John Green Quotes

Be careful what you’re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head

I don't think you should meet the people you most admire. I don't want reality to interfere with my image.

Imagination which comes into play in falling in love is different from any other. Certainly in my case, and I've fallen in love all my life, one imagines the person to be as you want them to be. They frequently turn out to be someone different, for better or worse.

Who doesn't have a friend who worships her lover with a passion that seems baffling to everyone that knows them? Before you met him for the first time, she'd talked him up like he was a cross between Indiana Jones, Barack Obama and The Doctor. When you finally meet him, he's a quiet little thing who looks like a baked bean in glasses, and actually says 'harumph' as spelt.

When your mother is made out of your dreams, anything real is bound to disappoint you.

He can't possibly live up to the person you've built him to be

The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

The person who is "in-love" has the ilusion that his beloved is perfect.

I had amazing stuff happen right off the top. I thought this was how it worked. Hollywood is awesome! Cut to three years later: What happened?

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.

When I first went to L.A., I really hated it. I had this preconceived idea of what it would be like. You think of Hollywood as this beautiful place, but everything looks rundown and old.

The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.

Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is.

It would be really great if people would realize that stars are only people with the same weaknesses and flaws, not immaculate idols.

Sometimes we fall in love with the idea of a person and have trouble seeing the real thing.

I have somebody I admire and want to keep at a distance. I've had the opportunity to meet her a couple of times - it's Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders. I just am nuts about her, but I have no interest in meeting her because I just don't think she could live up to what she's been to me in my head.

The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.

The grass is always greener on the other side - until you get there and see it's AstroTurf. Symbols are never reality. Someone might have amassed material success and fame, but that doesn't mean they're happy. So, don't go judging a person's life by the cover.

It is very dangerous to make a person larger than life because, then, young men and women are tempted to believe, well, if he was that great, he's inaccessible, and I can never try to be that or emulate that or achieve that.

Happiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books.

You see, Dash -- I was never the girl in your head. And you were never the boy in my head. I think we both knew that. It's only when we try to make the girl or boy in our head real that the true trouble comes. I did that with Carlos, and it was a bad failure. Be careful what you're doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.

More and more we are taught something throughout our growing up, our education, and continuously, no matter how much we believe in this thing, something comes up that forces us to revise our entire belief system. No matter whom you idolize, it turns out that Louis Armstrong collected vast amounts of pornography.

There's nothing so attractive as a blank slate. Take one attractive man, slap on a thick coat of daydream, and voila, the perfect man. With absolutely no resemblance to reality.