Quotes from David Levithan

It daunted me that you were so beautiful, that you were so at ease in social situations, as if every room was heliotropic, with you at the center. And I guess it daunted you that I had so many more friends than you, that I could put my words together like this, on paper, and could sometimes conjure a certain sense out of things. The key is to never recognize these imbalances. To not let the dauntingness daunt us.

The past and future are what's complicated. It's the present that's simple.

You know one me. Just like I know one you. But you can't know every me, Evan. And I can't know every you.

We do not start as dust. We do not end as dust. We make more than dust.

She is so lost in her sadness that she has no idea how visible it is. I think I understand her—for a moment, I presume to understand her—but then, from within this sadness, she surprises me with a brief flash of determination. Bravery, even.

confrontation, n.: You turn away from the truth when asked to face it, while I stare at it too long, until it becomes a blur.

Oh, honey, she says when I'm done with my wallowing, it's like my grandma used to say: Just when you think life's got you in a gutter, a tornado will come along and destroy your house. And then you rebuild? I ask. Well, she never mentioned that part, but I suppose it could happen. I am not cheered up.

this is what i never allowed myself to need. and of course what i've been needing all along.

And for that moment, my heart is lifting too fast to be scared of falling.

I am here because of love.

Since I'm not part of it yet, I see it: how a group of people can become a blizzard, how all the tie spent buying and picking out exactly the right clothes doesn't mean shit now because nobody is looking at clothes or poses.

I have learned how 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.

If you put enough closets together, you have enough space for a room. If you put enough rooms together, you have enough room for a house. If you put enough houses together, you have space for a town, then a city, then a nation, then a world.

It's okay, I say-perhaps the biggest lie of all. But it's one of those things you do. You say something like It's okay not because it is, in fact, okay, but because you're hoping these words will somehow make it okay. Even though they never, ever do.

That air. The air afterwards. I wanted to breathe it in. It felt right to breathe it in. Because we were breathing them in, weren't we? And the building. We were breathing it all in. And I thought, there's a part of this that's actually a part of me now. I now have that responsibility. I am alive, and I am breathing, and I can do the things this dust can't do.

But if I didn't want to be alone, then why didn't I want to be with anyone else?

Now when I have to remember a date, all I have to do is consult my rap sheet.

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.

Lets always love each other, and never be in love with each other. And I agreed.

don't touch me i said because i can't handle someone being good to me.

I want to be here with her. I want to be the one who lives up to her hopes.

The DJ opens his eyes and sees what he's done. By all rights, he should switch the song. But it's a long-distance dedication to the boy he loves down in Texas. He dials up the boy right now and holds his phone into the air. Not all songs need to be for dancing. There will always be the next song, to draw the dancers back.

The only way to survive is to let some of them go.

I want to say more, but don't know what the words are supposed to be. I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable night time conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no room in the air.