Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by Bill Konigsberg

Do you know how you get the urge to clean your room, and it’s no big deal? But when your mom tells you that you have to clean your room, you don't want to? That's me, anyway.

Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where no one thought being gay was even something to ride someone about?

Guilt is about something you do. Shame is about who you are.

Having no room of my own to "take care of things" had begun to weigh on me. I wondered if storing up semen would have a health impact on me, positive or negative, like shinier hair or weight gain.

Straight people have it so much easier. They don’t understand. They can’t. There’s no such thing as openly straight.

It needs to be said that sometimes my mom forgets important details when she talks. Like the time she told us she was considering leather (couches, it turns out), or when I was little and she said, "Here's a napkin to put your balls in" (the Atomic Fireballs that I was eating, she meant).

The Greeks were smarter than us, and they had different words for different kinds of love. There's storge, which is family love. That's not us. There's eros, which is sexual love. There's philia, which is brotherly love. And then there's the highest form. Agape.” He pronounced it “aga-pay.” “That's transcendental love, like when you place the other person above yourself.

And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.

The hole in my heart, I can’t even begin to describe. It’s hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they’re not in it anymore. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can’t feel it anymore. I knew it might be there a little while. Or maybe even a long while. For both of us.

You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it doesn't feel good.

I don't think about relatability (when writing), I think about the heart of the character.

The world needs people who are more comfortable standing still. We keep the earth on it axis when everybody else is bouncing around.