be terrible company.

But they can talk to your brain. THEY can tell your brain what to think, and you can’t. So, who’s running the show?

“I mean, I love you, and it’s not your fault, but your anxiety does kind of invite disasters.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I should’ve let Ayala die years ago. But yeah, you’re right, it is kind of a way of coping with—I mean, Holmesy, you’re exhausting.”

“Aza, she’s not you. But you are . . . extremely self-centered. Like, I know you have the mental problems and whatever, but they do make you . . . you know.” “I don’t know, actually. They make me what?”

“Mychal said once that you’re like mustard. Great in small quantities, but then a lot of you is . . . a lot.”

“STOP TALKING. Jesus Christ, you haven’t shut up in ten years. I’m sorry it’s not fun hanging out with me because I’m stuck in my head so much, but imagine being actually stuck inside my head with no way out, with no way to ever take a break from it, because that’s my life. To use Mychal’s clever little analogy, imagine eating NOTHING BUT mustard, being stuck with mustard ALL THE TIME and if you hate me so much then stop asking me to—”

I wasn’t possessed by a demon. I was the demon.

“None of them work.” “None of them have worked yet,” she corrected.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said. “You didn’t go crazy. You’ve always been crazy.”

‘Sir, you don’t understand. It’s turtles all the way down.’” I laughed. “It’s turtles all the way down.” “It’s turtles all the way fucking down, Holmesy. You’re trying to find the turtle at the bottom of the pile, but that’s not how it works.”

You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person, and why.