memorable moments number seven~ an abundance of katherines

Wednesday 1 February 2012

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memorable moments:
an abundance of katherines
by john green

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page three:
"Colin had always preferred baths; one of his general policies in life was never to do anything standing up that could just as easily be done lying down."

"He did recognize, albeit faintly, that he was too long, and too big, for this bathtub - he looked like a mostly grown person playing at being a kid."

"'Eureka!"1
footnote: Greek: 'I have found it.'"


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page four:
"But mothers lie. It's in the job description."

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page five:
"She said i love you as if it were a secret, and an immense one."
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page seven:
"He anagrammed 'yrs forever' until he found one he liked: sorry fever. And then he lay there in his fever of sorry and repeated the now memorized note in his head and and wanted to cry, but instead he only felt this aching behind his solar plexus. Crying adds something: crying is you, plus tears. But the feeling Colin had was the opposite of crying. It was you, minus something."

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page 11:
"... you have a very complicated problem with a very simple solution."

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page 13:
"'Right, except I'm not going to lie to my mom, because what kind of bastard lies to his own mother?'"
'Hmm.'
'Well although,
someone else could lie to her. I could live with that.'"

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page 15:
"And the beautiful thing about driving was that it stole just enough of his attention... to distract from the gnawing hole in his belly."
To keep his mind occupied, he thought of other holes in other stomachs. He thought of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated in 1914. As he looked down at the bloody hole in his middle, the Archduke had said, 'It is nothing.' He was mistaken. There's no doubt that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand mattered, although he was neither a prodigy nor a genius: his assassination sparked World War I - so his death led to 8,528,831 others.



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page 16:
"Dating, after all, only ends one way: poorly. If you think about it, and Colin often did, all romantic relationships end in either (1) breakup, (2) divorce, or (3) death.


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page 17:
"Colin was skinny for his age, but tall, with tight brown curls that erupted from his head with an Einstenian unpredictability."
{I adore this description of Colin as a toddler. It ties in well with the prodigy that he is and gives a hint at what is discussed on this page.}
"This was Colin's first memory: his dad slowly lowering the paper and smiling at him. His eyes were wide with surprise and pleasure, and his smile was uncontainable."
{This is such a beautiful first memory. The story behind what his dad is smiling at has the right amount of humor mixed with the brilliant revelation that takes place.}


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page 18:
You're a very special person. Colin would hear this a lot, and yet -somehow- he could never hear it enough.
"He liked all books, because he liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head."
{This is such a gorgeous description a person who enjoys reading for the pure act of it. Not to be transported to another world, not to forget reality, but to marvel that inside your brain you've learned to interpret the lines and swirls into meaning.}


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page 19:
"It made him feel like no one liked him, which, in fact, no one did. His single consolation was that one day, he would matter. He'd be famous. And none of them ever would. That's why, his mom said, they made fun of him in the first place. 'They're just jealous,' she said. But Colin knew better. They weren't jealous. He just wasn't likable. Sometimes it's that simple."

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page 31:
"She had the sort of broad and guileful smile in which you couldn't help but believe - you just wanted to make her happy so you could keep seeing it. But it passed in a flash."
{This description of a fleeting smile is brilliant. It's so sweet, and gentle.}



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page 32:
"- but there was no denying her smile. That smile could end wars and cure cancer."
{This shows the impact of a smile. It's so simple and it's pure.}


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page 33:
"What's the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?"
{This leaves me wondering. Really, what is the point? Colin, you should explain the answer to us.}


"And he was busy anagramming anything odd - any odd night, handy dog tin, doing they DNA - when Colin did his DNA proud: he stumbled on a molehill and fell."
{Humorous, comical, and definitely worth a laugh. This sums Colin up so perfectly.}


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page 34:
"It was not the way Curve smelled that Colin liked - not exactly. It was the way the air smelled just as Lindsey began to jog away from him. The smell the perfume left behind. There's not a word for that in English, but Colin knew the French word: sillage. What Colin liked about Curve was not its smell on the skin but its sillage, the fruity sweet smell of its leaving."

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page 35:
...Colin Singleton's distance from his glasses made him realize the problem: myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

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page 36:
"Colin had always loved Chicago's skyline. Although he was not a religious person, seeing the skyline made him feel what is called in Latin the mysterium tremendum et fascinans - that stomach-flipping mix of awestruck fear and entrancing fascination."

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page 39:
"'It's the tortoise and the hare, though K. I learn faster than other people, but they keep learning. I've slowed down, and now they're coming.'"

"He felt himself drifting away from the one-sided whispered conversation, wondering if maybe everything big and heartbreaking and incomprehensible is a paradox."

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page 43:
"'Love is graphable!'" Colin said defensively.
{This is a really funny line.}


"Lindsey Lee Wells and Colin stared at each other dead in the eye for a very long time, until finally her smile collapsed into a gentle laugh."
{The idea the imagery of a collapsing smile into a laugh is so beautiful.}


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page 44:
"'No, tell me,' he said insistently. He didn't like secrets kept from him. Being on the outside of something annoyed him - more than it should have, really."
{This sounds exactly like Colin. And I can understand this in him, although it does give him a more self involved appearance.}

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page 47:
"It was his first kiss, and her lips felt like the coming winter - cold and dry and chapped - and it occurred to Colin that the kiss didn't feel nearly as good as the sound of her asking if she could be his girlfriend."
{Colin, to me, seems like the boy who would say this. From what we've learned, he's not very good at being alone. This information shows that he's been this way for a long time and he needs somebody.}

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page 63:
"When Hollis spoke, it seemed to break a long quiet, the way alarm clocks do."

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page 66:
"Colin, for whatever reason, had always loved desks with empty drawers."
{I wonder why. There doesn't have to be a reason at all, but I really like to think of Colin this way. And although there could be a lot of hidden meaning in this, I'm happy to accept that he just likes a desk with empty drawers.}
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page 68:
"'I was thinking about this tonight, actually, that maybe I want strangers to think I'm cool since people who actually know me don't.'"
{This is something to relate to. I mean, who doesn't want to impress people that they're meeting for the first time? Who doesn't want someone to think they're actually cooler than what the people they know already do?}

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page 70:
"The rooster crowed again. 'Cock-a-doodle-don't, motherfugger,' Colin mumbled. But the rooster cock-a-doodle-did, and by dawn, the crowing created a kind of weird dissonant symphony mingled with the sounds of a Muslim's morning prayers."
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page 73:
"'Eternity bids thee to forget.'" (a line from Lara, a poem by Lord Byron.)

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page 76:
"The house smelled like musty old couches and unfinished wood. It smelled, Colin thought, like cobwebs or hazy memories."
{What a gorgeous description. Hazy memories are exactly what I think of when I enter someone's house that has been around for a long time. It just seems so fitting with the things and people that have been in the home that you won't ever really know.}


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page 77:
"...Colin didn't like coffee. He liked the idea of coffee quite a lot - a warm drink that gave you energy and had been for centuries associated with sophisticates and intellectuals. But coffee itself tasted to him like caffeinated stomach bile."
{I quite like the idea of coffee as well. I'm not the biggest fan but this description is totally wonderful (aside the stomach bile of course.}

"It made for a poor living area, but it was an awesome theater. It was so dark that you could sink into the couch and disappear into the movie."
{What an excellent way to describe living vicariously. This is the essence of being involved and absorbed into a film.}


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page 79:
"He wanted to draw out the moment before the moment - because as good as kissing feels, nothing feels as good as the anticipation of it."
{Again this seems to be part of Colin's perception of relationships and the ones he's been involved with.}


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page 83:
"'Anyway, I didn't go off to the war because I shot off two of my toes because I'm a coward. I'm an old man so I can tell you that frankly. I wasn't afraid of war, you know. War never scared me. I just didn't want to go all the way-hell over there to fight one. I had a reputation after that - I pretended I shot myself by accident, but everyone knew. I never did lose that reputation, but now most everyone is dead, and ya'll ain't got any stories from them, so you have to believe mine by default: They were cowards, too. Everyone is."
{I like the honesty of Starnes. I love how he says that everyone has to believe him, because everyone else is dead. It's so blunt but so like his character to say that.}


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page 94:
"'And yes, again, that was it exactly. A retyper and not a writer...'"

"'Schadenfreude,' Colin said. Finding pleasure in others' pain."

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page 96:
"That's why people grow weary of listening to Dumpees obsess over their troubles: getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward, you're devastated and they're relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you.
{I've never been in a relationship (as i don't mind admitting) but this seems to be a way to think of it. I've seen enough relationships to relate to this.}


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page 105:
"You can love someone so much, he thought. But you can never love people as much as you can miss them."
{I really like this insightful line.}

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page 110:
"The reading quieted his brain a little."
{Does reading quiet your brain?}


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page 111:
"Colin had no desire to shoot pigs-or anything else, for that matter.
'Um,' Colin said. 'I don't even know how to shoot a gun.'
'Yeah, me neither, but how hard can it be? Complete fugging idiots shoot guns all the time. That's why there are so many dead people.'"
{Very thoughtful for saying that Hassan.}


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page 115:
"But the risk of being able to win over anyone, he found himself thinking, was that you might pick the wrong people."


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page 122:
"He thought it through for a while. It seemed so obvious now - many discoveries do."


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page 139:
"'But you know what they say about Gutshot: the population never goes up and never goes down, because every time a woman gets pregnant, a man leaves town.'"

"'You're not boring. You've got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.'"


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page 140:
"He'd never held a gun before. It felt simultaneously exciting and deeply wrong."
{Colin holding a gun. I can see him feeling this way exactly.}


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page 142:
"'I think maybe you try to be odd on purpose. I think you like that. It makes you you and not someone else."
{Colin be odd on purpose? What an observation.}


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page 145:
"'It's just that I learned a while ago that the best way to get people to like you is not to like them too much.'"
{Spoken by the popular girl Lindsey is.}

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page 146:
"And then it was the kind of dark your eyes never adjust to."
{I love the description. It wasn't just pitch black, it was 'the kind of dark your eyes never adjust to.'}

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page 149:
"'Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?... If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone, anyone, love me?'"
{This is so thought provoking. I love the question. It makes you think about yourself.}

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page 156:
"He wasn't really going on a hunt anyway. He was going for a stroll through the woods. With a gun."

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page 167:
"'Stand up so he knows we're bigger than he is,' Colin said.
'Did you read that in the book?' Hassan asked as he stood.
'No, I read it in a book about grizzly bears.
'We're gonna get gored to death by a feral fugging hog and your best strategy is to pretend it's a grizzly bear?'"

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page 178:
"They weren't much for damsel-in-distress saving, Colin and Hassan.
But then again, Lindsey wasn't much for being a damsel in distress."



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page 182:
"And hid head hurt - each time he opened his eyes, beams of feverish, demonic pain shot through his brain."
{I love the description.}


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page 186:
"A lot of people could lose themselves in the Pink Mansion, and that night, a lot of people did."
{I like the idea of losing yourself into a large house, where you can go without seeing anyone.}


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page 190:
"'...I'm lost in a sea of spreadsheets.'"
{It sounds so poetic.}


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page 198:
"Colin, of course, did not believe in running when walking would suffice - but here and now, walking would not."
{This absolutely shows Colin's changes.}


"... the darkness became so complete that trees and rocks became mere shadows..."
{The description astounds me.}
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page 199:
"'People are supposed to care. It's good that people mean something to you, that you miss people when they're gone.'"

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page 200:
"'But they like me as they remember me, not as I am now.'"
{Why is this book so brilliant?}


"'I was thinking about your mattering business. I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do.'"
{Lindsey you beautiful girl.}

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page 201:
"'I don't think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost.'"
{Colin, your realization blows my mind.}

"'It's funny, what people will do to be remembered.'
'Well, or to be forgotten, because someday no one will know who's really buried there.'"


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page 207:
"'And the moral of the story is that you don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.'"
{How profound and thoughtful.}


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page 208:
"'That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.'
'The people who've been in your secret hiding places.'
'The people you bite your thumb in front of.'"

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page 213:
"The future will erase everything - there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible."

"And Colin thought: Because like say I tell someone about my feral hog hunt. Even if it's a dumb story, telling it changes other people just the slightest bit, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change. And that infinitesimal change ripples outward - ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than none."
{Impacting. Lasting. And it will change me.}

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