David Levithan
But I want to feel like life matters. I had something real with you, but then the realness scared me. I decided to go for other things instead.Collection: Real
We were painting by numbers, starting with the greens. Because that happened to be our favorite color. And this, we figured, had to mean something.Collection: Mean
It daunted me that you were so beautiful, that you were so at ease in social situations, as if every room was heliotropic, with you at the center. And I guess it daunted you that I had so many more friends than you, that I could put my words together like this, on paper, and could sometimes conjure a certain sense out of things. The key is to never recognize these imbalances. To not let the dauntingness daunt us.Collection: Beautiful
Deep down? That sounds like settling to me. You shouldn't have to venture deep down in order to get to love.Collection: Order
No funny stuff in here tonight, you understand?” Dash said, “I assure you I could not contemplate any of your so-called funny stuff seeing as how I have no idea why I’m even here.” Mark scoffed. “You bookish little pervert.” “Thank you, sir!” Dash said brightly.Collection: Ideas
I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them. I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present.Collection: Lasts
You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned.Collection: Cheater
If you start the day reading the obituaries, you live your day a little differently.Collection: Reading
If goodness can't come from bad things, it makes bad things unbearable.Collection: Unbearable
only adj. thats the dilemma isn't it? when you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you.Collection: Sadness
you’d think that silence would be peaceful. but really, it’s painful.Collection: Thinking
There's no way to release yourself from a memory. It ends when it wants to end, whether it's in a flash or long after you've begged it to stop.Collection: Memories
Neophyte, n. There are millions upon millions of people who have been through this before-- why is it that no one can give my good advice?Collection: People
Eventually she fell asleep, but I kept the phone against my ear, lulled by her breathing, and her breathing again in the background. And yes, it felt like home. Like everything belonged exactly where it was.Collection: Home
Ted is smart and good-looking, but he doesn't use it to good effect, like a rich person that never gives to charity.Collection: Smart
I'm not good at relationships I always manage to find the flaws sometimes in others but mostly my own. I foretell the ending then go and create the cause save myself and end up aloneCollection: Causes
It is much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face.Collection: Lying
I think of friendship in terms of love.Collection: Thinking
Told her she was beautiful. Didn't give up when she didn't believe me.Collection: Beautiful
Breathing, n You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine. Sometimes I worry that this is happening to me in reverse. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to breathe.Collection: Running
Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else?Collection: Loneliness
There is certainty in a ring. The non-ending, the non-beginning. The ongoing. The way it holds on to you not because it's fastened or stretched or adhered. It holds on because it fits.Collection: Ongoing
She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I had to end it. She was surprised, and asked my why I thought so. I told her it wasn't a thought, more a feeling, like I couldn't breathe and knew I had to get some air. It was a survival instinct, I told her. She said it was time for dinner. Then she sat me down and told me not to worry. She said moments like this were like waking up in the middle of the night: You're scared, your'e disoriented, and you're completely convinced you're right. But then you stay awake a little longer and you realize things aren't as fearful as they seem.Collection: Night
No, really,' I said. 'I think she's great. And I honestly like her about twenty more times now than I did when we were dating. But love needs to have a future. And Sofia and I don't have a future. We've just had a good time sharing the present, that's all.Collection: Thinking
We stay this way until twilight colours the window and the hour calls me homeCollection: Twilight
Our moments are music, and sometimes – just sometimes – we can catch them and put them into some lasting form. If we didn’t have music, I don’t think we could ever be truly happy, and if we didn’t have special moments, we would never find music.Collection: Thinking
Holden Caulfield is the embodiment of what we mean by the phrase “young adult” – too young to be a grown-up, but too wise to the world to be completely innocent. He’s caught in the in-between, and that in-between is what all young adult authors write about.Collection: Wise
And I find myself saying, “It wasn’t really about her.” And finding it’s true. What do you mean?” Norah asks. It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn’t about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love.Collection: Mean
I close my eyes. And i scream. If my whole world is crashing down around me, then I am going to make the sound of the crashing. I want to scream until all my bones break.Collection: Eye
After tiny has tried ballerina pose, swing-batter-batter pose, pump-up-the-jam pose, and top-of-the-mountain-sound-of-music pose in the reflection of the bean, he walks us to a bench overlooking lake shore drive.Collection: Reflection
me: why is it upset? shouldn't it be downset? gideon: i will file a lawsuit against the dictionaries first thing tomorrow morning. we're going to tear merriam a new asshole and throw webster inside of it.Collection: Morning
that's it - hundreds of texts and conversations, thousands upon thousands of words spoken and sent, all boiled down into a single line. is that what relationships become?Collection: Lines
need is never a good basis for any relationship. it has to be much more than that.Collection: Needs
Then I go in the den and turn on Law & Order, since the only thing i can really count on in life is that whenever I turn on the TV, there will be a Law & Order episode.Collection: Order
I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable. I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.Collection: People
I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.Collection: Writing
I just needed to realize that style was like personality - it didn't always have to be consistent; it just had to be something you lived with.Collection: Personality
apparel, n.: There are times I don’t mind doing the laundry, because folding your clothes reminds me of the shape of you.Collection: Clothes
anchor, v.: I drift, I drift, I drift, you stay.Collection: Anchors
If you want to be loved, be a lovable. It's a good place to start.Collection: Want
everyone in our school has afterschool activities. mine is going home.Collection: Home
It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer.Collection: Memories
I want my own books to have their own shelves," you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.Collection: Book
There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.Collection: Self
In school, the year was the marker. Fifth grade. Senior year of high school. Sophomore year of college. Then after, the jobs were the marker. That office. This desk. But now that school is over and I've been working at the same place in the same office at the same desk for longer than I can truly believe, I realize: You have become the marker. This is your era. And it's only if it goes on and on that will have to look for other ways to identify the time.Collection: Senior
me: you know what sucks about love? o.w.g.: what? me: that it's so tied to the truth.Collection: Knows
arrears, n. My faithfulness was as unthinking as your lapse. Of all the things I though would go wrong, I never thought it would be that. "It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.Collection: Mistake
And still, for all the jealously, all the doubt, sometimes I will be struck with a kind of awe that we're together. That someone like me could find someone like you --- it renders me wordless. Because surely words would conspire against such luck, would protest the unlikelihood of such a turn of events.Collection: Doubt
placid, adj. Sometimes I love it when we just lie on our backs, gaze off, stay still.Collection: Lying