Quotes from David Levithan

There is this book, Destroy All the Cars. It's about how caring about something deeply can also make you hate the world, because the world can be really disappointing. But don't worry-- it's also funny, too. Because that's how you get through all the disappointment, right? You have to find it all funny.

But that's all bad first dates are: short stories. Good first dates are more than short stories. They are first chapters. On a good first date, everything is springtime.

I want to give her a good day. Just one good day. I have wandered for so long without any sense of purpose, and now this ephemeral purpose is given to me. I only have one day to give - so why can't it be a good one? (11)

Even when I detach, I care. You can be separated from a thing and still care about it.

I read it a lot, whenever I find it in a library. Partly because I find new things every time I read it, but also because these BOOKS are always there for me. All of them are there for me. My life changes all the time, but books don't change. My reading of them changes—I can bring new things to them each time. But the words are familiar words. The world is a place you've been before, and it welcomes you back.

I didn't write autobiography. I wrote to leave autobiography behind.

I think you're nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk or an asshole, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn't an option, you don't have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him.

Harry's parents present the two boys with a canister of Binaca. We laugh when it's clear that neither boy knows what it is. How would we explain it to them? That long ago, when you wanted your breath to be doused with mint, you'd pull out one of these slim metal tubes and spritz a little Binaca into your mouth. Whether you were covering up booze or covering up a more general sourness, you could rely on this hissing blast to do the trick.

You say that someday your prince will come. More than anything, you want him to reply, But what if your prince is right under your nose? Instead he says, Well, as long as he's mot one of those deposed princes... You wish he weren't such a prince. You wish he were a frog.

And still for all the jealousy, all the doubt, sometimes I will be stuck with a kind of awe that we're together. That someone like me could find someone like you--it renders me wordless.

I'm always jealous of people who get to be new to New York because they get to be amazed by it... I worry that it's like living at a high elevation. I've gotten used to breathing here and every part of my body is tuned to living here.

We know it is sometimes hard to receive someone's truth. Not as hard as the telling, but still hard if you care about how your response will be taken.

Burying something doesn't take away the weight of it. It only pushes the weight deeper and makes it harder to carry around.

Do you know what I learned? I learned that leaving is bullshit. Because you always take yourself wherever you go.

As much as you obsess about all the things that can go wrong, it is inevitably something you can't imagine that ends up going wrong. Which justifies worrying about everything just to make sure it's all covered.

The weight does not life itself, although over time it lightens. Sometimes we need to push. And sometimes that is very hard.

I've tried breaking things to feel better and found that it only feels better while things are breaking.

That's the dilemma isn't it? When you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you.

You leave the place you're from, you have to. But you also need to have it stay in you for a long time. It is your center.

There's such power in that, being someone's focus.

can learn a lot about people from the stories they tell, but you can also know them from the way they sing along, whether they like the windows up or down, if they live by the map or by the world, if they feel the pull of the ocean. She

Question: On a scale from one to ten how fierce are you?- David: You are just asking me this because I am gay... What the fuck does that mean? -David Levithan, at Teen Lit Con-

When they can hear each other over the wind and the music, they speak Connecticut: I will not Stamford this type of behavior. What's Groton into you? What did Danbury his Hartford? New Haven can wait. Darien't no place I'd rather I'd rather be.

He asked me if I wrote, and I told him the truth - that I was still observing, and hadn't yet found the words.