David Levithan
One of my best friends is named David Leventhal, and it has always been a constant source of amusement to see how the similarity and differences play out in our lives.
I don't want to steal anybody's story. I very much want to use the stories that I hear to get lost in my mind, to tell a larger story.
Readers embrace all kinds of characters as long as they are written with emotional truth.
The important thing is for the characters to feel real, and to be given the humanity they are due. That granting of humanity is what separates a full portrait from a stereotype.
My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid.
There's no such thing as a perfect person, so it makes no sense to write a perfect person. I don't know any author who'd try. And we write characters, not representations of groups.
I can honestly say I've never thought for a second about whether a character reflects poorly on any group. All that matters to me is that the character is true to my belief in who he or she is.
It's almost scary how amateur I am when it comes to musicals - I'm a musical goer, but I am not as obsessed with musicals as perhaps some of my theatrical friends are.
I love bouncing my words off of someone else's, and the fact that writing a story with someone else guarantees you'll get something you never, ever would have written on your own.
People read vampire novels and say, 'Oh I want to read another vampire novel.' People read fantasy, and they're like, 'Oh I love fantasy.' I don't know that people are necessarily finishing 'Hunger Games' and immediately wanting to read another dystopian tale.
Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen.Collection: Kindness
The secret to living long is to have something to live for.Collection: Life
It's as if when you love someone, they become your reason.Collection: When You Love Someone
underneath all that denial, you're someone who's deeply, deeply nice.Collection: Nice
What I learned The well-documented difference Between alone and lonely The comfort of knowingCollection: Lonely
We all contain mysteries, especially when seen from the inside.Collection: Mystery
If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: 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.Collection: Wish
Answerless questions can destroy you. Move on.Collection: Moving
Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preservingCollection: Self
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.Collection: Love
Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.Collection: Flirting
I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.Collection: Alternatives
In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals.Collection: Love Is
Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel.Collection: Falling In Love
Tell me a way you think this can work." "We'll find a way," I tell her. "That's not an answer. It's a hope." "Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.Collection: Thinking
The words that matter always stay.Collection: Meaningful
There are all these moments you don't think you will survive. And then you survive.Collection: Thinking
I get it. The things you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end.Collection: Ends
It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.Collection: Lonely
Every relationship has a hard part at the beginning. This is our hard part. It's not like a puzzle piece where there's an instant fit. With relationships, you have to shape the pieces on each end before they go perfectly together.Collection: Together
I no longer think she's just being nice. 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.Collection: Kindness
It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.Collection: Being Ignored
There is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. The only question is whether it's a bearable one.Collection: Choices
Do not just seek happiness for yourself. Seek happiness for all. Through kindness. Through mercy.Collection: Kindness
What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.Collection: Animal
I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.Collection: Suicide
That's the problem with having a moral code. We want to destroy the jerkish part of the jerks, but we want to save the human being underneath.Collection: Want
The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them.Collection: Strong
You don't realize - the great thing about change is how quickly we get used to it. So I'm not complaining. the more things change,the more they don't stay the same. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They might not change everywhere all at once - but there are moments when the impossible becomes the inevitable, and the rest is just a matter of time.Collection: Complaining
Because that's the thing about mean people: They make you think that the world will never work, that there are divides that you will fall into if you approach. It takes a whole lot of good people to fill in the breach created by a single mean one.Collection: Fall
This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.Collection: Gratitude
It was like everyone suddenly knew what mattered. Money didn't matter. Politics didn't matter. Tabloid news didn't matter. No-compassion mattered. Calm mattered. Respect mattered. Did it really take something of this magnitude to make us realize this?Collection: Compassion
I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.Collection: Mean
lying awake beside you, these thoughts run through my head.Collection: Running
I'm always standing on the edge of something bad.Collection: Standing On The Edge
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.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Sadness
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Serendipity
I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.Collection: Pain