QuoteProject
... I didn't know whether to feel angry at her for making me part of her suicide or just to feel angry at myself for letting her go.
John Green
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote expresses the internal conflict between feeling anger towards someone who has taken their own life and the guilt of not being able to prevent it.

In this quote, John Green illustrates the complex emotions that arise when someone close to us chooses to end their life. It captures the struggle of feeling both anger towards the individual for their actions while simultaneously grappling with self-blame and regret for not being able to provide the support needed to prevent such a tragic outcome.

Themes

AngerGuiltSuicideRelationshipsLoss

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about mental health awareness, this quote may highlight the emotional struggles individuals face.

More from John Green

Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?" "Sometimes people don't always understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?" I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.
John GreenRead
Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.
John GreenRead
I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.
John GreenRead
I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle.
John GreenRead
So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.
John GreenRead
We kiss. Her hands are freezing on my face, and she tastes like coffee and the smell of the onion is still stuck in my nose, and my lips are all dry from the endless winter. And it's awesome.
John GreenRead

Similar quotes

In the days that follow, he begins to remember things about Moushumi, images that come to him without warning while he is sitting at his desk at work, or during a meeting, or drifting off to sleep, or standing in the mornings under the shower. They are scenes he has carried within him, buried but intact, scenes he has never thought about or had reason to conjure up until now.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.
Havelock EllisRead
The majority of my interactions with police were not good. There were a few good ones who were actually protecting the community. But then you have ones from the Valley. They never met me in their life, but since I'm a kid in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, they wanna slam me on the hood of the car. Sixteen years old.
Kendrick LamarRead
He is mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Lady Caroline LambRead
Married people dont look like they have bedrooms on their minds when they look at each other. In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both...Not both.
Ayn RandRead
The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.