The Fault in Our Stars Quotes
The 8 most famous lines from John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.
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“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”
- Hazel Grace Lancaster. p. 3 - the opening sentence: deadpan, exact, and already about death.
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“I'm a grenade, Mom. I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?”
- Hazel Grace Lancaster. p. 99 - the self-description she hides behind.
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“You are not a grenade, not to us. You are amazing.”
- Mr. Lancaster. p. 103 - her father's answer, which changes nothing and changes everything.
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“Never was Shakespeare more wrong when he had Cassius note, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'”
- Peter Van Houten. p. 111 - the line that gives the novel its title, and the argument the novel exists to answer.
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“I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasures of saying true things...”
- Augustus Waters. p. 153 - the Amsterdam confession, begun in an airport and finished in person.
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“It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predetermined winner.”
- Augustus Waters. p. 216 - his metaphor for the illness he is already hiding.
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“I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity... You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”
- Hazel Grace Lancaster. p. 260 - the eulogy he asks to hear while he can.
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“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you... I do, Augustus. I do.”
- Van Houten's letter / Hazel. p. 313 - the novel's last words: his question, her answer.
Why these lines survive
John Green’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 8 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.
Quote collectors: pair this page with the The Fault in Our Stars quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 4 hours and 36 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like The Fault in Our Stars list is next.
Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our John Green books in order guide lists every book.
How to use a quotes page
Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of John Green are an invitation, not a summary.
More quote collections
Twilight quotes, It Ends with Us quotes, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo quotes, The Midnight Library quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most famous quote from The Fault in Our Stars?
“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.” - the line most readers meet first. The full list above gives the scene for every one of the 8.
How many The Fault in Our Stars quotes are here?
8, chosen because they are the lines readers actually underline and repeat - each with who says it and where it lands in the book.
Are these quotes explained?
Yes - every quote carries its speaker and a one-line context, because a quote without its scene loses most of its charge.
Can I use these in an essay or post?
Short quoted lines with attribution are standard fair use in essays and posts. Quote accurately, name the author, and you are on solid ground.
Are these The Fault in Our Stars quotes word-for-word accurate?
They are checked against the novel as written, not harvested from quote sites - which is why a few famous “lines” you may have seen elsewhere are missing here: many of those come from film adaptations or paraphrase the prose. What is listed above is the book.