David Levithan Quotes

What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.

Once the storm comes out, the landscape changes. What you had before is altered in some way. And you have a choice: build something new and better from what is left or abandon it.

That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bougth at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of starwatching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something.

What a horrible feeling that is, to know that if the disease [AIDS] had primarily affected PTA presidents, or priests, or white teenage girls, the epidemic would have been ended years earlier, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved.

being with someone for over a year can mean that you love them … but it can also mean you’re trapped.

Void is when there is absolutely nothing there and the nothing is natural, a complete vacuum. But empty - with empty, you are aware of what's supposed to be there. Empty means something is missing.

You spend so much time, so much effort, trying to hold yourself together. And then everything falls apart anyway.

I couldn't remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.

Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling. Everything else will be measured against it.

Then I go in the den and turn on Law & Order, since the only thing i can really count on in life is that whenever I turn on the TV, there will be a Law & Order episode.

You made me lose my appetite, Boomer." "My mom tells me that all the time. Your family must be just like mine!

I had no idea what I wanted, only that I wanted something, which is the worst kind of wanting.

New Yorkers love the bigness -- the skyscrapers, the freedom, the lights. But they also love it when they can carve out some smallness for themselves. When the guy at the corner store knows which newspaper you want. When the barista has your order ready before you open your mouth. When you start to recognize the people in your orbit, and you know that, say, if you're waiting for the subway at eight fifteen on the dot, odds are the redhead with the red umbrella is going to be there too.

healthy, adj. There are times when I'm alone that I think, This is it. This is actually the natural state. All I need are my thoughts and my small acts of creation and my ability to go or do whatever I want to go or do. I am myself, and that is the point. Pairing is a social construction. It is by no means necessary for everyone to do it. Maybe I'm better like this. Maybe I could live my life in my own world, and then simply leave it when it's time to go.

The ocean makes its music; the wind does its dance. We hold on. At first we hold on to one another, but then it starts to feel like we are holding on to something even bigger than that. Greater.

There is a part of childhood that is childish, and a part that is sacred. Suddenly we are touching the sacred part -- running to the shoreline, feeling the first cold burst of water on our ankles, reaching into the tide to catch at shells before they ebb away from our fingers. We have returned to a world that is capable of glistening, and we are wading deeper within it.

You are so close, and I can’t reach you.

Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it.

Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and i gotta tell you, friends, to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling.

There is the sudden. There is the eventual. And in between, there is the living.

This is not something insignificant. This is real. This is happening, and this is ours.

People are always separable.

I no longer think she's just being nice. She's being kind. Which is much more a sign of character than mere niceness. Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen.

Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen.

He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything - he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that's the danger with firsts - you lose all sense of proportion.

All this hoping for something- or someone- that's maybe hopeless. I'm having a hard time processing what I am supposed to believe, or if I'm even supposed to. There is too much information, and I don't like a lot of it.

The minute I knew I was in love was the minute when there was no question about it.

I only have eyes for you.

me: you know what sucks about love? o.w.g.: what? me: that it's so tied to the truth.

For I have never wanted a lover, but I have always wanted to love, and to be loved.

Maybe, it's not the distance that's the problem, but how you handle it.

With some break-ups, all you can think about afterwards is how badly it ended and how much the other person hurt you. With others, you become sentimental for the good times and lose track of what went wrong.

Deep breaths. I am taking deep breaths. Composure. Which, for me, means composing... Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it's just a story I'm telling or a song I'm singing, then I'll be okay because I'm the guy who's providing the words.

Pride is allowed to have an element of worry, especially when you are a mother.

luckily, tiny texts me every five minutes or so. i don't know how he does it without getting caught in class. maybe he hides the phone in the folds of his stomach or something.

I am stronger than words and I am bigger than the box I'm in, and then I see her in the crowd and I fall apart.

Sharing truth is not the kind of gift that comes in wrapping paper - ripped open once and, there, you're done. No, this is a gift that must be unfolded.

I was sixteen and equipped with the appropriate genitalia, so I cleared that hurdle nicely.

I know there are epic tales of romance, where love means you're supposed to die. Where it's all about sacrifice. But I don't want to die. I don't want Stephen to die. I'm looking for the scenario where we both get to live. Where we can continue this marvel that is love and discovery and trust.

I can take everything on her face at face value, and that's valuable in a friend.

After working for so long on being sure of each other, sure of this thing, suddenly we were unsure again.

She is so lost in her sadness that she has no idea how visible it is.

I see no sin in a kiss. I only see sin in the condemnation

For the Jesus Revolutionaries, the answer was clear: Jesus would not be out waging "preventative" wars. Jesus would not be withholding medicine from people who could not afford it. Jesus would not cast stones at people of races, sexual orientatons, or genders other than His own. Jesus would not condone the failing, viperous, scandalplagued hierarchy of some churches. Jesus would welcome everyone to his his table. He would love them, and he would find peace.

Here’s what I know about the realm of possibility— it is always expanding, it is never what you think it is. Everything around us was once deemed impossible. From the airplane overhead to the phones in our pockets to the choir girl putting her arm around the metalhead. As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist within the realm of possibility. Most of the limits are of our own world’s devising. And yet, every day we each do so many things that were once impossible to us.

Here's what breaks us: Even though we know better, we still want everything to be all right.

Self-esteem can be so exhausting. I want to cut my hair, change my clothes, erase the pimple from the near-tip of my nose, and strengthen my upper-arm definition, all in the next hour.