John Green rocks ‘Bookchella’ and reveals his favorite written words

During the Q&A session of a Saturday panel at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, “The Fault In Our Stars,” author John Green revealed two favorite lines that he’s written. Both are from his first book, “Looking for Alaska.”

The first is from the character Miles “Pudge” Halter feeling inadequate in the face of the girl he admires, Alaska Young:

“If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”

The author revealed two additional secrets about that line. He almost cut it out of the final version of the text, thinking it was too cheesy, and the original version compared people to ‘precipitation” instead of “rain.” A copy editor made him change it for the final text.

FULL COVERAGE: Festival of Books

He said the other favorite line stems from a discussion between Pudge and Alaska about the future. Many fans in the audience knew Alaska’s thoughts on the future by heart:

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.”

The author then revealed that the line was inspired by real-life events: His wife had told him that on their first date.

As if people at the festival weren’t already going crazy for him (fans had lined up more than two hours before his session), some in social media declared Green the “biggest act at ‘Bookchella’” (the festival coincides with the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival).