David Levithan Quotes

fraught, adj. Does every “I love you” deserve an “I love you too”? Does every kiss deserve a kiss back? Does every night deserve to be spent on a lover? If the answer to any of these is “No,” what do we do?

But I guess you don't see the planets when you're staring at the sun. You just get blinded.

You think you know your possibilities. Then other people come into your life and suddenly there are so many more.

Are you a vegetarian?' I ask, based on the evidence in front of me. She nods. 'Why?' 'Because I have this theory that when we die, every animal that we've eaten has a chance at eating us back. So if you're a carnivore and you add up all the animals you've eaten--well, that's a long time in purgatory, being chewed.' 'Really?' She laughs. 'No. I'm just sick of the question. I mean, I'm a vegetarian because I think it's wrong to eat other sentient creatures. And it sucks for the environment.

Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else?

Without you I wouldn't have been able to contain the hate. I would have used it against myself. You're the one who helped me control it. My mind spun out to other things. But it always came back to you.

But I think we both knew, even then, that what we had was something even more rare, and even more meaningful. I was going to be his friend, and was going to show him possibilities. And he, in turn, would become someone I could trust more than myself.

The boy I just kissed is talking to my father. The boy I want to kiss again is waiting for my mother to serve pancakes. I must fight the urge to freak.

Told her she was beautiful. Didn't give up when she didn't believe me.

placid, adj. Sometimes I love it when we just lie on our backs, gaze off, stay still.

elliptical, adj. The kiss I like the most is one of the slow ones. It’s as much breath as touch, as much no as yes. You lean in from the side, and I have to turn a little to make it happen.

I wonder if it's possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else.

I try to convince myself that it's the alcohol talking. But alcohol can't talk. It just sits there. It can't even get itself out of the bottle.

They never played games with each other, they never had tow worry where they stood, because if either of them had a moment of wavering, the other would say I love you and would mean it and all doubts were forgiven because in this one case it was found that love conquers all.

It's the secret smile you get from knowing that, somewhere, there is someone who is yours. Not in the sense that you own her or control her. She is yours because you can say anything to her, whenever you need to. And she can do the same, whenever she needs to.

Magic naturally fades over distance. But proximity - well, when it works, proximity amplifies magic.

exemplar, n. It's always something we have to negotiate- the face that my parents are happy, and yours have never been. I have something to live up to, and if I fail, I still have a family to welcome me home. You have a storyline to rewrite, and a lack of faith that it can ever be done. You love my parents, I know. But you never get too close. You never truly believe there aren't bad secrets underneath.

Maybe there is hope in the fragments, that what is lost can always be filled in by someone who knows.

There is no such thing as equality for some. Equality must be for all. That is what freedom is. That is what liberty is. No human being is born more or less important than any other. How can we allow ourselves to forget that? What simpler truth is there?

Happiness is so rarely a part of my vocabulary, because for me it's so fleeting

When he talked to you, you seemed to fit in, but when someone else was talking, or he would be distracted, you jsut looked lonely over there. At least to me. But whenever I would tell you that, you'd say "I'm fine. I just slip out of it, you know?" And I'd say "I'll catch you," and you would say, "It's not the kind of slipping you can catch.

Family, like arsenic, works best in small doses...unless you prefer to die.

But the thing about a cry for help is that someone else needs to be around to hear it.

I know from experience that beneath every peripheral girl is a central truth. She’s hiding hers away, but at the same time she wants me to see it.

I'll see you later, he says, and as he does, he runs his finger briefly over my wrist. It passes over me like air, and makes me shiver like a kiss.

Making love without noise is like playing a muted piano-fine for practice, but you cheat yourself out of hearing the glorious results.

If there wasn't a word for it, would we realize our masochism as much?

I measure the moment in the heartbeats I skip

Do not just seek happiness for yourself. Seek happiness for all. Through kindness. Through mercy.

It was like everyone suddenly knew what mattered. Money didn't matter. Politics didn't matter. Tabloid news didn't matter. No-compassion mattered. Calm mattered. Respect mattered. Did it really take something of this magnitude to make us realize this?

You know what’s a great metaphor for love? Sleeping beauty. Because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up. — Tiny Cooper

School is school-she wants it to be over, but she's afraid of it being over, because then she'll have to figure out what comes next.

Knowledge is the only thing I take with me when I go.

Little less than a promise, and a little more than a chance.

His books are kept on freestanding shelves hung at different angles on a sea-green wall. They defy gravity, as good books should.

We pencil-sketch our previous life so we can contrast it to the technicolor of the moment.

I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.

Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.

I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether to tell them to you again. I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it. I want to take back at least half the “I love you”s, because it feels safer that way.

This is the hard part about having best friends that I feel no attachment to -- I don't give them any benefit of the doubt. And being best friends is always about the benefit of the doubt.

Love is the higher law.

It is hard to stop seeing your son as a son and to start seeing him as a human being. It is hard to stop seeing your parents as parents and to start seeing them as human beings. It's a two-sided transition, and very few people manage it gracefully.

People are rarely as attractive in reality as they are in the eyes of the people who are in love with them. Which is, I suppose, as it should be.

Love weaves itself from hundreds of threads.

Love and I once had a great relationship, but I fear we've broken up. It cheated on me, wrecked my heart, and then went on to date other people. A lot of other people. And I can't stand to watch it, since love's going to cheat on them too.

yearning n. and adj. At te core of this desire is the belief that everything can be perfect.

But I think we were walking around like we were invincible. And maybe that's a bad way to live your life. Because you're not invincible. Nobody is. And maybe now that we've learned that, we'll be better.

I think one of the highest compliments you can give a person is that when you are talking to him, you are not thinking about the fact that you are talking to him. That is, your thoughts and words all exist on a single, engaged level. You are being yourself because you aren't bothering to think about who you should be. It is like when you talk in a dream.