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I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words. They Are Full Of Meaning, Yes, But They Lack Sensation. Writing To Her Is Not The Same As Seeing Her Face As She Listens. Hearing Back From Her Is Not The Same As Hearing Her Voice. I Have Always Been Grateful For Technology, But Now It Feels As If There's A Little Hitch Of Separation Woven Into Any Digital Interaction. I Want To Be There, And This Scares Me. All My Usual Disconnected Comforts Are Bieng Taken Away, Now That I See The Greater Comfort Of Presence.

-David Levithan

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I Am Starting To

David Levithan

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I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words. They Are Full Of Meaning, Yes, But They Lack Sensation. Writing To Her Is Not The Same As Seeing Her Face As She Listens. Hearing Back From Her Is Not The Same As Hearing Her Voice. I Have Always Been Grateful For Technology, But Now It Feels As If There's A Little Hitch Of Separation Woven Into Any Digital Interaction. I Want To Be There, And This Scares Me. All My Usual Disconnected Comforts Are Bieng Taken Away, Now That I See The Greater Comfort Of Presence.

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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.

We Walk Into A Bar, And You're Aware Of All The Eyes On You. We Walk Into A Bar, And I'm Aware Of All The Eyes On You, Too. For You, This Translate Into Confidence. But Me? All I Can Feel Is Doubt.

I Asked You What You Wanted And You Said You Didn't Want Anything. And I Told You I Wasn't Planning On Giving You Anything; I Was Planning On Giving You Something.

I Know The Odds Are All Against Me And I Know You Might Not Feel This Way Too But I Know I Would Rather Die Trying To Know If I Could Mean Something To You

All This Hoping For Something- Or Someone- That's Maybe Hopeless. I'm Having A Hard Time Processing What I Am Supposed To Believe, Or If I'm Even Supposed To. There Is Too Much Information, And I Don't Like A Lot Of It.

Hoping For Something

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.

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 Used To Think That When I Got Older, The World Would Make So Much More Sense. But You Know What? The Older I Get, The More Confusing It Is To Me. The More Complicated It Is. Harder. You’d Think We’d Be Getting Better At It. But There’s Just More And More Chaos. The Pieces—they’re Everywhere. And Nobody Knows What To Do About It. I Find Myself Grasping, Nick. You Know That Feeling? That Feeling When You Just Want The Right Thing To Fall Into The Right Place, Not Only Because It’s Right, But Because It Will Mean That Such A Thing Is Still Possible? I Want To Believe In That.

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

I Had Forgotten This About Love: How The Simple Things- The Turn Away, The Turn Towards- Could Be So Complicated, And How The Complicated Things- The Stolen Night, The Right Words- Could Be So Simple.

What I Really Want, And What I Never Get - Is To Be Appreciated.

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.

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

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.

Magic Naturally Fades Over Distance. But Proximity - Well, When It Works, Proximity Amplifies Magic.

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

Some Days Are Like This. And The Only Way To Get Through Them Is To Remember That They Are Only One Day, And That Every Day Ends.

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

But Isn't This A Dance? Isn't All Of This A Dance? Isn't That What We Do With Words? Isn't That What We Do When We Talk, When We Spar, When We Make Plans Or Leave It To Chance? Some Of It's Choreographed. Some Of The Steps Have Been Done For Ages. And The Rest -- The Rest Is Spontaneous. The Rest Has To Be Decided On The Floor, In The Moment, Before The Music Ends.

The Older You Get, The Wiser You Are - This Is True. But You Also Question What Use This Wisdom Is.y

There Are Few Things Harder Than Being Born Into The Wrong Body.

When He Talked To You, You Seemed To Fit In, But When Someone Else Was Talking, Or He Would Be Distracted, You Jsut Looked Lonely Over There. At Least To Me. But Whenever I Would Tell You That, You'd Say "i'm Fine. I Just Slip Out Of It, You Know?" And I'd Say "i'll Catch You," And You Would Say, "it's Not The Kind Of Slipping You Can Catch.

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

Sometimes The Space Between Knowing What To Do And Actually Doing It Is A Very Short Walk. Other Times It Is An Impossible Expanse.

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.

Dissonance, N. Nights When I Need To Sleep And You Can't. Days When I Want To Talk To You And You Won't. Hours When Every Noise You Make Interferes With My Silence. Weeks When There Is A Buzzing In The Air, And We Both Pretend We Don't Here It.

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.

I've Worn Black Today, Because I've Heard So Often That It's Supposed To Be Slimming. But Instead I Am This Sphere Of Darkness Submarining Through The Halls.

There Is No Word For The Recipient Of The Love. There Is Only A Word For The Giver. There Is The Assumption That Lovers Come In Pairs.

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.

You Can't Actually Have A Romance Between Friends. That Sort Of Defeats The Definition Of The Word "romance." The Word You're Looking For Is "love." It's A Love Between Friends, Just As There's Also Love Between Lovers, Or Possible Lovers, Or Even Ex-lovers. Same Holds True For "bromance" - It's Just A Clever Word Used To Avoid The Word Love, For Straight Boys Who Don't Want That Old-fashioned Taint Of Gayness. Dudes, You Love Each Other. Deal With It.

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.

Let Me Hold On To This The Way It Was, Before I Knew Anything Else.

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

You Can't Know What It Is Like For Us Now--you Will Always Be One Step Behind. Be Thankful For That. You Can't Know What It Was Like For Us Then--you Will Always Be One Step Ahead. Be Thankful For That, Too.

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?

People Read Vampire Novels And Say, Oh I Want To Read Another Vampire Novel. People Read Fantasy, And Theyre Like, Oh I Love Fantasy. I Dont Know That People Are Necessarily Finishing Hunger Games And Immediately Wanting To Read Another Dystopian Tale.

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

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.

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.

That Strange, Twisted, Torn Love. That Conflict Between What Your Heart Knows Is Right And What Your Mind Is Told Is Right.

The Tenderness Between Two People Can Turn The Air Tender, The Room Tender, Time Itself Tender. As I Step Out Of Bed And Slip On An Oversize Shirt, Everything Around Me Feels Like It's The Temperature Of Happiness.

Honestly, I'm Just Trying To Live Day To Day

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.

I Should Talk To Him I Know I Should Talk To Him. But I Do Not Talk To Him. I Watch After Him From Afar And Love Him.

She Stays In The Same Spot, Anchored By The Profound, Desperate Loneliness Of A Bad Relationship.

Bad Relationship

It's You. You Deserve This. There Is A Reason This Is Happening To You.

Please May This Not Be A Game. Please May This Not Be A Game. Because If It’s A Game, I Know I’m Going To Lose.

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

There Has To Be A Moment At The Beginning When You Wonder Whether You’re In Love With The Person Or In Love With The Feeling Of Love Itself.

This Is The Trap Of Having Something To Live For: Everything Else Seems Lifeless.

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.

Scapegoat, N. I Think Our Top Two Are: 1. Not Enough Coffee. 2. Too Much Coffee.

This Is What Love Does: It Makes You Want To Rewrite The World. It Makes You Want To Choose The Characters, Build The Scenery, Guide The Plot. The Person You Love Sits Across From You, And You Want To Do Everything In Your Power To Make It Possible, Endlessly Possible. And When It’s Just The Two Of You, Alone In A Room, You Can Pretend That This Is How It Is, This Is How It Will Be.

Moments Into Minutes. Minutes Into Hours. Hours Into Days. Days Into Years. Years Into Possibility. This Will Linger.

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.

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.

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.

Now When I Have To Remember A Date, All I Have To Do Is Consult My Rap Sheet.

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.

You Could Be The Leaf That Never Falls From The Tree You Could Be The Sun That Never Leaves The Sky This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending This Might Be A Reason To Try

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.

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

Why Is It So Much Easier To Talk To A Stranger? Why Do We Feel We Need To Disconnect In Order To Connect? If I Wrote "dear Sofia" Or "dear Boomer" Or "dear Lily's Great-aunt" At The Top Of This Postcard, Wouldn't That Change The Words That Followed? Of Course It Would. But The Question Is: When I Wrote "dear Lily," Was That Just A Version Of "dear Myself"? I Know It Was More Than That. But It Was Also Less Than That, 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.

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.

I Find My Greatest Strengths In Wanting Ti Be Strong. I Find My Greatest Bravery In Deciding To Be Brave.

People Are Always Separable.

... I Love Books About Freaks," Because I Am One. You Might Be, Too. Let's Be Freaks Together?

This Is The Thing They Don't Tell You About Being A Third Wheel - It's Not Like You're The Wheel That's Added On. You Were One Of The Original Two Wheels, But Suddenly You're Not So Important Anymore. The Relationship Drives Fine Without You.

Love Is The Higher Law.

Me: You Know What Sucks About Love? O.w.g.: What? Me: That It's So Tied To The Truth.

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.

...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.

You're Giving Up. You're Slipping Into Being Miserable And If You Are Being Miserable, Then It's All About You Again. But It's Not All About You. Love Doesn't Work That Way.

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

In The Next Election, I'm Voting For Your Mom To Be The Next God.

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?

There Is No Such Thing As Equality For Some. Equality Must Be For All. That Is What Freedom Is. That Is What Liberty Is. No Human Being Is Born More Or Less Important Than Any Other. How Can We Allow Ourselves To Forget That? What Simpler Truth Is There?

When We’re Alone Together, I’m The Destination. When I’m Here In Her Life At School, I’m The Disruption.

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

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.

Teens Wanted Things That Were Real, That They Connected With, It Doesn't Have To Reflect Reality Directly. They Love 'the Hunger Games' Not Because It's Real In That It Happens, But The Emotions There Are Real, And It's Very Relatable.

Maybe, It's Not The Distance That's The Problem, But How You Handle It.

That's The Question, Isn't It?" You Said One Night. "does Death Bring Freedom, Or Is It The End Of Freedom?

I Couldn't Fault Her For Believing, Because I Had To Imagine I Was Nice To Have That Illusion Still Intact.

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?

The Way You Argued With Me, You Would Have Thought That We Were Debating The Existence Of God Or Whether Or Not We Should Move In Together. These Kinds Of Fights Can Never Be Won – Even If You’re The Victor, You’ve Hurt The Other Person, And There Has To Be Some Loss Associated With That.

Stanchion, N. I Don't Want To Be The Strong One, But I Don't Want To Be The Weak One Either. Why Does It Feel Like It's Always One Or The Other? When We Embrace, One Of Us Is Always Holding The Other A Little Tighter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

But I Still Has Enough Longing For That Concept That I Didn't Want To Dispel It Completely. Meaning: I Didn't Want To Tell Lily That I Felt We'd All Been Duped By Plato And The Idea Of A Soul Mate. Just In Case It Turned Out That She Was Mine.

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

I Want To Talk To You And Be Random With You And Be Ridiculous With You.

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

There Comes A Time When The Body Takes Over The Life. There Comes A Time When The Body’s Urges, The Body’s Needs, Dictate The Life. You Have No Idea You Are Giving The Body The Key. But You Hand It Over. And Then It’s In Control. You Mess With The Wiring And The Wiring Takes Charge.

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

Tiny: But There Is The Word, This Word Phil Wrayson Taught Me Once: Weltschmerz. It's The Depression You Feel When The World As It Is Does Not Line Up With The World As You Think It Should Be. I Live In A Big Goddamned Weltzschermz Ocean, You Know? And So Do You.

I Don’t Want To Throw Everything Away For Something Uncertain.

It's The Belief, Not The Words, That Mean Everything. It's The Floating.

Because Sometimes You Just Have To Dance Like A Madman In The Self-help Section Of Your Local Bookstore.

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

We'd Said We'd Keep In Touch. But Touch Is Not Something You Can Keep; As Soon As It's Gone, It's Gone. We Should Have Said We'd Keep In Words, Because They Are All We Can String Between Us--words On A Telephone Line, Words Appearing On A Screen.

When You Need To Hold Onto Something, You Should. Whatever Gets You Through, Take It.

I Felt Like I Was Missing Something. Missing You More. Missing Whatever Was Going To Happen Next.

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.

I Wish I Could Remember The Moment When I Was A Kid And I Discovered That The Letters Linked Into Words, And That The Words Linked To Real Things. What A Revelation That Must Have Been. We Don't Have The Words For It, Since We Hadn't Yet Learned The Words. It Must Have Been Astonishing, To Be Given The Key To The Kingdom And See It Turn In Our Hands So Easily.

I Notice You, I Want To Say. Even When No One Else Does, I Do. I Will.

Here's What Breaks Us: Even Though We Know Better, We Still Want Everything To Be All Right.

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

Luckily, Tiny Texts Me Every Five Minutes Or So. I Don't Know How He Does It Without Getting Caught In Class. Maybe He Hides The Phone In The Folds Of His Stomach Or Something.

I Don’t Want To Know Anything, And I Want To Know It All

These Teenager Looks Aren't Going To Last Forever, And That There Are Much Better Foundation To Build A Life Upon Than How Attractive You Are.

They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

If I'm Not Telling You Something, It's For A Reason. Just Because You Trust Me, It Doesn't Mean I Have To Automatically Trust You. Trust Doesn't Work Like That.

I Am Here Because Of Love.

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.

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 Wanna-i Dunno-get Coffee Or Something Sometime?

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

Finding Yourself

We Pencil-sketch Our Previous Life So We Can Contrast It To The Technicolor Of The Moment.

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.

For Whatever Reason, We Like To Focus On The 2 Percent That's Different, And Most Of The Conflict In The World Comes From That.

I Have Already Spent Roughly Five Thousand Hours Asleep Next To You. This Has To Mean Something.

Having Someone Think Of Me That Way Was Like Discovering A New Window In The Room I'd Lived In All My Life.

He Was Attractive. I Knew That. And I Knew That Attractive People Always Got Away With Things.

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

I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words.

We Always Loved To Say 'if I'd Had A Monday-morning Class, I Never Would Have Met You'. Or 'if You'd Been Reading Something Else, None Of This Would Have Happened'. We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

Maybe There's A Way To Keep Us In This Moment. Not The Sad Part. But The Coming Together Part.

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

I Had Always Felt That Mittens Were A Few Steps Back On The Evolutionary Scale-- Why, I Wondered, Would We Want To Make Ourselves Into A Less Agile Version Of Lobster.

But You Have To Figure That If It’s Too Hard To Hang On, Then Maybe You Should Let Go.

I Want To Take Back The Secrets I Told You So I Can Decide Now Whether To Tell Them To You Again. I Want To Take Back The Piece Of Me That Lies In You, To See If I Truly Miss It. I Want To Take Back At Least Half The “i Love You”s, Because It Feels Safer That Way.

Breathing Is Hard. When You Cry So Much, It Makes You Realize That Breathing Is Hard.

I Hope Suffering Don't Exist.

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

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

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.

I Had Gotten So Used To Being Alone, But Never Entirely Used To It. Never Used To It Enough To Stop Wanting The Alternative.

I Find I Very Rarely Live Up To My Words. And Since You Know Me Primarily Through My Words, There Are Oh So Many Ways I Can Disappoint.

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.

Game Over," You Say, And I Don't Know Which I Take More Exception To-- The Fact That You Say Its Over, Or The Fact That You Say It's A Game.

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

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.

A Sound Waiting To Be A Word.

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

I Find My Greatest Strength In Wanting To Be Strong. I Find My Greatest Bravery In Deciding To Be Brave. I Don't Know If I've Ever Realized It Before,[...] I Think We Both Realize It Now. If There's No Feeling Of Fear, Then There's No Need For Courage.

I Barely Notice Colors Unless I Taste Them. Not The Yellows Or The Greens. I Taste The Deeper Blues. The Darker Reds.

When It All Come Down To It, The Thing That Matters Most In A Relationship Is Principles [...] We Have The Same Idea What’s Right And What’s Wrong, And That’s Got Us Through Any Number Of Things. If You Can Have That With Someone, Then You’re Most Of The Way Toward Love. Not Just Lover-love. Any Kind Of Love.

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.

Bad Girl!" She Chided. "i'm Pretty Sure Boris Is A Boy," I Said. "oh, I Know," Mrs. Basil E. Assured Me. "i Just Like To Keep Him Confused," Then She And Boris Headed Off With My Future.

There Was A Time Before You But I Can't Remember It Now A Time Before Your Beauty And I Were Formally Introduced I'm Sure I Lived Without You But I Don't Remember How Can't Imagine Living Without These Feelings You've Produced Just One Glance And My Life Was Redrawn Just One Word And My Vocabulary Changed I Asked The Time And You Said 'what's The Hurry?' You Asked My Name And I Almost Forgot

And If Only I Could, I'd Make A Deal With God.

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?

It Feels Like I Am Wasting Time. I Mean, That's Always The Case. My Life Doesn't Add Up To Anything.

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

I Know It Was More Than That. But It Was Also Less Than That, Too.

Just Because A Person Is Beautiful Doesn't Mean There's No Soul Beneath. Doesn't Mean That Person Hasn't Suffered Like Everyone Else, Doesn't Mean They Don't Hope To Still Be A Good Human Being In An Awful World.

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

Now, I Don't Believe In Doing Hugs Halfway. I Can't Stand People Who Try To Hug Without Touching. A Hug Should Be A Full Embrace - As I Wrap My Arms Around Tony, I Am Not Just Holding Him, But Also Trying To Lift Off His Troubles For A Moment So That The Only Thing He Can Feel Is My Presence, My Support.

There Are Times I Think Of Us All And I Wish We Were Back In Second Grade. Not Really That Young. But I Wish It Felt Like Second Grade. I’m Not Saying Everyone Was Friends Back Then. But We All Got Along. There Were Groups, But They Didn’t Really Divide. At The End Of The Day, Your Class Was Your Class, And You Felt Like You Were A Part Of It. You Had Your Friends And You Had The Other Kids, But You Didn’t Really Hate Anyone Longer Than A Couple Of Hours. Everybody Got A Birthday Card. In Second Grade, We Were All In It Together. Now We’re All Apart.

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

When I Am With You, There Is Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be. And I Am A Person Who Always Wants To Be Somewhere Else.

People Are Rarely As Attractive In Reality As They Are In The Eyes Of The People Who Are In Love With Them. Which Is, I Suppose, As It Should Be.

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.

This, I Think, Is How People Survive: Even When Horrible Things Have Been Done To Us, We Can Still Find Gratitude In One Another.

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.

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.

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.

Falling In Love

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.

It Is An Awful Thing To Be Betrayed By Your Body. And It’s Lonely, Because You Feel You Can’t Talk About It.

It Was The Most Amazing Feeling In The World. To Know That Something Right Happened, And To Know That It Had Happened Not Through Luck Or Command But Simply Because It Was Right.

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.

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.

She Is Carrying Herself Through The Day, And It’s Not An Easy Task.

I Was Attempting To Write The Story Of My Life. It Wasn't So Much About Plot. It Was Much More About Character.

I Was Starting To Think I Was Making Up Memories, Just To Have Answers. Our Brain Does That Sometimes. Or At Least Mine Does.

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.

Things Rarely Get Fixed The Way They Need To Be.

Love Is So Painful, How Could You Ever Wish It On Anybody? And Love Is So Essential, How Could You Ever Stand In Its Way?

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 Am A Drifter, And As Lonely As That Can Be, It Is Also Remarkably Freeing. I Will Never Define Myself In Terms Of Anyone Else. I Will Never Feel The Pressure Of Peers Or The Burden Of Parental Expectation. I Can View Everyone As Pieces Of A Whole, And Focus On The Whole, Not The Pieces. I Have Learned 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'm Not In Love With You.

Exemplar, N. It's Always Something We Have To Negotiate- The Face That My Parents Are Happy, And Yours Have Never Been. I Have Something To Live Up To, And If I Fail, I Still Have A Family To Welcome Me Home. You Have A Storyline To Rewrite, And A Lack Of Faith That It Can Ever Be Done. You Love My Parents, I Know. But You Never Get Too Close. You Never Truly Believe There Aren't Bad Secrets Underneath.

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.

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.

Beauty Comes Naturally, But It's Hard To Be Stunning By Accident.

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.

I Have Always Been Aware Of How I Break. I Know What Kind Of Situations Will Break Me. I Know What Kind Of People Will Do It. I Know How Much It Will Hurt.

We Just Want To Walk. Our Legs Need To Move To Keep Our Minds From Collapsing.

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.

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

I Kiss Her And She Finds The Light Switch And Turns It Off, And We're Just Lit In Pepsi-can Colors And It's Like We've Finally Found This Other Kind Of Conversation, This Conversation In Gestures And Pulls And Pushes And Breaths And Grasps And Teases And Glimmers And Rubs And Expectation.

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.

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