paper towns and 2008 books

i've already mentioned how much i loved paper towns and how truly wonderful a writer i think john green is. i love to harvest quotes from books and this one was full of them...some of them just hilarious, and some of them thought-provoking...which is why i love reading these books with my teen and talking about them. we both love the humor and the rest leads to some interesting discussions.

so here are some quotes...

"I always got nervous whenever I heard that Margo was about to show up, on account of how she was the most fantastically gorgeous creature that God had ever created. On the morning in question, she wore white shorts and a pink T-shirt that featured a green dragon breathing a fire of orange glitter. It is difficult to explain how awesome I found this T-shirt at the time."

"Both of my parents are therapists, which means that I am really goddamned well adjusted."

"Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds."

"I'm a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to the words in the middle."

"Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children."

"It's a penis in the same sense that Rhode Island is a state; it may have an illustrious history, but it sure isn't big."

"Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year old."

"They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car, and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast of high ceilings and few horsepower!"

"Whenever I eat a GoFast Bar, I'm always like, 'So this is what blood tastes like to mosquitoes.'"

"The minivan has become a kind of very small house; I am sitting in the passenger seat, which is the den. This is, I think , the best room in the house; there is plenty of space, and the chair is quite comfortable."

there are more funny lines and maybe alone, these don't read as funny on my blog as they were in the book, but i snorted i was laughing so hard when i read this book... and some of the other lines i really loved...

"You keep expecting people not to be themselves."

"Humans lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show anyone how we feel."

"But isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals."

"What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person."

"The people are the place is the people." (i don't know if this was a typo or not, but after reading it a few times, it started sounding almost like music...)

"I understand now that I can't be her and she can't be me."

"I must ask the wounded man where he is hurt, because I cannot become the wounded man. The only wounded man I can be is me."

i have read all of john green's books and enjoyed all three of them....

so here are the other books i read this year...

*paper towns by john green
*brisingr by christopher paolini
*eldest by christopher paolini
*eragon by christopher paolini
*snow falling on cedars by david guterson
*i know this much is true by wally lamb
*assassination vacation by sarah vowell
*the shack by william p. young
*lamb--the gospel according to biff, christ's childhood pal by christopher moore
*breaking dawn by stephenie meyer
*eclipse by stephenie meyer
*new moon by stephenie meyer
*twilight by stephenie meyer
*little big minds--sharing philosophy with kids by marietta mccarty
*the trivium: the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric--understanding the nature and function of language by sister miriam joseph, csc, phd
*simplicity--the freedom of letting go by richard rohr
*all new square foot gardening--grow more in less space! by mel bartholomew
*grace (eventually) thoughts on faith by anne lamott
*anger: wisdom for cooling the flames by thich nhat hanh
*cesar's way written by cesar millan
*fatherhood written by bill cosby

i have a feeling i'll be reading a little more this year...it's been good to me.
peace