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When John Green saw the quote, "I'm in love with cities I've never been to and people I've never met," he knew it didn't seem familiar, but after it was consistently attributed to his book Paper Towns, he just figured it was a line he wrote and forgot. It turns out, though, that the line is nowhere in any of John's books. The words actually belong to Melody Truong, known on Tumblr for posting artwork of interesting quotes, including ones pulled from John Green's book. 

Melody originally shared the lines on her blog when she was thirteen, but since she was also posting a lot of graphics featuring Paper Town's quotes, other users on the site assumed that the words weren't hers. It wasn't until John Green's website DFTBA recently started selling a poster featuring the quote that the issue was even brought to light. 

After Melody's friend made a post in the Copyright subsection of the popular website Reddit asking about the legal implications of the poster's sales, John Green himself spoke up to acknowledge the situation, figure out what had happened and make it right. In a video posted to his Vlog Brothers YouTube channel, John explains the situation further and gives all credit – and royalties – to Melody.

Despite the whole messy situation, we think it's super cool the John Green and his team owned up to their mistakes and that they're giving Melody her proper due, both in money she's owed and a public acknowledgement.

What do you think about this whole crazy story? Had you seen the quote before? Let us know in the comments.  

by Chelsea Duff | 2/1/2016