Background Image

...

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.

-David Levithan

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Holden Caulfield Is The

David Levithan

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From David Levithan

I'm A Firm Believer That Every Person, Young Or Old, Has At Least One Good Story To Tell.

Deep Breaths. I Am Taking Deep Breaths. Composure. Which, For Me, Means Composing... Maybe This Is My Way Of Creating The Illusion Of Control Over Something I Have No Control Over. Like, If It's Just A Story I'm Telling Or A Song I'm Singing, Then I'll Be Okay Because I'm The Guy Who's Providing The Words.

I Would Always Wait To Take You Home.

If Goodness Can't Come From Bad Things, It Makes Bad Things Unbearable.

His Books Are Kept On Freestanding Shelves Hung At Different Angles On A Sea-green Wall. They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

Someday Your Prince Will Come," I Assure Him. "and The First Thing I'm Going To Say To Him Is, 'what Took You So Long?

Sorry To Be So Cynical, But This Is New York

My Face Seems Too Square And My Eyes Too Big, Like I'm Perpetually Surprised, But There's Nothing Wrong With Me That I Can Fix.

If You Start The Day Reading The Obituaries, You Live Your Day A Little Differently.

The World Loves Stupid Labels. I Wish We Got To Choose Our Own.

Things Are Not Magical Because They've Been Conjured For Us By Some Outside Force. They Are Magical Because We Create Them.

Anchor, V.: I Drift, I Drift, I Drift, You Stay.

I Can Take Everything On Her Face At Face Value, And That's Valuable In A Friend.

My Mother Said I Should Have A 'change Of Scenery.' The Word Scenery Made Be Think Of A Play. And As We Were Driving Around, It Made Sense That Way. Because No Matter How Much The Scenery Changed, We Were Still On The Same Stage.

Every Single Answer Starts With The Phrase 'i Don't Know.' But Most Of The Time She Does Know, If I Give Her The Time And The Space In Which To Answer.

And Who Am I To Blow Against The Wind?

I Am Breathing. In Dreams, We Never Bother To Breathe.

You Ask Me What I'm Looking For, And I Outline You. You Don't Recognize The Shape, Offer Other Names. You Say My Time Will Come, And I Hope.

I Have No More Idea Now Of Who I Am Than I Did Before. But At Least I Know That. And I'm Starting To Figure Out Who I Want To Be.

Fate Has A Strange Way Of Making Plans.

Underneath All That Denial, You're Someone Who's Deeply, Deeply Nice.

You Never Let Things Go Unanswered For Too Long. Emails. Phone Calls. Questions. As If You Know The Waiting Is The Hardest Part For Me.

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 Memories That Will Remain, Memories Of The Time When There Was Still Time Left.

Every Two People Cause And Intersection. Every Person Alters The World.

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.

New Yorkers Love The Bigness -- The Skyscrapers, The Freedom, The Lights. But They Also Love It When They Can Carve Out Some Smallness For Themselves. When The Guy At The Corner Store Knows Which Newspaper You Want. When The Barista Has Your Order Ready Before You Open Your Mouth. When You Start To Recognize The People In Your Orbit, And You Know That, Say, If You're Waiting For The Subway At Eight Fifteen On The Dot, Odds Are The Redhead With The Red Umbrella Is Going To Be There Too.

Such A Strange Thing, To Hold A Six-year-old's Hand. Especially A Six-year-old You've Only Just Met. A Toddler Will Grab Hold Of Your Finger, And Someone Your Own Age Will Clasp On To Your Whole Hand, But With Six-year-olds It's Something In Between, This Acknowledgment That They Can't Be The One To Take Hold, So You Have To Do All The Holding, Folding Your Hand Around Theirs, Feeling So Much Bigger And Responsible.

You Are So Close, And I Can’t Reach You.

The Thing About Champagne,you Say, Unfoiling The Cork, Unwinding The Wire Restraint, Is That Is The Ultimate Associative Object. Every Time You Open A Bottle Of Champagne, It's A Celebration, So There's No Better Way Of Starting A Celebration Than Opening A Bottle Of Champagne. Every Time You Sip It, You're Sipping From All Those Other Celebrations. The Joy Accumulates Over Time.

Every Day I Am Someone Else. I Am Myself-i Know I Am Myself-but I Am Also Someone Else. It Has Always Been Like This.

Once Time Is Lit, It Will Burn Whether Or Not You're Breathing It In. Even After Smoke Becomes Air, There Is The Memory Of Smoke. I Am Seeing As If By The Light Of A Match, A Glimpse Of My Life And Having It Feel Right.

Are You Going To Be Playing For The Pure Thrill Of Unreluctant Desire?

If You Stare At The Center Of The Universe, There Is Coldness There. A Blankness. Ultimately, The Universe Doesn't Care About Us. Time Doesn't Care About Us. That's Why We Have To Care About Each Other.

Yearning N. And Adj. At Te Core Of This Desire Is The Belief That Everything Can Be Perfect.

It Felt Good To Be Surrounded By Books, By All This Solid Knowledge, By These Objects That Could Be Ripped Page By Page But Couldn't Be Torn If The Pages All Held Together.

Even If Neither Of Us Got What We Wanted, We Found Freedom In The Third Choices.

What Separates Us From The Animals, What Separates Us From The Chaos, Is Our Ability To Mourn People We’ve Never Met.

Gone Is Not Forgotten, But Our Lives Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Has To Be A City. Our Lives Have To Be Our Lives.

This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending

Trying To Write About Love Is Ultimately Like Trying To Have A Dictionary Represent Life. No Matter How Many Words There Are, There Will Never Be Enough.

Why Do We Feel The Need To Disconnect In Order To Connect?

I Don't Even Know What I'm Looking For, Although I Hope I'll Know It If I Find It Along The Way. Sometimes I Want To Simplify My Life Into A Simple Bare Thing. And Other Times I Want To Complicate It So Thoroughly That Everything I Touch Will Become Bound In Some Way To Me. I've Become Quite Aware Of My Contradictions, But There's No True Resolution In That.

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.

It Is Much Harder To Lie To Someone's Face. But. It Is Also Much Harder To Tell The Truth To Someone's Face.

Telling The Truth

Dispel, V. It Was The Way You Said, “i Have Something To Tell You.” I Could Feel The Magic Drain From The Room.

You Are Happy Even If You Are Afraid To Admit It.

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.

I Don't Get This At All. It's Like Protesting The Fact That Some People Are Red-haired.

It's Almost Heartening To Think That The Attachment You Have Can Define Your Perception As Much As Any Other Influence.

The Assumption Of The Word Reunion Is That, Once You're Together Again, You Are United. Two As One. Pulling Close To Someone Is Only A Temporary Symbol. It's The Way You Breathe With Each Other That's The Telltale Sign.

I Have Taken Advantage Of Other People's Weaknesses In Order To Cover My Own.

I Try To Be A Careful Person. Most Of The Time My Carelessness Is Completely Unintentional.

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.

I Know I Should Just Leave. Just Go. Because There's A Point Where A Mistake Turns Into A Big Mistake, And I Should Probably Come To My Senses Before I Get There.

We All Contain Mysteries, Especially When Seen From The Inside.

He Is Both The Source Of My Happiness And The One I Want To Share It With.

I Had A Sense Then Of How If We Truly Understood How Many Of The Unimportant Things We Do Will End Up Outliving Us, We'd Never Be Able To Go On.

Unimportant Things

It's The Way You Say Thank You Like You're Genuinely Thankful. I Have Never Met Anyone Else Who Does That On A Regular Basis.

Her Mind Is An Unquiet One, Words And Thoughts And Impulses Constantly Crashing Into Each Other.

Simon: That's Disgusting! Me: What's Disgusting? Simon: You Know. You Put Your Thing In The Place Where He, Um, Defecates.

Dullness Is The Spice Of Life. Which Is Why We Must Always Use Other Spices.

There Is Something So Intimate About Saying The Truth Out Loud. There Is Something So Intimate About Hearing The Truth Said. There Is Something So Intimate About Sharing The Truth, Even If You Are Not Entirely Sure What It Means.

Apparel, N.: There Are Times I Don’t Mind Doing The Laundry, Because Folding Your Clothes Reminds Me Of The Shape Of You.

This Is What A Memorial Is: Standing Still, Staring At Something That Isn’t Ther

Love And I Once Had A Great Relationship, But I Fear We've Broken Up. It Cheated On Me, Wrecked My Heart, And Then Went On To Date Other People. A Lot Of Other People. And I Can't Stand To Watch It, Since Love's Going To Cheat On Them Too.

Its Almost Scary How Amateur I Am When It Comes To Musicals - Im A Musical Goer, But I Am Not As Obsessed With Musicals As Perhaps Some Of My Theatrical Friends Are.

My Main Piece Of Advice Would Be Dont Worry About Being Published - Just Write A Really Good Book, But Also Dont Be Afraid To Write A Bad Book. Give Yourself Permission To Fail, And Dont Be Afraid.

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.

Next To It Was A Dvd Called 'as I Get Laid Dying,' Which Had A Hospital Scene On The Front. It Was Like Grey's Anatomy, Only With Less Grey And More Anatomy.

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.

Do Not Just Seek Happiness For Yourself. Seek Happiness For All. Through Kindness. Through Mercy.

I Only Have Eyes For You.

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.

When Is A Night Over? Is It The Start Of Sunrise Or The End Of It? Is It When You Finally Go To Sleep Or Simply Realize That You Have To? When The Club Closes Or When You Everyone Leaves? "it's Over When You Decide It's Over," She Says. "when You Call It A Night. The Rest Is Just A Matter Of Where The Sun Is In The Sky.

Your Life Is Inescapable. Unless You Decide To Escape It.

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.

Gravity, N. I Imagine You Saved My Life. And Then I Wonder If I'm Just Imagining It.

Maybe There Is Hope In The Fragments, That What Is Lost Can Always Be Filled In By Someone Who Knows.

And As We Drift Into Sleep, I Feel Something I’ve Never Felt Before. A Closeness That Isn’t Merely Physical. A Connection That Defies The Fact That We’ve Only Just Met. A Sensation That Can Only Come From The Most Euphoric Of Feelings: Belonging.

There Is The Sudden. There Is The Eventual. And In Between, There Is The Living.

The Minute I Knew I Was In Love Was The Minute When There Was No Question About It.

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?

This Is The Hard Part About Having Best Friends That I Feel No Attachment To -- I Don't Give Them Any Benefit Of The Doubt. And Being Best Friends Is Always About The Benefit Of The Doubt.

...he Hopes That Maybe It'll Make People A Little Less Scared Of Two Boys Kissing Than They Were Before, And A Little More Welcoming To The Idea That All People Are, In Fact, Born Equal, No Matter Who They Kiss Or Screw, No Matter What Dreams They Have Or Love They Give.

What I Want Is For What I Want To Actually Matter.

Here," She Said. "this Is For You." "i Didn't Really Get You Anything," I Sputtered. "i Mean, I Didn't Know That You Were Going To Be Here, And--" "don't Worry. It's Your Embarrassment At Not Having The Thought That Counts.

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.

Breathtaking, Adj. Those Moments When We Kiss And Surrender For An Hour Before We Say A Single Word.

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.

It's Not The Easy Things That Let You Get To Know A Person.

And Yes, Holden Would Keep Those Kids From Falling Off The Cliff, But Who Wouldn't? Does She Think I Would Just Fold My Arms Or Give Them A Pat On The Back Before They Sailed Headfirst To The Ground? We Are All Catchers, And It's Sad That She Doesn't See It. Instead She Sees The Phoniness, She Deplores The World Even After I Point Out That I Am In It.

I Guess It's A Choice We Make," She Said. "what's A Choice?" I Asked. And She Said, "how Much Of The World We Let In.

For I Have Never Wanted A Lover, But I Have Always Wanted To Love, And To Be Loved.

I Know From Experience That Beneath Every Peripheral Girl Is A Central Truth. She’s Hiding Hers Away, But At The Same Time She Wants Me To See It.

Without You I Wouldn't Have Been Able To Contain The Hate. I Would Have Used It Against Myself. You're The One Who Helped Me Control It. My Mind Spun Out To Other Things. But It Always Came Back To You.

Serrated, Adj. And You Said, "i'm Not Sure We Can.

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.

This Isn't Even Something I've Feared, Because I Never Knew It Was A Possibility.

Lying Awake Beside You, These Thoughts Run Through My Head.

I Love You-i Do-but I Am Afraid Of Making That Love Too Important. Because You're Always Going To Leave Me, A. We Can't Deny It. You're Always Going To Leave.

It's Goodbye To Some Things. And Hello To Others.

Your Humor Is Your Compass And Your Shield. You Can Hone It Into A Weapon Or You Can Pull Its Strands Out To Make Your Very Own Cotton-candy Blanket. You Can’t Exist On A Diet Of Humor Alone, But You Can’t Exist On A Diet Without It, Either.

How Can You Spend Hours Every Day Trying In Small Ways To Figure Out Who You Are, Then Have A Near-stranger Give You A Sentence Of Yourself That Says It Better Than You Ever Could?

I Hope Suffering Don't Exist.

It's Hard To Answer A Question You Haven't Been Asked. It's Hard To Show You Tried Unless You End Up Succeeding.

After Working For So Long On Being Sure Of Each Other, Sure Of This Thing, Suddenly We Were Unsure Again.

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.

We Remember What It Was Like To Meet Someone New. We Remember What It Was Like To Grant Someone Possibility. You Look Out From Your Own World And Then You Step Into His, Not Really Knowing What You’ll Find There, But Hoping It Will Be Something Good. Both Ryan And Avery Are Doing This. You Step Into His World And You Don’t Even Realize Your Loneliness Is Missing. You’ve Left It Behind, And You Don’t Notice Because You Have No Desire To Turn Back.

Two Infinities: The One That Stretches To The Beginning But Never Touches-when You Halve And Halve And Halve, Infinitely-and Then The One That Spreads Out Into The Endless, Endless Future, The Endless, Endless, Distance.the Set Of Infinities That Is Itself Infinite.

I Have To Cross The River Of Extreme Awkwardness In Order To Get To The Paradise On The Other Side.

It's Like You're A Character In This Book That Everyone Around You Is Writing, And Suddenly You Have To Say, 'i'm Sorry, But This Role Isn't Right For Me'. And You Have To Start Writing Your Own Life And Doing Your Own Thing.

I Saw His Scars - The Visible Ones-and Saw How Breaking Him Had Not Made Him Any Less Beautiful. If Anything, He Stood Stronger, Because He'd Survived.

And When He Catches Me Off Guard And Says 'i Love You' I Catch Him Off Guard And Say 'i Need Your Help.

Once You Experience Enormity, It Lingers Everywhere You Look, And Want To Be Every Word You Say.

With Some People ,the Minute You Start Talking, It Feels Like You've Known Them For Years. It Only Means That You Were Supposed To Meet Sooner. You're Feeling All The Time You Should Have Known Each Other, But Didn't. That Time Still Counts. You Can Definitely Feel It.

Because It Is Senior Year I Have Begun To See Things As Potential Absences. The Things I Love Will Become The Things I'll Miss.

We Wish We Could Have Been There For You. We Didn't Have Many Role Models Of Our Own--we Latched On To The Foolish Love Of Oscar Wilde And The Well-versed Longing Of Walt Whitman Because Nobody Else Was There To Show Us An Untortured Path. We Were Going To Be Your Role Models. We Were Going To Give You Art And Music And Confidence And Shelter And A Much Better World. Those Who Survived Lived To Do This. But We Haven't Been There For You. We've Been Here. Watching As You Become The Role Models.

The Truth Feels Different From Other Things. The Closest You Can Come To Describing It Is That It Feels Like Taking A Perfect Breath.

I Am Constantly Torn Between Killing Myself And Killing Everyone Around Me.

I Am Like The Fish In The Aquarium, Thinking In A Different Language, Adapting To A Life That’s Not My Natural Habitat. I Am The People In The Other Cars, Each With His Or Her Own Story, But Passing Too Quickly To Be Noticed Or Understood.

I Can't Pretend To Know What Love Is. It Just Is.

Maybe Tonight You're Scared Of Falling, And Maybe There's Somebody Here Or Somewhere Else You're Thinking About, Worrying Over, Fretting Over, Trying To Figure Out If You Want To Fall, Or How And When You're Gonna Land, And I Gotta Tell You, Friends, To Stop Thinking About The Landing, Because It's All About Falling.

Being With Someone For Over A Year Can Mean That You Love Them … But It Can Also Mean You’re Trapped.

In My Experience, Desire Is Desire, Love Is Love. I Have Never Fallen In Love With A Gender. I Have Fallen For Individuals.

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.

So What Else Can I Tell You?" I Asked. "i Mean, To Get You To Reveal Lily To Me.

Me Giving My Mom Romantic Advice Is Kind Of Like A Goldfish Giving A Snail Advice On How To Fly.” -will Grayson (pg. 66)

I Have Become Very Good At Clearing Histories.

As Long As We Can Conjure, Who Needs Anything Else? As Long As We Can Agree On The Magical Lie And Be Happy, What More Is There To Ask For? “i Loved You From That Moment On,” I Say. “i Loved You From That Moment On,” You Agree.

I Am Learning That A Life Isn't Real Unless Someone Else Knows Its Reality. And I Want My Life To Be Real.

Indelible, Adj. That First Night, You Took Your Finger And Pointed To The Top Of My Head, Then Traced A Line Between My Eyes, Down My Nose, Over My Lips, My Chin, My Neck, To The Center Of My Chest. It Was So Surprising. I Knew I Would Never Mimic It. That One Gesture Would Be Yours Forever.

Happiness Is So Rarely A Part Of My Vocabulary, Because For Me It's So Fleeting

And I'm Moved, It's So Beautiful. Not What I Wrote, But To Have It Given Back Like This. To Have Her Remember The Words And The Tune. To Hear It In Her Voice.

You Think Fairy Tales Are Only For Girls? Here's A Hint - Ask Yourself Who Wrote Them. I Assure You, It Wasn't Just The Women. It's The Great Male Fantasy - All It Takes Is One Dance To Know That She's The One. All It Takes Is The Sound Of Her Song From The Tower, Or A Look At Her Sleeping Face. And Right Away You Know - This Is The Girl In Your Head, Sleeping Or Dancing Or Singing In Front Of You. Yes, Girls Want Their Princes, But Boys Want Their Princesses Just As Much. And They Don't Want A Very Long Courtships. They Want To Know Immediately.

I Want To Know Why This Is Such A Part Of Me. I Want To Know Why This Thing That Happened To Other People Has Happened So Much To Me. I Keep Looking For The Lesson.

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.

There Are Many Things That Can Keep You In A Relationship," I Say. "fear Of Being Alone. Fear Of Disrupting The Arrangement Of Your Life. A Decision To Settle For Something That's Okay, Because You Don't Know If You Can Get Any Better. Or Maybe There's The Irrational Belief That It Will Get Better, Even If You Know He Won't Change.

I Have Learned How To Observe, Far Better Than Most People Observe. I Am Not Blinded By The Past Or Motivated By The Future. I Focus On The Present, Because That Is Where I Am Destined To Live.

I Am Made For Running. Because When You Run, You Could Be Anyone. You Hone Yourself Into A Body, Nothing More Or Less Than A Body. You Respond As A Body, To The Body. If You Are Racing To Win, You Have No Thoughts But The Body's Thoughts, No Goals But The Body's Goals. You Obliterate Yourself In The Name Of Speed. You Negate Yourself In Order To Make It Past The Finish Line.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss. Bliss Is Knowing The Full Meaning Of What You Have Been Given.

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.

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.

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.

I Think One Of The Highest Compliments You Can Give A Person Is That When You Are Talking To Him, You Are Not Thinking About The Fact That You Are Talking To Him. That Is, Your Thoughts And Words All Exist On A Single, Engaged Level. You Are Being Yourself Because You Aren't Bothering To Think About Who You Should Be. It Is Like When You Talk In A Dream.

I Had No Idea What I Wanted, Only That I Wanted Something, Which Is The Worst Kind Of Wanting.

Little Less Than A Promise, And A Little More Than A Chance.

We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

And Maybe It Is Only By Finding Yourself That You Can Feel The True Intensity Of Becoming Close To Another Person.

Finding Yourself

I Can See That The Sadness Has Returned. And It's Not A Beautiful Sadness- Beautiful Sadness Is A Myth. Sadness Turns Our Features To Clay, Not Porcelain.

...because If You Can Make Yourself Happy In The Rain Then You're Doing Pretty Alright In Life.

Make Yourself Happy

But I Guess You Don't See The Planets When You're Staring At The Sun. You Just Get Blinded.

But The Thing About A Cry For Help Is That Someone Else Needs To Be Around To Hear It.

Me: Just Don't Ask About His Forty-three Ex-boyfriends, Okay? Or Ask Him About Why He's Carrying Around An Axe. Mom:... Me: I'm Kidding About The Axe Part.

You See, Dash -- I Was Never The Girl In Your Head. And You Were Never The Boy In My Head. I Think We Both Knew That. It's Only When We Try To Make The Girl Or Boy In Our Head Real That The True Trouble Comes. I Did That With Carlos, And It Was A Bad Failure. Be Careful What You're Doing, Because No One Is Ever Who You Want Them To Be. And The Less You Really Know Them, The More Likely You Are To Confuse Them With The Girl Or Boy In Your Head.

You Can Give Words, But You Can't Take Them. And When Words Are Given, That Is When They Are Shared. We Remember What That Was Like. Words So Real They Were Almost Tangible. There Are Conversations You Remember, For Certain. But More Than That, There Is The Sensation Of Conversation. You Will Remember That, Even When The Precise Words Begin To Blur.

I Am Here Because Of Love.

...but The Truth Is That I Don't Feel Like I Can Carry Anyone But Myself Right Now. The Streets Are Empty. I Am Empty. Or, No--i Am Full Of Pain. It's My Life That's Empty.

Maybe Your History Just Repeats And Repeats Until It Batters You Enough To Snap The Seams That Hold You Together

We Hold Hands As We Walk Through Town. If Anybody Notices, Nobody Cares. I Know We All Like To Think Of The Heart As The Center Of The Body But At This Moment, Every Conscious Part Of Me Is In The Hand That He Holds. It Is Through That Hand, That Feeling, That I Experience Everything Else.

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.

I Still Don’t Know If This Is A Good Quality Or A Bad One, To Be Able To Be In The Moment And Then Step Out Of It.

It Was A Mistake," You Said. But The Cruel Thing Was, It Felt Like The Mistake Was Mine, For Trusting You.

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?

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.

The Older I Get, The More I Lose My Ability To Breathe.

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.

Every Time You Love Someone, You Put Not Just Your Faith In Them, But Your Faith In Everything To The Test.

Sometimes When You Hit Send, You Can Imagine The Message Going Straight Into The Person's Heart. But Other Times, Like This Time, It Feels Like The Words Are Merely Falling Into A Well.

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

Enlightenment Is Scary. Sometimes Things Look Better In The Dark.

You Know What’s A Great Metaphor For Love? Sleeping Beauty. Because You Have To Plow Through This Incredible Thicket Of Thorns In Order To Get To Beauty, And Even Then, When You Get There, You Still Have To Wake Her Up. — Tiny Cooper

Placid, Adj. Sometimes I Love It When We Just Lie On Our Backs, Gaze Off, Stay Still.

After A While, You Have To Be At Peace With The Fact That You Simple Are

Tiny: Did Someone Die? Me: Yeah, I Did. He Smiles Again At That. Tiny: Well, Then... Welcome To The Afterlife.

Are You A Vegetarian?' I Ask, Based On The Evidence In Front Of Me. She Nods. 'why?' 'because I Have This Theory That When We Die, Every Animal That We've Eaten Has A Chance At Eating Us Back. So If You're A Carnivore And You Add Up All The Animals You've Eaten--well, That's A Long Time In Purgatory, Being Chewed.' 'really?' She Laughs. 'no. I'm Just Sick Of The Question. I Mean, I'm A Vegetarian Because I Think It's Wrong To Eat Other Sentient Creatures. And It Sucks For The Environment.

When You Live As I Do, You Cannot Indulge In Jealousy. If You Do, It Will Rip You Apart.

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.

Freedom Is Also About What You Will Allow Yourself To Do.

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.

You Made Me Lose My Appetite, Boomer." "my Mom Tells Me That All The Time. Your Family Must Be Just Like Mine!

Detachment, N. Even When I Detach, I Care. You Can Be Separate From A Thing And Still Care About It.

They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

I Was Sixteen And Equipped With The Appropriate Genitalia, So I Cleared That Hurdle Nicely.

We Do Not Start As Dust. We Do Not End As Dust. We Make More Than Dust. That's All We Ask Of You. Make More Than Dust.

But We Comforted Ourselves With What We Really Meant To Say, Which Was: "i Don't Normally Feel This Good About What I'm Doing." Measure The Hope Of That Moment, That Feeling. Everything Else Will Be Measured Against It.

He Is Much Stronger Than I Think I Am. He Is Mischievous, Outgoing, Ready To Soar Through The Clouds, While I Often Feel Like The Cloud Itself.

It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Son As A Son And To Start Seeing Him As A Human Being. It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Parents As Parents And To Start Seeing Them As Human Beings. It's A Two-sided Transition, And Very Few People Manage It Gracefully.

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.

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.

You Like Him Because He's A Lost Boy. Believe Me, I've Seen It Happen Before. But Do You Know What Happens To Girls Who Love Lost Boys? They Become Lost Themselves. Without Fail.

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.

I Think That If You Were Somehow Able To Measure The Weight Of Human Kindness, It Would Have Weighed More On 9/11 Than It Ever Had. On 9/11, All The Hatred And Murder Could Not Compare With The Weight Of Love, Of Bravery, Of Caring. I Have To Believe That.

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.

Guarantees That

It Is Very Hard To Stay Alive Just For Your Own Sake. It Is Very Hard To Stare Into Day After Day Without Another Familiar Face Staring Back. It Turns Your Heart Into A Purposeless Muscle.

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?

What A Horrible Feeling That Is, To Know That If The Disease [aids] Had Primarily Affected Pta Presidents, Or Priests, Or White Teenage Girls, The Epidemic Would Have Been Ended Years Earlier, And Tens Of Thousands, If Not Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives Would Have Been Saved.

It’s Up To You, Not Fate. True. But It Was Also Up To Lily. That Was The Trickiest Part.

I Am Always Amazed By People Who Know Something Is Wrong But Still Insist On Ignoring It, As If That Will Somehow Make It Go Away. They Spare Themselves The Confrontation, But End Up Boiling In Resentment Anyway.

You Know, I'd Get A Tattoo With Your Name On It. Only, I Want You To Have The Freedom To Change Your Name If You Want To.

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.

Trending Author

Christopher Dodd

Category