50+ Turtles All The Way Down Quotes That All John Green Fans Will Love

Georgia Stone
Dec 12, 2023 By Georgia Stone
Originally Published on Jan 12, 2021
The book is written by author John Green
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Age: 0-99
Read time: 11.3 Min

The novel 'Turtles All The Way Down' is about mental illnesses like obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as friendship, loss, and mystery.

The book is written by author John Green who has written many books like 'The Fault In Our Stars', 'Looking for Alaska', 'Paper Towns', among others.

The term 'turtles all the way down' means the problem of infinite regress. The book tells the story of Aza Holmes, a 16-year-old high school student who struggles with OCD.

She is worried about getting an infection, falling ill, and ultimately death. The story reminds us to have an open discussion about mental health and how we can make efforts to make this a part of our conversations.

So, if you are looking for John Green 'Turtles All The Way Down' quotes, 'Turtles All The Way Down' phrase and sayings, Daisy 'Turtles All The Way Down' quotes or 'Turtles All The Way Down' quotes about anxiety, then keep on reading.

You can also check out 'Looking for Alaska' Quotes and 'The Fault In Our Stars' Quotes articles.

Friendship Quotes

'Turtles All The Way Down' meaning is to overcome our fears.

Friends are one thing in life that makes it worthwhile. Without a friend and confidant, our lives are simply boring.

They help us become better people. Similarly, in the book, Aza Holmes learns the true meaning of friendship and how her friends Mychal Turner and Daisy Ramirez helps her overcome her fears and makes the reader realize that neither of the girls was the perfect friend nor were perfect people.

But they made them realize and accept that despite the flaws they needed each other and this made them work hard on their friendship and not give up on each other. These quotes about friendship and meaningful relationships will teach you something.

1. "But with friendship, there's nothing like that. Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

2. “I thought of Florida, of my 'school friends', and realized for the first time how much I would miss the Creek if I ever had to leave it. I stared down at Takumi’s twig sticking out of the mud and said, 'I swear to God I won’t rat.'”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

3. “It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

4. “But emotional experience is as real and as valid as a physical experience.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

5. “So we gave up. I’d finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be discovered. We’d failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

6. “Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

7. “I promise you. They will regret messing with one of my friends.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

8. “We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

9. “You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

10. “As I took those two steps back, Margo took two equally small and quiet steps forward.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

Funny 'Turtles All The Way Down' Quotes

Aza Holmes is able to see the positive and good in situations that come her way. It is always important to do this no matter what hardships life throws at you.

Here we have listed a handful of funny phrases and 'Turtles All The Way Down' joke quotes which you may like to share with someone to amuse them and cheer them up.

11. “Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

12. "I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

13. “True terror isn’t being scared; it’s not having a choice on the matter.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

14. "I would never slay the dragon because the dragon was also me."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

15. "We are about to live the American Dream, which is, of course, to benefit from someone else's misfortune."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

Inspiring 'Turtles All The Way Down' Quotes

Your now is not your forever

Here we have listed some 'Turtles All The Way Down' phrases to help you better understand the theme of the book and how it can inspire you. In the book, the author John Green talks about friendship, acceptance, and love, which can have a way of coming in front of us in our lives at any unexpected time.

Just like Aza Holmes, we need to see light in the toughest of situations and help us become a better version of ourselves.

The figurative language in 'Turtles All The Way Down', message, and situations used in the book are the representation of Aza's fear. So here are some inspiring quotes from the novel.

16. “Your now is not your forever.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

17. “Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

18. "I've got a theory about uniforms. I think they design them so that you become, like, a nonperson, so that you're not Daisy Ramirez, a Human Being, but instead a thing that brings people pizza and exchanges their tickets for plastic dinosaurs. It's like the uniform is designed to hide me."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

19. “To be alive is to be missing.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

20. “Nobody gets anybody else, not really. We're all stuck inside ourselves.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

21. “For the record, he who does fear death also dies only once, but whatever.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

22. “You'd think solving mysteries would bring you closure, that closing the loop would comfort and quiet your mind. But it never does. The truth always disappoints.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

23. "I wanted to tell her that I was getting better because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: it was a hurdle you jumped over or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

24. "I was thinking about how part of your self can be in a place while at the same time the most important parts are in a different place, a place that can't be accessed via your senses."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

25. "We are both astonishments, the closest thing in the known universe to a miracle”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

26. "You're right that self isn't simple, Aza. Maybe it's not even singular. Self is a plurality, but pluralities can also be integrated, right? Think of a rainbow. It's one arc of light, but also seven differently colored arcs of light."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

27. "And the thing is when you lose someone, you realize you'll eventually lose everyone."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

28. “You and I are just kids. We've got the best and the worst of it in front of us”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

29. “I was beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

30. "At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to paint, photograph or even remember it. It is enough."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

Metaphoric Quotes And Quotes About Struggles

Here we have mentioned the world-bearing turtle universe quotes. These quotes are a metaphorical representation of a flat earth turtle.

These turtles of time represent the struggle of the lead character of the book, Aza Holmes has been struggling all through her life. She has been struggling to overcome her anxiety and live her life without the fear of death or illness.

The term 'tower of tortoises' means that the world is resting on the back of a turtle moving at a very slow speed. Here we have mentioned some 'Turtles All The Way Down' Aza quotes that are metaphorical and true and quotes that depict hardships.

31. "The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

32. "I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smells of Lysol and lard."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

33. “Our lunch table was like a long-running play on Broadway: The cast changed over the years, but the roles never did.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

34. “'I' is the hardest word to define.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

35. "I apologize for the double negative, but it's a real double negative of a situation, a bind from which negating the negation is truly the only escape."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

36. "No one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

37. “That’s what my dad is like-he really disappeared a long time ago, which is maybe why it didn’t bother me much.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

38. "You seemed locked inside of your mind, and I can’t know what’s going on in there, and it scared me."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

39. "When observation fails to align with a truth, what do you trust – your senses or your truth?"

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

40. "I felt certain something was going to kill me, and of course I was right: Something is going to kill you, someday, and you can't know if this is."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

41. "A distressed damsel has no companions.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

42. "Every loss is unprecedented. You can't ever know someone else's hurt, not really — just like touching someone else's body isn't the same as having someone else's body."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

43. "One of the challenges with pain – physical or psychic – is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can’t be represented the way a table or a body. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

44. "It’s so weird, to know you’re crazy and not be able to do anything about it, you know? It’s not like you believe yourself to be normal. You know there is a problem. But you can’t figure a way through to fixing it. Because you can’t be sure, you know?"

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

'Trutles All The Way Down' Love Quotes

John Green's novel provides us with some really rather beautiful quotes about love. The quotes are deep and meaningful depicting how someone who really means something to you can be quite rare to find. Have a read of the quotes listed below.

45. "Davis and I never talked much, or even looked at each other, but it didn't matter, because we were looking at the same sky together, which is maybe more intimate than eye contact anyway."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

46. “You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person and why.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

47. “You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

48. "I don’t like to throw the L-word around; it’s too good and rare a feeling to cheapen with overuse.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

49. “I still did not know her as I wanted to, but I never could. She made it impossible for me.”

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

50. "She noted, more than once, that the meteor shower was happening, beyond the overcast sky, even if we could not see it. Who cares if she can kiss? She can see through the clouds."

― John Green, 'Turtles All The Way Down'.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 'Turtles All The Way Down Quotes' That All John Green Fans Will Love then why not take a look at John Green Quotes or 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' Quotes.

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Written by Georgia Stone

Bachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

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Georgia StoneBachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia is an experienced Content Manager with a degree in French and Film Studies from King's College London and Bachelors degree from Université Paris-Sorbonne. Her passion for exploring the world and experiencing different cultures was sparked during her childhood in Switzerland and her year abroad in Paris. In her spare time, Georgia enjoys using London's excellent travel connections to explore further afield.

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