John Green Quotes

Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be a human being? What are human beings?' Existing courses cannot help you answer those questions. They can't even help you ask them.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.

How we come to be, and how we are what we are, is beyond any understanding. I have been obsessed by this, trying to understand the very nature of my existence.

If you cannot render me a reason how I came hither, and what I am, I must go to those who will render me one. And if that craving be not satisfied by a rational theory of life, it will demand satisfaction from some magical theory;

Where do we come from? What are We? Where are we going?

Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.

I first started asking big questions when I was 12, and by big questions, I mean, 'Why are we here? What is this business? We're alive for a few short decades and then poof, we're out of here.'

Whenever you're talking about meaning, basically... I think a lot of the human experience has to do with trying to understand what things mean, and there's not really any tools to do that unless you're thinking about it in a more spiritual or philosophical realm.

I think the whole reason for my life is in there somewhere.

I am really curious about life, about why we are all here. I notice my skin is ageing, things are changing, I've seen people dying, so that's the train we are all on.

What Shakespeare and the Greeks were able to do was radically question what it meant to be a human being.

Often and often must he have thought, that, to be or not to be forever, was a question, which must be settled; as it is the foundation, and the only foundation upon which we feel that there can rest one thought, one feeling, or one purpose worthy of a human soul.

The lyrics are a lot about those big questions: why are we here, how did we get here, what's the point, and what's next. When those questions come up with fans, I would absolutely share with them what has helped me and where I stand on what it is that I believe.

I do find that I tend to write about big questions. Why are we here? What are we doing? How do we relate to each other?

I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested in big questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? But the chances to discuss philosophy were quite thin on the ground.

We humans have always looked to the sky as a sounding board for asking big questions about ourselves: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

These big questions: Who are we? Where are we? What are we doing here? They never ask that in the mainstream. They just leave that to religions to divert people off into rigid belief systems.

Paul Gauguin asked, "Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?" Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I came from my room, I'm a kid with big plans, and I'm going outside! See ya later!.. Say, who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?

I've been on the planet for 40 years now, and I'm still none the wiser as to what it's all about really. I've never worried about life's big questions. People at my age sit about pondering, 'Why are we here?' The only time I ever asked myself that is when Suzanne booked us a surprise holiday to Lanzarote.

Thou madest man, he knows not why, he thinks he was not made to die.

I don't know if I was put on this Earth for a purpose or not. But I'm fairly confident that I'll be taken off of it for one.

Man will not live without answers to his questions.