An Abundance of Katherines

by

John Green

Colin Singleton Character Analysis

Colin is the protagonist of An Abundance of Katherines, and he is also his own antagonist. The novel’s title comes from the fact that Colin has dated nineteen girls, and all of them have been named Katherine. Over the course of the novel, with the help of his best friend Hassan and the characters they meet while road tripping through Gutshot, Tennessee, Colin comes to the conclusion that it is time to break his Katherine streak to try dating Lindsey Lee Wells. When Colin was a toddler, he surprised his father by reading aloud off the back of the newspaper. Ever since, his parents (especially his father) have been obsessed with getting Colin the most top-notch education they can offer him. Colin’s mother constantly tells him how “special” he is, and his father pushes him to be a high achiever, learning languages, math, philosophy, history, and other subjects as rapidly as possible. While Colin is called a “child prodigy,” he is only one year ahead in school because his mother did not want him to have too many social problems (although he has endured bullying anyway; his mother has always told him that it is because the other kids are jealous of how smart he is). Colin has thus undergone many of the growing pains of adolescence right alongside his peers. Colin’s parents see his dating life as a distraction from his studies, and do not recognize that when Katherine XIX breaks up with him on graduation night, just prior to the start of the novel, he needs some time to deal with the breakup before diving into summer studies. Colin thus starts off the novel feeling romantically lost but as though there is enormous pressure on him, now that he is growing up and heading off to college, to do something in order to earn the qualifier of “special” that his parents have always given him freely. He decides that his stroke of genius will be the creation of a Theorem to predict relationship outcomes. Colin keeps failing to write an accurate Theorem, however, and eventually undergoes the much more significant growing process of realizing that relationships have too many variables to predict in this way, and that he has been limiting himself by thinking that he and his relationships must conform to a certain mathematical model.

Colin Singleton Quotes in An Abundance of Katherines

The An Abundance of Katherines quotes below are all either spoken by Colin Singleton or refer to Colin Singleton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Achievement and Mortality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

Crying adds something: crying is you, plus tears. But the feeling Colin had was some horrible opposite of crying. It was you, minus something.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

All I ever wanted was for her to love me and to do something meaningful with my life.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Hassan Harbish, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do. The vast majority of child prodigies don’t become adult geniuses. Colin was almost certain that he was among that unfortunate majority.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother, Mr. Singleton / Colin’s Father
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Driving was a kind of thinking, the only kind he could then tolerate. But still the thought lurked out there, just beyond the reach of his headlights: he’d been dumped. By a girl named Katherine. For the nineteenth time.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: Satan’s Hearse
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

You’re a very special person. Colin would hear this a lot, and yet – somehow – he could never hear it enough.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother, Mr. Singleton / Colin’s Father
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:

His single consolation was that one day, he would matter. He’d be famous. And none of them ever would. That’s why, his mom said, they made fun of him in the first place. “They’re just jealous,” she said. But Colin knew better. They weren’t jealous. He just wasn’t likable. Sometimes it’s that simple.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Shit, Colin made a funny. This place is like magic for you. Shame about how we’re gonna die here, though. I mean, seriously. An Arab and a half-Jew enter a store in Tennessee. It’s the beginning of a joke, and the punchline is “sodomy.”

Related Characters: Hassan Harbish (speaker), Colin Singleton
Related Symbols: The Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

He thought of Chicago, where you can go days without ever once stepping on a single patch of actual earth. That well-paved world appealed to him, and he missed it as his feet fell on uneven clumps of hardened dirt that threatened to twist his ankles.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: The Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something important?

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:

He could just never see anything coming, and as he lay on the solid, uneven ground with Hassan pressing too hard on his forehead, Colin Singleton’s distance from his glasses made him realize the problem: myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments, The Theorem
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

She tried to get out as quickly and painlessly as possible, but after she begged curfew, he began to cry. She held his head against her collarbone. And even though he felt pitiful and ridiculous, he didn’t want it to end, because he knew the absence of her would hurt more than any breakup ever could.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

[Y]ou can see into the future if you have a basic understanding of how people are likely to act.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: The Theorem
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

[I]t is important to know things because it makes you special and you can read books that normal people cannot read, such as Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which is in Latin.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Like it or not, Colin thought, road trips have destinations.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Hollis Wells
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

No longer a prodigy, not yet a genius – but still a smartypants.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Hollis Wells
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Authors never included the whole story; they just got to the point. Colin thought the truth should matter as much as the point, and he figured that was why he couldn’t tell good stories.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The missing piece in his stomach hurt so much – and eventually he stopped thinking about the Theorem and wondered only how something that isn’t there can hurt you.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut, The Theorem
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

You’re not boring. You’ve got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.

Related Characters: Lindsey Lee Wells (speaker), Colin Singleton
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“It’s funny, what people will do to be remembered.”

“Well, or to be forgotten, because someday no one will know who’s really buried there. Already a lot of kids at school and stuff think the Archduke is really buried here, and I like that. I like knowing one story and having everyone else know another. That’s why those tapes we made are going to be so great one day, because they’ll tell stories that time has swallowed up or distorted or whatever.”

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Lindsey Lee Wells (speaker), Hollis Wells
Page Number: 201-2
Explanation and Analysis:

And the moral of the story is that you don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. And the second moral of the story, if a story can have multiple morals, is that Dumpers are not inherently worse than Dumpees—breaking up isn’t something that gets done to you; it’s something that happens with you.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX), Katherine Mutsenberger (Katherine III)
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments, The Theorem
Page Number: 207-8
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

As the staggered lines rushed past him, he thought about the space between what we remember and what happened, the space between what we predict and what will happen. And in that space, Colin thought, there was room enough to reinvent himself – room enough to make himself into something other than a prodigy, to remake his story better and different – room enough to be reborn again and again….There was room enough to be anyone – anyone except whom he’d already been, for if Colin had learned one thing from Gutshot, it’s that you can’t stop the future from coming. And for the first time in his life, he smiled thinking about the always-coming infinite future stretching out before him.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: Satan’s Hearse
Page Number: 214-15
Explanation and Analysis:

Colin’s skin was alive with the feeling of connection to everyone in that car and everyone not in it. And he was feeling not-unique in the very best possible way.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 215
Explanation and Analysis:
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Colin Singleton Quotes in An Abundance of Katherines

The An Abundance of Katherines quotes below are all either spoken by Colin Singleton or refer to Colin Singleton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Achievement and Mortality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

Crying adds something: crying is you, plus tears. But the feeling Colin had was some horrible opposite of crying. It was you, minus something.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

All I ever wanted was for her to love me and to do something meaningful with my life.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Hassan Harbish, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do. The vast majority of child prodigies don’t become adult geniuses. Colin was almost certain that he was among that unfortunate majority.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother, Mr. Singleton / Colin’s Father
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Driving was a kind of thinking, the only kind he could then tolerate. But still the thought lurked out there, just beyond the reach of his headlights: he’d been dumped. By a girl named Katherine. For the nineteenth time.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: Satan’s Hearse
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

You’re a very special person. Colin would hear this a lot, and yet – somehow – he could never hear it enough.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother, Mr. Singleton / Colin’s Father
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:

His single consolation was that one day, he would matter. He’d be famous. And none of them ever would. That’s why, his mom said, they made fun of him in the first place. “They’re just jealous,” she said. But Colin knew better. They weren’t jealous. He just wasn’t likable. Sometimes it’s that simple.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Mrs. Singleton / Colin’s Mother
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Shit, Colin made a funny. This place is like magic for you. Shame about how we’re gonna die here, though. I mean, seriously. An Arab and a half-Jew enter a store in Tennessee. It’s the beginning of a joke, and the punchline is “sodomy.”

Related Characters: Hassan Harbish (speaker), Colin Singleton
Related Symbols: The Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

He thought of Chicago, where you can go days without ever once stepping on a single patch of actual earth. That well-paved world appealed to him, and he missed it as his feet fell on uneven clumps of hardened dirt that threatened to twist his ankles.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: The Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something important?

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:

He could just never see anything coming, and as he lay on the solid, uneven ground with Hassan pressing too hard on his forehead, Colin Singleton’s distance from his glasses made him realize the problem: myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments, The Theorem
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

She tried to get out as quickly and painlessly as possible, but after she begged curfew, he began to cry. She held his head against her collarbone. And even though he felt pitiful and ridiculous, he didn’t want it to end, because he knew the absence of her would hurt more than any breakup ever could.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

[Y]ou can see into the future if you have a basic understanding of how people are likely to act.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: The Theorem
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

[I]t is important to know things because it makes you special and you can read books that normal people cannot read, such as Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which is in Latin.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Like it or not, Colin thought, road trips have destinations.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Hollis Wells
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

No longer a prodigy, not yet a genius – but still a smartypants.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Hollis Wells
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Authors never included the whole story; they just got to the point. Colin thought the truth should matter as much as the point, and he figured that was why he couldn’t tell good stories.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The missing piece in his stomach hurt so much – and eventually he stopped thinking about the Theorem and wondered only how something that isn’t there can hurt you.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish
Related Symbols: The Hole in Colin’s Gut, The Theorem
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

You’re not boring. You’ve got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.

Related Characters: Lindsey Lee Wells (speaker), Colin Singleton
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“It’s funny, what people will do to be remembered.”

“Well, or to be forgotten, because someday no one will know who’s really buried there. Already a lot of kids at school and stuff think the Archduke is really buried here, and I like that. I like knowing one story and having everyone else know another. That’s why those tapes we made are going to be so great one day, because they’ll tell stories that time has swallowed up or distorted or whatever.”

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Lindsey Lee Wells (speaker), Hollis Wells
Page Number: 201-2
Explanation and Analysis:

And the moral of the story is that you don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. And the second moral of the story, if a story can have multiple morals, is that Dumpers are not inherently worse than Dumpees—breaking up isn’t something that gets done to you; it’s something that happens with you.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton (speaker), Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX), Katherine Mutsenberger (Katherine III)
Related Symbols: “Eureka” Moments, The Theorem
Page Number: 207-8
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

As the staggered lines rushed past him, he thought about the space between what we remember and what happened, the space between what we predict and what will happen. And in that space, Colin thought, there was room enough to reinvent himself – room enough to make himself into something other than a prodigy, to remake his story better and different – room enough to be reborn again and again….There was room enough to be anyone – anyone except whom he’d already been, for if Colin had learned one thing from Gutshot, it’s that you can’t stop the future from coming. And for the first time in his life, he smiled thinking about the always-coming infinite future stretching out before him.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells
Related Symbols: Satan’s Hearse
Page Number: 214-15
Explanation and Analysis:

Colin’s skin was alive with the feeling of connection to everyone in that car and everyone not in it. And he was feeling not-unique in the very best possible way.

Related Characters: Colin Singleton, Hassan Harbish, Lindsey Lee Wells, Katherine Carter (Katherine I/XIX)
Page Number: 215
Explanation and Analysis: