Best-selling author reimburses student for quote

Jen Zettel | The Appleton (Wis.) Post-Crescent

APPLETON, Wis. — A woman who grew up here is getting her due and a little less harassment after author John Green publicly resolved the mystery of a misattributed quote.

Melody Truong posted the quote on her Tumblr page when she was 13 years old: "I'm in love with cities I've never been to and people I've never met." Someone attributed the phrase to Green, a New York Times bestselling author known most recently for his book The Fault in our Stars.

Truong, a 2014 Appleton East High School grad and student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, originally used the line in a poem.

"I was 13 at the time, about to begin high school, and was trying to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life," Truong said in an e-mail to the Post-Crescent. "I know that now, looking back, it was an absurdly early time to be stressing out about such things."

She was born in Long Beach, Calif., but her family moved to Appleton, where she grew up. She felt out of place when she wrote the now-famous words.

"There were a lot of times when I would think about this future place/city that I would be able to call home and be able to love and flourish in. I also had extreme wanderlust and still am very fascinated by the world and its cultures and people," she said.

Green's company DFTBA (the abbreviation for 'Don't Forget to be Awesome') recently started selling a poster with the quote.

"That's when I felt like I should maybe speak up about the situation," Truong said.

DFTBA rectified the error by paying Truong royalties for the poster — those sold in the past or from now on. The company is also selling a piece of Truong's artwork, for which she will receive all the royalties.

People harassed Truong online about the quote, but she said the angry messages decreased after Green explained the mix-up on YouTube.

In the video posted yesterday, Green said people attributed the quote to his book Paper Towns.

He didn't remember writing the quote, "but then again I don't remember writing a lot of Paper Towns — that book came out seven years ago," he said in the video.

Green acknowledged the mistake, and took it as an opportunity to address fact-checking in the Internet age.

"I think a wrongly attributed author ... failing to notice the misattribution in question speaks to how screwed-up credit and sourcing and copyright are on the Internet. We do an epicly bad job of acknowledging one another's work and checking our sources," he said.

Truong didn't expect Green to publicly address the situation on YouTube, but said it speaks to the kind of person he is.

"John was not obligated to do that, nor did he have to reply to any emails, posts, or offer to sell my artwork on his website," she said. "His act of generosity and kindness is something I will forever be grateful for. He publicly admitted his silly mistake and went above and beyond to correct the situation, which I believe is very admirable."

You can find the poster with Truong's misattributed quote here, and her artwork on the DFTBA website here.