David Levithan Quotes - Page 3

There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.
David Levithan
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.
David Levithan
We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.
David Levithan
There are boys lying awake, hating themselves. There are boys screwing for the right reasons and boys screwing for the wrong ones. There are boys sleeping on benches and under bridges, and luckier unlucky boys sleeping in shelters, which feel like safety but not like home. There are boys so enraptured by love that they can't get their hearts to slow down enough to get some rest, and other boys so damaged by love that they can't stop picking at their pain. There are boys who clutch secrets at night in the same way they clutch denial in the day. There are boys who do not think of themselves at all when they dream. There are boys who will be woken in the night. There are boys who fall asleep with phones to their ears.
David Levithan
I had made it somewhere special, and I'd gotten there all on my own. Nobody had given it to me. Nobody had told me to do it. I'd climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward. To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself. That, I found, was what I needed.
David Levithan
happy to see me and unhappy to see me at the same time
David Levithan
I realized I would always be missing something. That no matter what I did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn’t miss meant more to me than the things I missed. I had to think about what I wanted, outside the heat of wanting.
David Levithan
The past and the future are complicated. It's the present that's simple.
David Levithan
So what do you have to confess now?"I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that is the truth. "I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this.""What is 'this'?""Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.
David Levithan
It says if you mess up or make the wrong choice, you just have to keep at it until you do it right.
David Levithan
(Kindness) 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."-David Levithan (Every Day)
David Levithan
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.
David Levithan
I tried to shut myself down completely, put up my best screensaver personality to coast through the day. I didn't want to see her. I was desperate to see her. I wanted to hold it together. I wanted to melt down right at her feet and scream, Look what you've done to me.
David Levithan
It doesn’t work,” she continues, unclasping her hands, smoothing her skirt. “What you’re feeling right now doesn’t work. You can’t wander around and think the wandering will call them back. Believe me. I know you don’t want to hear the long view, but let me tell you. You are so young. I know it’s none of my business. But still.
David Levithan
I’m so sorry,” I continue. And it’s like the last word is a hurdle and I can’t leap it, because something in the word snags my voice and suddenly I am giving everything up. I am letting my shoulders fall and I am feeling myself become the absence, feeling myself become that gasp and sob.
David Levithan
Now I just want it to end. I’ve always wanted the happy ending, but now I’ll just settle for the ending.
David Levithan
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.
David Levithan
It’s not easy,” she says, in that voice that mothers have, that mix of unwanted knowledge and small consolation. “Whatever you had—I don’t know exactly what it was, and that’s fine. But it must not be easy for you. You miss him, and that’s okay. But you have to figure that if it’s too hard to hang on, then maybe you should let go.
David Levithan
My eyes are open and I’m not seeing a thing because I am so lost inside.
David Levithan
You can't wander around and think the wandering will call them back.
David Levithan
I've always wanted the happy ending, but now I'll just settle for the ending.
David Levithan
I say good-bye to hope, but I also say goodbye to hope's disappointment.
David Levithan
There's no way to know if we would have lasted. There's no way to be sure, and plenty of reasons to doubt it. I just wish I'd had the chance. That is one of the things I miss the most— the chance to make it work.
David Levithan
It’s one thing to fall in love. It’s another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.
David Levithan
There was a time before youbut I can't remember it nowa time before your beauty and Iwere formally introducedI'm sure I lived without youbut I don't remember howcan't imagine living withoutthese feelings you've produced
David Levithan
placid, adj.Sometimes I love it when we just lie on our backs, gaze off, stay still.
David Levithan
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.
David Levithan
How much of my body is really me? My face is me, for sure. Anyone who looked at my face would know it was me. (...) But after that? If I showed myself a picture of myself from the shoulders down, would I be sure it was me? (...) I close my eyes and ask myself what my feet look like. I only kind of know. (...)I let it define me, but I can't even define it.
David Levithan
Dreaming and loving and screwing. None of these are identities. Maybe when other people look at us, but not to ourselves. We are so much more complicated than that.
David Levithan
O Lord, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of doubt, at least let mewear a Walkman...
David Levithan
What strange creatures we are, to find silence peaceful, when permanent silence is the thing we most dread
David Levithan
The question is there in each silence. The question is there in the space between you. But you cannot bring it aloud.
David Levithan
We switch to another language-- not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time.
David Levithan
you’d think that silence would be peaceful. but really, it’s painful.
David Levithan
To love--to fall--is not a question. To touch--to kiss--to speak--those are questions. There is nothing worse than a ruined friendship. There is nothing better than a companion. Somewhere in between lies risk. Somewhere in between, lies.
David Levithan
It had never occurred to me that a person could know all the right things to say and deploy them to get what she wanted, without having to mean any of it.
David Levithan
Max is a marvel to us. He will never have to come out because he will never have been kept in. Even though he has a mom and a dad, they made sure from the beginning to tell him that it didn't have to be a mom and a dad. It could be a mom and a mom, a dad and a dad, just a mom, or just a dad. When Max's early affections became clear, he didn't think twice about them. He doesn't see it as defining him. It is just a part of his definition.
David Levithan
Also, I’m not going to bedevastated or anything either way. I’m not that kind of person. I just think if you don’t say thehonest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true, you know, and I—” she says,but then I hold up my finger, because I need to hear the thing she just said, and she talks toofast for me to keep up. I keep holding up my hand, thinking if you don’t say the honest thing, itnever becomes true.
David Levithan
I want you to be honest with me. Even if it hurts. Although I would prefer for it not to hurt. - A
David Levithan
But once upon a time - that would be our time - a telephone cord seemed like nothing less than a lifeline.It was your attachment to the outside world and, even more than that, your attachment to the people you loved, or wanted to love, or tried to love. Everything about it was fitting - the way it curled in on itself, the way it got so easily tangled, the way you could pull it only so far before it kept you in place.Twisted and knotted and essential.
David Levithan
He was beautiful in the way that a breeze is beautiful—the kind of beauty you feel gratitude for.
David Levithan
People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are the memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.
David Levithan
Feelings don’t follow rules. Guilt does. Fear does. But attraction? No way.
David Levithan
Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel.
David Levithan
No more looking at a wall and pretending it's a mirror. No more shelving fiction in the non-fiction section. No more thinking I could get away with it.
David Levithan
It is always the ones who believe that are hurt the worst when things go wrong.
David Levithan
She is no longer a person in his life; instead, she is a person that other people will remind him of.
David Levithan
How did my world get so small?
David Levithan
One last song. One last turn. One last street. no matter how hard you try to keep hold of a day, it's going to leave you
David Levithan
The world was full of waistrels and waifs, sycophants and spies - all of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or written suspect
David Levithan
the answer is to just let gothe betrayal is to the pastthe cocoon dangles emptythe desire outlasts the objectthe effort lingersthe frustration is in how pointless the effort wasthe ghost does not make itself transparentthe heart knows nothing except its own mindthe ideas are not enoughthe jealousy is always therethe killing blow is sometimes the softestthe life you lead can be detouredthe moment you know cannot be taken backthe new you will try to bury the old methe opportunity has passedthe past is inopportunethe questions all grow from whythe reality will always be contendedthe sadness will ebbthe trouble is the time it might takethe ugly words cannot be erased, only discreditedthe versions are never the samethe wonder is that we make it throughthe x is the unknown variablethe yesterday cannot be repeatedthe zenith is the point when you look down and realize you’re no longer below
David Levithan
Maybe fate's arithmetic is so diffuse that it's not arithmetic at all.
David Levithan
It's up to you, not fate.
David Levithan
I'll see you soon. I promise.”And there is, that moment, a shock of recognition. Elijah doesn't even know yet what he is recognizing. There is only the shock. The sense. That feeling of something happening that was meant to happen. Two people fitting in a space and time.For a moment.
David Levithan
What are your interests?""Your son in my room," I said."Excuse me?""The sun and the moon," I said. "Astronomy.
David Levithan
We could call you an ambisexual. A duosexual. A—”“Do I really have to find a word for it?” Kyle interrupts. “Can’t it just be what it is?”“Of course,” I say, even though in the bigger world I’m not so sure. The world loves stupid labels. I wish we got to choose our own.We pause for a moment. I wonder if that’s all—if he just needed to say the truth and have it heard. But then Kyle looks at me with unsure eyes and says, “You see, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.”“Nobody does,” I assure him.
David Levithan
I wake up feverish, sore, uncomfortable.Is it sickness or is it heartbreak?I can't tell.The thermometer says I'm normal, but I'm clearly not.
David Levithan
Love, he thinks, is a lie that people tell each other in order to make the world bearable. He is not up for the lie anymore. And nobody is going to lie to him like that, anyway. He's not even worth a lie.
David Levithan
As soon as Neil is out of the shower, he texts Peter. You up? he asks.And the reply comes instantly:For anything.
David Levithan
We are young and the night is young. We are in the middle of somewhere and we are feeling everything.
David Levithan