David levithan quotes

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.

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.

Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preserving

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.

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

The words that matter always stay.

I don’t want to throw everything away for something uncertain.

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

It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show you tried unless you end up succeeding.

Every relationship has a hard part at the beginning. This is our hard part. It's not like a puzzle piece where there's an instant fit. With relationships, you have to shape the pieces on each end before they go perfectly together.

Slowly would be better than not at all.

We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.

The clock always ticks. There are times you don't hear it, and there are times that you do.

The older you get, the wiser you are - this is true. But you also question what use this wisdom is.y

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.

She stays in the same spot, anchored by the profound, desperate loneliness of a bad relationship.

I could point out that it isn't always easy knowing who you are and what you want, because then you have no excuse for not trying to get it.

We'd said we'd keep in touch. But touch is not something you can keep; as soon as it's gone, it's gone. We should have said we'd keep in words, because they are all we can string between us--words on a telephone line, words appearing on a screen.

Part of growing up is making sure your sense of reality isn't entirely grounded in your own mind.

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.

We all contain mysteries, especially when seen from the inside.

I say good-bye to the part of myself that misses him so much.

The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them.

I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.

There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.

In Sliding Doors, the whole idea is that every choice you make, and every single thing that happens to you changes the trajectory of your life, and once you are put on that trajectory, there is no way back. But Groundhog Day - which, I tell him, also happens to be a much better movie - says the opposite. It says if you mess up or make the wrong choice, you just have to keep at it until you do it right.

Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.

I hope that George doesn't internalize her scare tactics. I want to argue with her, tell her that "sins of the flesh" is just a control mechanism -- if you demonize a person's pleasure, then you can control his or her life. I can't say how many times this tool has been wielded against me, in a variety of forms. But I see no sin in a kiss. I only see sin in the condemnation.

I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.

Because that's the thing about mean people: They make you think that the world will never work, that there are divides that you will fall into if you approach. It takes a whole lot of good people to fill in the breach created by a single mean one.

Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel.

I guess I don't believe these things can ever be easy, although I also don't see why they have to be hard.

I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it.

And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn't make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.

...because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life.

You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtships. They want to know immediately.

I get it. The things you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end.

How amazing it is that friendships can become so full that you can't imagine what your life was like before them.

It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.

She transforms once again into someone carefree, and I transform into someone whose only care is her.

If I'm not telling you something, it's for a reason. Just because you trust me, it doesn't mean I have to automatically trust you. Trust doesn't work like that.

Getting what you want is just as difficult as not getting what you want. Because then you have to figure out what to do with it instead of figuring out what to do without it.

There are few things harder than being born into the wrong body.

I have already spent roughly five thousand hours asleep next to you. This has to mean something.

You don't realize - the great thing about change is how quickly we get used to it. So I'm not complaining. the more things change,the more they don't stay the same. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They might not change everywhere all at once - but there are moments when the impossible becomes the inevitable, and the rest is just a matter of time.

Some days are like this. And the only way to get through them is to remember that they are only one day, and that every day ends.

I will never have a photograph of her to carry around in my pocket. I will never have a letter in her handwriting, or a scrap-book of everything we've done. I will never share an apartment with her in the city. I will never know if we are listening to the same song at the same time. We will not grow old together. I will not be the person she calls when she's in trouble. She will not be the person I call when I have stories to tell. I will never be able to keep anything she's given to me.

There's no way for them to take away my sadness, but they can make sure I am not empty of all the other feelings.

Life goes on is a redundancy. Life is defined by its going on.

When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart.

You know there's no such thing as a complete lie. There's always some truth in there.

I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own. It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.

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.

It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other.... For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.

Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.

when things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. it's because a little piece gets lost -- the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. the whole shape has changed.

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.

Tell me a way you think this can work." "We'll find a way," I tell her. "That's not an answer. It's a hope." "Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.

There is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. The only question is whether it's a bearable one.

the world loves stupid labels. i wish we got to choose our own.

I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.

When it comes to true dance, it's not about how you look, it's all about the joy you feel.

To get something you must give something away. To hold something you must give something away. To love something you must give something away.

Even if you were green and had a beard and a male appendage between your legs. Even if your eyebrows were orange and you had a mole covering your entire cheek and a nose that poked me in the eye every time I kissed you. Even if you weighed seven hundred pounds and had hair the size of a Doberman under your arms. Even then, I would love you.

It's as if when you love someone, they become your reason.

I have no idea how he knows when I need him. We can go weeks without speaking, and then, when my blue moods threaten to turn black, he will show up and tell me my moods are azure indigo cerulean cobalt periwinkle and suddenly the blue will not seem so dark, more like the color of a noon-bright sky. He brings the sun.

This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.

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.

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.

In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals.

I don’t want you to think I got through this undamaged, okay? But I’m learning to live with it. Because otherwise, the damage is all you are.

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

This is what a memorial is: standing still, staring at something that isn’t ther

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.

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.

A photograph it a souvenir of a memory. It is not a moment. It is the looking at the photograph that becomes the moment. Your own moment.

The mistake is thinking that there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.

If you stare at the center of the universe, there is coldness there. A blankness. Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.

This is the thing they don't tell you about being a third wheel - it's not like you're the wheel that's added on. You were one of the original two wheels, but suddenly you're not so important anymore. The relationship drives fine without you.

Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.

You have to believe there are kisses and laughs and risks worth taking.

lying awake beside you, these thoughts run through my head.

i have to cross the river of extreme awkwardness in order to get to the paradise on the other side.

People often say that when couples are married for a long time, they start to look alike. I don't believe that. But I do believe their sentences start to look alike.

I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else.

The secret to living long is to have something to live for.

Pink is female - but why? Are girls any more pink than boys? Are boys any more blue than girls? It's something that has been sold to us, mostly so other things can be sold to us.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.

I don't want to fall. All I want to do is stand on solid ground.

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.

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.

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?

I'm always standing on the edge of something bad.

Most people, I've noticed, are instinctively harsh to strangers. They expect every approach to be an attack, every question to be an interruption.

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

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

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

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

Laughter rarely lasts longer than a few seconds, it's true. But how enjoyable those few seconds are.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: We all want everything to be okay. We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.

That strange, twisted, torn love. That conflict between what your heart knows is right and what your mind is told is right.

And If only I could, I'd make a deal with God.

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

We love and we feel and we try and we hope.

Answerless questions can destroy you. Move on.

I saw his scars - the visible ones-and saw how breaking him had not made him any less beautiful. If anything, he stood stronger, because he'd survived.

I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.

I guess it's a choice we make," she said. "What's a choice?" I asked. And she said, "How much of the world we let in.

I never know what you really want, if I can give it to you, or if I’m already too late.

underneath all that denial, you're someone who's deeply, deeply nice.

We are not taught "love thy neighbor unless their skin is a different color from yours " or "love thy neighbor unless they don't make money as you do" or "love thy neighbor unless they don't share your belies." We are taught "love thy neighbor". No exceptions. We are all in this together - every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion. A Great Community does not mean we all think the same things or do the same things. It simply means we are willing to work together and are willing to love despite our differences.

What I learned The well-documented difference Between alone and lonely The comfort of knowing

I am always amazed by people who know something is wrong but still insist on ignoring it, as if that will somehow make it go away. They spare themselves the confrontation, but end up boiling in resentment anyway.

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

The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations - all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.

Which is more stubborn, the love or the two arguing people caught within it?

That's the problem with having a moral code. We want to destroy the jerkish part of the jerks, but we want to save the human being underneath.

There are all these moments you don't think you will survive. And then you survive.

The terrorists-those nineteen people, with hundreds or maybe thousands behind them-did the worst thing you can possibly imagine. But tens of millions people did the right thing...On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring.

You will always be my always.

Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah

She is my first and only love. Most people know that their first love will not be their only love. But for me, she is both.

You like him because he's a lost boy. Believe me, I've seen it happen before. But do you know what happens to girls who love lost boys? They become lost themselves. Without fail.

It is very hard to stay alive just for your own sake. It is very hard to stare into day after day without another familiar face staring back. It turns your heart into a purposeless muscle.