Top 660 Quotes & Sayings by David Levithan - Page 3

I am learning that a life isn't real unless someone else knows its reality. And I want my life to be real.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

That's what it felt like - that if I let a little of the hurt out, it would keep pouring out until I was a deflated balloon of a person, with a big monster of hurt in front of me.

The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations.

Yes, time can be buoyed by wordlessness, but it needs to be anchored in words.

Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.

Honestly, I'm just trying to live day to day

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

When Dawn looked at Vic, she saw Vic exactly as he wanted to be seen. Whereas Vic's parents couldn't help seeing who he used to be, and so many friends and strangers couldn't help seeing who he didn't want to be anymore, Dawn only saw him. Call it a blur if you want, but Dawn didn't see a blur. She saw a very distinct, very clear person.

You can't know what it is like for us now--you will always be one step behind. Be thankful for that. You can't know what it was like for us then--you will always be one step ahead. Be thankful for that, too.

Is that all we need? Can the way we say each other's names encompass all our history, all our love, all our fear, all our fights, all our reunions, all of what we know about each other, all of what we don't know?

Things rarely get fixed the way they need to be.

I'll see you later, he says, and as he does, he runs his finger briefly over my wrist. It passes over me like air, and makes me shiver like a kiss.

If we actually thought about every decision we made, we'd be paralyzed ... You have to decide which decisions you're actually going to make, and then you have to let the rest of them go.

After a while, you have to be at peace with the fact that you simple are

Maybe that's what history is, you go from one I can't believe it the next. And sometimes the I can't believe its are good, and sometimes they're bad. But the sum total of positive ones always outweighs the negative ones.

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.

You have to trust the words. They do not create anything more than themselves.

But you have to figure that if it’s too hard to hang on, then maybe you should let go.

I preferred to hang out with the dead, dying, or desperate books - used we call them, in a way that we'd never call a person, unless we meant it cruelly

this blue shirt i have is practically the same color as my jeans, and looking all-blue is something only cookie monster can pull off.

This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.

It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.

Music is everywhere. It’s in the air between us, waiting to be sung.

And maybe it is only by finding yourself that you can feel the true intensity of becoming close to another person.

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

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

But I think we both knew, even then, that what we had was something even more rare, and even more meaningful. I was going to be his friend, and was going to show him possibilities. And he, in turn, would become someone I could trust more than myself.

The more kindness and justice are challenged, the more we must embrace them. Only when you are challenged - and only when you challenge yourself - do you discover what truly matters.

Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.

I never have people tell me their stories. I usually have to figure them out myself. Because I know that if people tell me stories, they will expect them to be remembered. And I cannot guarantee that. There is no way to know if the stories stay after I'm gone. And how devastating would it be to confide in someone and have the confidence disappear? I don't want to be responsible for that.

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.

But death is not freedom. For a moment, it can look like freedom. But then it's death. Anything. Something. Nothing.

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

But there was something about you that made me think of sparks and motion.

Do not just seek happiness for yourself. Seek happiness for all. Through kindness. Through mercy.

I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.

If you tell me, I will leave you alone," I said. "And if you don't tell me, I am going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent. Would you prefer me to read from Daphne's Three Tender Months with Harold or Cindy and John's House of Everlasting Love? I guarantee, your sanity and your indie street cred won't last a chapter. And they are very, very short chapters." Now I could see the fright beneath the defiance.

He was attractive. I knew that. And I knew that attractive people always got away with things.

I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.

The unwarranted devotion. Putting up with the fear of being with the wrong person because you can't deal with the fear of being alone. The hope tinged with doubt, and the doubt tinged with hope. Every time I see these feelings in someone else's face, it weighs me down.

The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. Each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. What we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. Suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. The fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. All along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. But now you find that it's the key.

In small letters, someone has written NEVER FORGET on one of the slats. I know it's supposed to be a pledge, but it feels like a curse. Don't we have to forget some of it? Don't we have to forget this feeling? If we don't, how will we live?

Please may this not be a game. Please may this not be a game. Because if it’s a game, I know I’m going to lose.

this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.

They never played games with each other, they never had tow worry where they stood, because if either of them had a moment of wavering, the other would say I love you and would mean it and all doubts were forgiven because in this one case it was found that love conquers all.

tiny: but there is the word, this word phil wrayson taught me once: weltschmerz. it's the depression you feel when the world as it is does not line up with the world as you think it should be. i live in a big goddamned weltzschermz ocean, you know? and so do you.

But I think we were walking around like we were invincible. And maybe that's a bad way to live your life. Because you're not invincible. Nobody is. And maybe now that we've learned that, we'll be better.

That's what the voices in your head are for, to get you through the silent parts.

motif, n. You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you.

I am proud that I defy your categories. I am proud that I don't fit easily into any box. I am proud of all the things I am and all the things i can be. Question yourself every time you think you only see one thing in me.

This is my life, I think. I am an accumulation of objects.

Maybe relationships could have fractals, too. And maybe the sense of loss was when you're becoming a fractal of what you once were to each other.