Background Image

...

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.

-David Levithan

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Wish I Could

David Levithan

...

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.

Views: 4

Topic

More From David Levithan

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

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

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.

The Mistake Is Thinking That There Can Be An Antidote To The Uncertainty.

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

I Want To Write My Life. I Want To Be Able To Write My Life. You Are A Second Away From Saying It. You Have No Idea How Much I Love You.

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.

Love Is Tied To Truth. I Think Of Them As Unhappily Conjoined Twins.

If I Lose It Now, I Will Lose You, Too. I Know That. I Hate It.

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

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.

I Wish I Were Someone Else, Even Though I Know I'll Never, Ever Be Able To Get Away From What I've Done And What's Been Done To Me.

It's As If When You Love Someone, They Become Your Reason. And Maybe I've Gotten It Backward, Maybe It's Just Because I Need A Reason That I Find Myself Falling In Love With Her. But I Don't Think That's It. I Think I Would Have Continued Along, Oblivious, If I Hadn't Happened To Meet Her.

Falling In Love

When You Love Someone

It Feels Like We’ve Stepped Outside Of Time. Even Though There Is No Such Place.

There Is No Reason That We Should Ever Be Ashamed Of Our Bodies Or Ashamed Of Our Love.

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

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.

I Text Tiny A Minute Later. Made New Gay Friend. And He Texts Back Progress!!!

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.

He Never Wears A Watch (his Own Rebellion Against Time, Against Watching).

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.

Long Live Protest Songs, In Whatever Form They Take.

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

I Have No Idea How He Knows When I Need Him. We Can Go Weeks Without Speaking, And Then, When My Blue Moods Threaten To Turn Black, He Will Show Up And Tell Me My Moods Are Azure Indigo Cerulean Cobalt Periwinkle And Suddenly The Blue Will Not Seem So Dark, More Like The Color Of A Noon-bright Sky. He Brings The Sun.

But Death Is Not Freedom. For A Moment, It Can Look Like Freedom. But Then It's Death. Anything. Something. Nothing.

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.

There Is Always Something New To Learn About The Person You Love.

With All Due Respect, If You’re Forty-three, Then I’m A Fetus.

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

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

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

I Learn About The Highs And Lows Of Living With The Same Mother For Your Entire Life, About How No One Can Make You Angrier, But How You Can't Really Love Anyone More.

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.

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.

She Is So Lost In Her Sadness That She Has No Idea How Visible It Is.

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.

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

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

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.

There Is A Part Of Childhood That Is Childish, And A Part That Is Sacred. Suddenly We Are Touching The Sacred Part -- Running To The Shoreline, Feeling The First Cold Burst Of Water On Our Ankles, Reaching Into The Tide To Catch At Shells Before They Ebb Away From Our Fingers. We Have Returned To A World That Is Capable Of Glistening, And We Are Wading Deeper Within It.

The Moment You Fall In Love Feels Like It Has Centuries Behind It, Generations - All Of Them Rearranging Themselves So This Precise, Remarkable Intersection Could Happen. In Your Heart, In Your Bones, No Matter How Silly You Know It Is, You Feel That Everything Has Been Leading To This, All The Secret Arrows Were Pointing Here, The Universe And Time Itself Crafted This Long Ago, And You Are Just Now Realizing It, You Are Just Now Arriving At The Place You Were Always Meant To Be.

Falling In Love

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

Sometimes Desire Is Air, Sometimes Desire Is Liquid. And Every Now And Then, When Everything Else Is Air And Liquid, Desire Solidifies, And The Body Is The Magnet That Draws Its Weight.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

It Was One Of Those Moments When You Feel The Future So Much That It Humbles The Present.

I’ve Found That People Tend To Trust Other People Who Dress Like Them.

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.

We Love And We Feel And We Try And We Hope.

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.

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

You Know What Happens To Girls Who Loves Lost Boys? They Become Lost Themselves.

They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

Measure The Hope Of That Moment, That Feeling. Everything Else Will Be Measured Against It.

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?

The World Is Quieter Now. It Is Never Quiet, But It Can Get Quieter. What Strange Creatures We Are, To Find Silence Peaceful, When Permanent Silence Is The Thing We Most Dread. Nighttime Is Not That. Nighttime Still Rustles, Still Creaks And Whispers And Trembles In Its Throat. It Is Not Darkness We Fear, But Our Own Helplessness Within It. How Merciful To Have Been Granted The Other Senses.

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.

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

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.

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.

How Do You Commemorate A Year? A Paper Anniversary, But We Are The Words Written Down, Not The Paper.

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.

Iv. Who Was It Who Invented Size Zero? Who Was It Who Promised That If You Got To A Certain Point You Would No Longer Be?

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.

Our Lives Change. Our Feelings For Each Other Change. Our Bearings Change. The Song Changes. The Air Changes. The Temperature Of The Shower Changes. Accept This. We Must Accept This.

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.

The Boy I Loved Didn't Know I Existed. Then Again, He Was Obsessed With Camus, So He Didn't Know If Any Of Us Existed.

You’d Think That Silence Would Be Peaceful. But Really, It’s Painful.

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.

I Will Be The One To Leave You.

You Don't Know, But I'm Noticing.

Deep Down, You See, I Long To Be Arcane, Esoteric. I Would Love To Confound People With Their Own Language.

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 Someone Breaks Up With You, Their Beauty-- Which You Took Such Satisfaction In-- Suddenly Becomes Unfair.

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.

Hello, My Name Is Ees Lebkuchen Spice, And I Vant To Show You My Coooooookies.

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.

If You Let The World In, You Open Yourself Up To The World. Even If The World Doesn't Know That You're There.

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

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.

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

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

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.

But I Think We Both Knew, Even Then, That What We Had Was Something Even More Rare, And Even More Meaningful. I Was Going To Be His Friend, And Was Going To Show Him Possibilities. And He, In Turn, Would Become Someone I Could Trust More Than Myself.

I Feel Such A Tenderness For These Vulnerable Nighttime Conversations, The Way Words Take A Different Shape In The Air When There's No Light In The Room.

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.

I Say Good-bye To The Part Of Myself That Misses Him So Much.

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.

Luckily, I Always Travel With A Book, Just In Case I Have To Wait On Line For Santa, Or Some Such Inconvenience.

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

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.

Danger Comes In Many Forms, I Suppose. For Some People, It Might Be Jumping Off A Bridge Or Climbing Impossible Moutains. For Others, It Could Be A Tawdry Love Affair Or Telling Off A Mean-looking Bus Driver Because He Doesn't Like To Stop For Noisy Teenagers. It Could Be Cheating At Cards Or Eating A Peanut Even Though You're Allergic. For Me, Danger Might Be Getting Out From The Protective Cloak Of My Family And Venturing Into The World More Of My Own, Even Though I Don't Know What- Or Who- Awaits Me.

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

How Sad It Must Be For You To Be Nothing More Than A Hollow Statue, To Have Your Tomb Preserved And Your Story Forgotten.

Do You Know When You Cross Against Traffic? You Look Down The Street And See A Car Coming, But You Know You Can Get Across Before It Gets To You. So Even Though There’s A Don’t Walk Sign, You Cross Anyway. And There’s Always A Split Second When You Turn And See That Car Coming, And You Know That If You Don’t Continue Moving, It Will All Be Over. That’s How I Feel A Lot Of The Time. I Know I’ll Make It Across. I Always Make It Across. But The Car Is Always There, And I Always Stop To Watch It Coming.

Told Her She Was Beautiful. Didn't Give Up When She Didn't Believe Me.

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.

Deep Down? That Sounds Like Settling To Me. You Shouldn't Have To Venture Deep Down In Order To Get To Love.

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.

We Stay This Way Until Twilight Colours The Window And The Hour Calls Me Home

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.

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

I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation

Need Is Never A Good Basis For Any Relationship. It Has To Be Much More Than That.

Knowledge Is The Only Thing I Take With Me When I Go.

It's Only A Game If There Is An Absence Of Meaning. And We've Already Gone Too Far For That.

As If When Someone Close To Us Dies, We Momentarily Trade Places With Them, In The Moment Right Before. And As We Get Over It, We’re Really Living Their Life In Reverse, From Death To Life, From Sickness To Health.

This Is Not Something Insignificant. This Is Real. This Is Happening, And This Is Ours.

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

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

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.

..i've Been Trying To Argue Myself Into Thinking These Things Don't Matter, A. Really,i Have. But I've Lost The Argument. And I Can't Keep Having It, When I Know What The Real Answer Is.

He’ll Have To Prove It To You. Every Day, He’ll Have To Prove He’s Worthy Of You. And If He Doesn’t, That’s It. But I Think He Will.

Void Is When There Is Absolutely Nothing There And The Nothing Is Natural, A Complete Vacuum. But Empty - With Empty, You Are Aware Of What's Supposed To Be There. Empty Means Something Is Missing.

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

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.

The Boy I Just Kissed Is Talking To My Father. The Boy I Want To Kiss Again Is Waiting For My Mother To Serve Pancakes. I Must Fight The Urge To Freak.

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.

I Say Good-bye To Hope, But I Also Say Good-bye To Hope's Disappointment.

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

Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss I Like The Most Is One Of The Slow Ones. It’s As Much Breath As Touch, As Much No As Yes. You Lean In From The Side, And I Have To Turn A Little To Make It Happen.

I'm Not A Very Happy Person," I Told Him."but Sometimes I Can Trick Myself Into Thinking I Am.

Fraught, Adj. Does Every “i Love You” Deserve An “i Love You Too”? Does Every Kiss Deserve A Kiss Back? Does Every Night Deserve To Be Spent On A Lover? If The Answer To Any Of These Is “no,” What Do We Do?

Things Rarely Get Fixed The Way They Need To Be.

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

What A Strange Phrase — –not Seeing Other People. As If It’s Been Constructed To Be A Lie. We See Other People All The Time. The Question Is What We Do About It.

She Has Been Hanging On To The Hope Of Him For So Long That She Doesn't Realize There Isn't Anything Left To Hope For.

Love Weaves Itself From Hundreds Of Threads.

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.

These Words Are Now Mine, But Soon They’ll Be Ours.

For The First Time In My Life I Realize Why Hangers Are Called Hangers, Because After Fifteen Minutes Of Trying Things On And Throwing Them Aside, All I Want To Do Is Hook One To The Top Of My Closet Door, Lean My Neck Into The Loop, And Let My Weight Fall.

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

Jesus Died For Our Sins," Noah Says Solemnly. "what?!?" I Reply, Choking Back My Thoughts. "i Was Just Seeing If You Were Listening.

I Always Think Of Each Night As A Song. Or Each Moment As A Song. But Now I'm Seeing We Don't Live In A Single Song. We Move From Song To Song, From Lyric To Lyric, From Chord To Chord. There Is No Ending Here. It's An Infinite Playlist.

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

Self-esteem Can Be So Exhausting. I Want To Cut My Hair, Change My Clothes, Erase The Pimple From The Near-tip Of My Nose, And Strengthen My Upper-arm Definition, All In The Next Hour.

Life Goes On Is A Redundancy. Life Is Defined By Its Going On.

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

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

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

You Make It A Production. Slam Doors. Knock Things Over. Scream. But I Just Leave. Even If I'm Still Standing There, I Leave. I Am Refusing You. I Am Denying You. I Am An Adjective That Is Quickly Turning Into A Noun.

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

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

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

Aloof, Adj. It Has Always Been My Habit, Ever Since Junior High School, To Ask That Question: “what Are You Thinking?” It Is Always An Act Of Desperation, And I Keep On Asking, Even Though I Know It Will Never Work The Way I Want It To.

Family, Like Arsenic, Works Best In Small Doses...unless You Prefer To Die.

Fate Has A Strange Way Of Making Plans.

Belonging. Togetherness. These Words Are As Complicated And Confusing As The Word Love. It’s Probably All The Same Thing. Or It Would Be If We Let It Be. I Can Only Guess From Observation.

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.

With Some Break-ups, All You Can Think About Afterwards Is How Badly It Ended And How Much The Other Person Hurt You. With Others, You Become Sentimental For The Good Times And Lose Track Of What Went Wrong.

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?

If You Zoom Close-if You Get Really Close To Someone, If You Really Get Close To Yourself-then You Lose The Other Person, You Lose Yourself Entirely. You Get So Close You Can't See Anything Anymore.

Losing Yourself

If You Want To Live Within The Definition Of Your Own Truth, You Have To Choose To Go Through The Initially Painful And Ultimately Comforting Process Of Finding It.

I Couldn't Remember Ordinary Moments, Only The Ones That Had Made An Impression. Ordinary Moments Were The Ones That Fell Away First.

It Is So Unfair That He Lives In Ohio, Because That Should Be Close Enough, But Since Neither Of Us Drives And Neither Of Us Would Ever In A Million Years Say, 'hey, Mom, Do You Want To Drive Me Across Indiana To See A Boy?,' We're Kind Of Stuck.

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.

I Cannot Think Of A Single Word To Describe What We Feel. I Think We All Feel It, To Varying Degrees. Perhaps In Some Other Language There Is A Word For 'the World Is Terribly Wrong.' That Feeling Of Stun And Unbelief And Abandonment And Shock And Horror And Distress.

That's What The Voices In Your Head Are For, To Get You Through The Silent Parts.

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.

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 Want You To Spend The Night," You Said. And It Was Definitely Your Phrasing That Ensured It. If You Had Said, "let's Have Sex," Or "let's Go To My Place," Or Even "i Really Want You," I'm Not Sure We Would Have Gone Quite As Far As We Did. But I Loved The Notion That The Night Was Mine To Spend, And I Immediately Decided To Spend It With You.

We Are So Used To Releasing Words. We Don't Know What To Do With Them If They Stay.

That Word Again. Happy. It’s A Curse. The Pursuit Of Happiness Makes Us Deeply Unhappy. It’s A Trap.before Anything Else Happened, There Was Me In Bed, Thinking Of Who You Used To Be. I Don’t Want You To Think I Forgot.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Maybe Relationships Could Have Fractals, Too. And Maybe The Sense Of Loss Was When You're Becoming A Fractal Of What You Once Were To Each Other.

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

Yes, Time Can Be Buoyed By Wordlessness, But It Needs To Be Anchored In Words.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Part Of Growing Up Is Making Sure Your Sense Of Reality Isn't Entirely Grounded In Your Own Mind.

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.

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 Find Faith In Human Perseverance, Even As The Universe Throws Challenge After Challenge Our Way.

Why Won't They Leave Me Alone? Don't They Realize I Have A Tinder Heart And A Paper Body And That Any Spark Will Turn Me Straight To Ash?

Yes, We Could Talk To You For Days On End About All The Bad First Dates. Those Are Stories. Funny Stories. Awkward Stories. Stories We Love To Share, Because By Sharing Them, We Get Something Out Of The Hour Or Two We Wasted On The Wrong Person. But That's All Bad First Dates Are: Short Stories. Good First Dates Are More Than Short Stories. They Are First Chapters. On A Good First Date, Everything Is Springtime. And When A Good First Date Becomes A Relationship, The Springtime Lingers. Even After It's Over, There Can Be Springtime.

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

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.

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

Even Though I'm Seventeen, I Guess I Still Thought This Would Always Be True - That There Would Always Be That Lost-and-found, And Not The Lost-and-still-lost That I Am Now Trapped Inside.

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.

You Were In Sweden?" Boomer Asked. "no," I Said. "the Trip Got Called Off At The Last Minute. Because Of Political The Unrest" "in Sweden?" Priya Seemed Skeptical. "yeah-isn't It Strange How The Times Isn't Covering It? Half The Country's On Strike Because Of That Thing The Crown Prince Said About Pippi Longstocking Which Means No Meatballs For Christmas, If You Know What I Mean." "that's So Sad!" Boomer Said.

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

I Hope Suffering Don't Exist.

Sometimes Memory Tricks You. Sometimes Beauty Is Best When It's Distant.

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

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

Finding Yourself

Love Is The Higher Law.

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

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.

I Immediately Suspected There Was Much More To It Than Was Being Said.

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

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 Want My Own Books To Have Their Own Shelves," You Said, And That's How I Knew It Would Be Okay To Live Together.

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.

Trending Author

Sophie Ellis Bextor

Edward R. Murrow

Category