Top 267 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Chbosky

'Rent' was a special project for me. It was my first notable screenplay job. I worked with two wonderful directors on it, starting with Spike Lee in the summer of 2001. I wrote a draft for Spike and he was really good to me.

When you think back to your first kiss, your hair is perfect and she was wearing a cool outfit. We remember it with restraint and we remember it with style. We remember it as idealistically as you can think.

If the right thing came along, I would absolutely direct something I did not write because I love the process so much, but we'll see. I'm taking it day by day.

I want to be an author/director and I'm writing my second book now and I want to make a movie of it, and I hope I get to do this for the rest of my life.

Most of the people I know who were raised to be accommodating or were raised to just be nice and put everybody's needs ahead of theirs, there comes a moment when the pressure builds and they can't do it anymore. They have needs and they feel neglected and they usually explode.

'Harold and Maude' was a seminal movie for me because it's not only a beautiful love story, but it's also about the moment when misfits find each other.

I found, through the process of doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower,' that I really love directing movies and I love writing books and so this will become the centerpiece of my career for the next ten or twenty years. Doing these adaptations.

As people get older, we all know, you get married and you have a child and that becomes your family, but when you're 16 years old, especially, your family is your friends.

Movies, by nature, are not subjective, they're objective.

If you are in a movie theater, you can look two people down and they are laughing while you are laughing or you can look three people down and they love that song that you love. It is living proof that you are not alone.

Those writers that have zero say in their movie adaptations have zero say because they sell it. If you don't sell it, and you do it yourself, and you wait until the screenplay is ready, you don't have to worry about that.

As we all know, when you're an athlete things are a little bit easier for you. It didn't mean that what was going on inside my heart wasn't a bit of a thunderstorm, but outwardly I got along ok. I was really shy in seventh grade.

The girl that introduced The Smiths' song 'Asleep' to me was an important musical influence that I met in college. From there it's been an ongoing journey of different bands at different times, introducing bands and songs to me.

Well, I think that part of being young is not exactly knowing why you do some of the things that you do. And it's by exploring your life or experimenting or making mistakes and learning from them hopefully that you start to forge an identity.

'Rent' was wonderful in that I was able to adapt something that was beloved to fans, something that was very iconic, but something I had nothing to do with the creation of, so I was very removed. 'Perks' is different because it was my book.

Music is a vital part of my life, and it has been since I was a kid. It helped me find my identity as a person, it helped me find my identity as an artist, and it helped me get in touch with emotions that I didn't know I had.

I would make the movie industry more like the television industry. TV is more material driven. In TV, you can break new stars. TV can take more chances.

When I did a study of all the coming-of-age movies that meant a lot to me, whether it was 'The Graduate' or 'Rebel Without a Cause' or 'Dead Poet's Society,' they all had that timeless feel. None of them were completely married to the details of their age. They felt timeless in their treatment of it. That's what made them resonate with me.

It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report on top of that.

I look at the field, and I think about the boy who just made the touchdown. I think that these are the glory days for that boy, and this moment will just be another story someday because all the people who make touchdowns and home runs will become somebody's dad. And when his children look at his yearbook photograph, they will think that their dad was rugged and handsome and looked a lot happier than they are. I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

I don't know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like.

You take girls, for example. They're copying their moms and magazines and everything to know how to act around guys. I mean it's not like in movies where girls like assholes or anything like that. It's not that easy. They just like somebody that can give them purpose.

So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.

I spent all night working on it, and I hope Patrick likes it as much as I do. Especially the second side. I hope it's the kind of second side that he can listen to whenever he drives alone and feel like he belongs to something whenever he's sad. I hope it can be that for him.

The reason I am thinking so far in advance is because school is terribly lonely. I think I've said that before, but it's getting harder every day.

He’s my whole world.” “Don’t ever say that about anyone again. Not even me.

Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

Something really is wrong with me. And I don't know what it is.

As much as I feel sad, I think that not knowing is what really bothers me.

I love my mom. And this time, I told her I loved her. And she told me she loved me, too. And things were okay for a little while.

I just want you to know that you’re very special… and the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has.

You ever think Charlie, that our group is the same as any other group like a football team? And the only real difference between us is what we wear and why we wear it?

And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing 'unity.

If you care about somebody, you should want them to be happy. Even if you wind up being left out.

I want to make sure that the first person you kiss loves you, okay?

There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.

there was a time when these weren't memories.

It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.

Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing"; - "We accept the love we think we deserve.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.

Sam has brown hair and very, very pretty green eyes. The kind of green that doesn't make a big deal about itself.

I'm just thinking too fast-- much too fast.

I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.

on that piece of white paper, sam wrote, "write about me sometime." and i typed something back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. i just typed. "i will.

I don't think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is.

Dear friend, I feel great! I really mean it. I have to remember his for the next time I'm having a terrible week. Have you wer done that? You feel really bad, and then it goes away, and you don't know why. I try to remind myself when I feel great like this that there will be another terrible week coming someday, so I should store up as many great details as I can, so during the next terrible week, I can remember those details and believe that I'll feel great again. It doesn't work a lot, but I think it's very important to try.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

You should tell her how nice her outfit is because her outfit is her choice whereas her face isn't.

You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.

And she looked at me like she couldn't believe I knew she loved Anne Rice. I guess he didn't know how much she talked or how much I listened.

I remembered this one time that I never told anybody about. The time we were walking. Just the three of us. I was in the middle. I don't remember where we were walking to or where we were walking from. I just remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere

There are rules you follow here not because you want to, but because you have to.

To tell you the truth I love Sam. It's not a movie kind of love either. I just look at her sometimes and I think she is the prettiest and nicest person in the whole world.

And I never felt that good in my life. But I also felt bad because I saw her naked without her permission.

I feel like a big faker because I've been putting my life back together, and nobody knows.

I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not ever again.

She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.

This moment will just be another story someday.

It's like he would take a photograph of Sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. And he would think that the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. If I took it, I would know that the only reason it's beautiful is because of Sam. I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better then the girl actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera. It's very hard for me to see Sam feel better about herself just because a boy sees her that way.