These are the first words Hazel says to Augustus, delivering them as a kind of sermon in Support Group and wowing him from the get-go. God knows that’s what everyone else does.” Hazel (p.13) And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. “There will come a time when all of us are dead. The phrase is used at times combatively, but mostly as a phrase of acceptance cancer, especially when surrounded by love and necessary resources, is not the worst possible thing - and even if it were, that would only support the idea that the world does not care about individual feelings, nor is it always fair. It may be assumed that Van Houten actually wrote it first in An Imperial Affliction, and it spread that way to Hazel and then to Augustus. Hazel, Augustus, and Peter Van Houten say this throughout the book. “The world is not a wish-granting factory.” Hazel, Augustus, and Peter Van Houten The fact that she has thought over this concept and makes it her own in the eulogy shows real maturity, and the concept itself is important for her ability to both love Augustus at that moment and move on after his death. Hazel draws inspiration for the eulogy she gives at Augustus's pre-funeral from Peter Van Houten's upsetting lecture to them at their disastrous meeting in Amsterdam. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.” Hazel (p.260) But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. 112 and an infinite collection of others. “There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. This attitude goes hand in hand with his desire to accomplish things, both corresponding with the 2010s teenager motto that "you only live once. Augustus toes the line of not denying himself simple pleasures, saying it about looking at beautiful things and now about saying true things. Unlike Hazel, Augustus is not sparing in bold quotes about falling in love. 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.” Augustus (p.153) "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. Depicting Hazel as a devoted reader also makes the book's reader feel akin to her, an important quality to establish early on in a book for young adult audiences, especially one about a subject that will likely be beyond many readers' capacity for empathy. Based on the rave reviews Green's book has received, The Fault in Our Stars may be one such book that causes love and evangelism. The nature of books themselves is major theme in The Fault in Our Stars, giving the book a meta-fictional sense. “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” Hazel (p.33) This internal conflict between love and safety is turned on its head when Augustus becomes sick, and Hazel eventually realizes that it may be better to allow oneself to fall into love, like in this quote, even at the chance (or certainty) of being hurt. Hazel is not completely sold, however, keeping her love secret from Gus and denying him both a kiss in the park and a return "I love you" on the airplane to Amsterdam. Hazel, usually incredibly rational for an adolescent, especially in the case of fending off Augustus's romantic advances, thinks this when Augustus reads to her from her favorite book after placing the post about the swing set. “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” Hazel (p.125)
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