How The Internet Tricked Author John Green

The Fault In Our Quotes 

“I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” Best-selling author John Green’s name is usually attached to that cool quote as it floats around the Internet. It’s a viral sentiment–people relate to it, embrace it and share it. You can buy a poster. The quote comes from Green’s popular novel, Paper Towns. Only it doesn’t. It’s not in there.

Green himself became convinced, as he says in the video below, that he’d written the line. Paper Towns, as Green says, came out seven years ago–and he doesn’t remember a lot about writing it or what’s in it. But Green recently encountered someone on the Internet claiming “My friend wrote a thing on Tumblr that is now being credited to John Green.” So Green downloaded his book and searched it. The quote wasn’t there. (It wasn’t in his mega hit The Fault in Our Stars either.) Because it wasn’t a John Green quote; it was written by a “13-year-old Nerdfighter” who apparently also quoted Green a lot. What’s cool? Green is going to “retroactively share royalties” from the poster.