Background Image

...

People Take Love's Continuity For Granted, Just As They Take Their Body's Continuity For Granted. They Don't Realize That The Best Thing About Love Is Its Regular Presence. Once You Can Establish That, It's An Added Foundation To Your Life.

-David Levithan

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

People Take Love's Continuity

David Levithan

...

People Take Love's Continuity For Granted, Just As They Take Their Body's Continuity For Granted. They Don't Realize That The Best Thing About Love Is Its Regular Presence. Once You Can Establish That, It's An Added Foundation To Your Life.

Views: 4

Topic

More From David Levithan

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

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

Incessant Adj. The Doubts. You Had To Save Me From My Constant Doubts. That Deep-seeded Feeling That I Wasn't Good Enough For Anything I Was A Fake At My Job I Wasn't Your Equal My Friends Would Forget Me If I Moved Away For A Month. It Wasn't As Easy As Hearing Voices Nobody Was Telling Me This. It Was Just Something I Knew. Everyone Else Was Playing Along But I Was Sure That One Day They Would All Stop.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

Feeling Someone Else's Anger Is Bad; Being Left Alone Is Worse.

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.

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.

Let’s Always Love Each Other, And Never Be In Love With Each Other.

Love Each Other

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.

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.

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

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.

What Did It Matter To Me? Did I Think That By Making You Rational About One Thing, I Could Make You Rational About Everything? Maybe. Or Maybe I Just Wanted To Save You From Your Fears

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.

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.

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

But If I Didn’t Want To Be Alone, Then Why Didn’t I Want To Be With Anyone Else?

Wants To Be Alone

I Don't Want To Fall. All I Want To Do Is Stand On Solid Ground.

Do I Really Have To Find A Word For It? Can't It Just Be What It Is?

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.

But Whether Or Not You Are Here, You Are Here—because These Words Are For You, And They Wouldn't Exist If You Weren't Here In Some Way.

Laughter Rarely Lasts Longer Than A Few Seconds, It's True. But How Enjoyable Those Few Seconds Are.

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

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

Part Of Love Is Letting A Person Be Who They Want To Be

When Distractions Are Manifold, It's Best To Remember What You Are Supposed To Be Doing.

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

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.

They Don’t Have Silences Together; They Have Noise. Mostly His.

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 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.

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.

You Leave The Phone On Beside You As You Fall Asleep. I Sit In My Bed And Listen To Your Breathing, Until I Know You Are Safe, Until I Know You No Longer Need Me For The Night.

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

Let’s Make Plans,” I Ventured. And Sofia Smiled And Said, “no, Let’s Leave It To Chance.

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

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

There Will Always Be More Questions. Every Answer Leads To More Questions. The Only Way To Survive Is To Let Some Of Them Go.

He Has No Idea How Beautiful The Ordinary Becomes Once It Disappears.

When It Comes To True Dance, It's Not About How You Look, It's All About The Joy You Feel.

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

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

Yesterday Is Another World. I Want To Go Back There.

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

They Never Played Games With Each Other, They Never Had Tow Worry Where They Stood, Because If Either Of Them Had A Moment Of Wavering, The Other Would Say I Love You And Would Mean It And All Doubts Were Forgiven Because In This One Case It Was Found That Love Conquers All.

You Existed. You Existed Now As A Fractal. Definition: A Fractal Is Generally A Rough Or Fragmented Geometric Shape That Can Be Broken Into Parts, Each Of Which Is (at Least Approximately) A Reduced-size Copy Of The Whole. Maybe I Was A Fractal. Maybe The Photographer Was A Fractal. Maybe We Were All Fractals.

Geometric Shapes

I've Lost Track Of Where Friendship Ends And Falling Begins. (this Is The Foolish Refrain Of The Hopelessly Devoted.) There Are Times I Want To Kiss You Midsentence. Undo The Not-doing With One Gesture.

That Air. The Air Afterwards. I Wanted To Breathe It In. It Felt Right To Breathe It In. Because We Were Breathing Them In, Weren't We? And The Building. We Were Breathing It All In. And I Thought, There's A Part Of This That's Actually A Part Of Me Now. I Now Have That Responsibility. I Am Alive, And I Am Breathing, And I Can Do The Things This Dust Can't Do.

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

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

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 Don’t Like It When You Use My Shampoo, Because Then Your Hair Smells Like Me, Not You.

...and Suddenly You Started Singing Out Your Love For Me. My Name And Everything, Loud Enough To Reach The Top Floors Of All The Buildings. I Should Have Told You To Stop, But I Didn’t Want You To Stop. I Didn’t Mind If Your Love For Me Woke People Up. I Didn’t Mind If It Somehow Sneaked Into Their Sleep.

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.

Pride Is Allowed To Have An Element Of Worry, Especially When You Are A Mother.

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.

What I Learned The Well-documented Difference Between Alone And Lonely The Comfort Of Knowing

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

The World, Right Now, Is Only Us.

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.

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.

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.

When Dawn Looked At Vic, She Saw Vic Exactly As He Wanted To Be Seen. Whereas Vic's Parents Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Used To Be, And So Many Friends And Strangers Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Didn't Want To Be Anymore, Dawn Only Saw Him. Call It A Blur If You Want, But Dawn Didn't See A Blur. She Saw A Very Distinct, Very Clear Person.

This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending

Life Tells You To Take The Elevator, But Love Tells You To Take The Stairs.

I Measure The Moment In The Heartbeats I Skip

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.

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.

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.

When First Love Ends, Most People Eventually Know There Will Be More To Come. They Are Not Through With Love. Love Is Not Through With Them. It Will Never Be The Same As The First, But It Will Be Better In Different Ways.

You Think You Know Your Possibilities. Then Other People Come Into Your Life And Suddenly There Are So Many More.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Ted Is Smart And Good-looking, But He Doesn't Use It To Good Effect, Like A Rich Person That Never Gives To Charity.

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.

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 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.

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.

This Is What You Do Now To Give Your Day Topography--scan The Boxes, Read The News, See The Chain Of Your Friends Reporting About Themselves, Take The 140-character Expository Bursts And Sift Through For The Information You Need. It's A Highly Deceptive World, One That Constantly Asks You To Comment But Doesn't Really Care What You Have To Say. The Illusion Of Participation Can Sometimes Lead To Participation. But More Often Than Not, It Only Leads To More Illusion, Dressed In The Guise Of Reality.

Arrears, N. My Faithfulness Was As Unthinking As Your Lapse. Of All The Things I Though Would Go Wrong, I Never Thought It Would Be That. "it Was A Mistake," You Said. But The Cruel Thing Was, It Felt Like The Mistake Was Mine, For Trusting You.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Only Have Eyes For You.

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

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

I Want To Take Back At Least Half Of The “i Love You”s, Because I Didn’t Mean Them As Much As The Other Ones.

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

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 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.

If You Tell Me, I Will Leave You Alone," I Said. "and If You Don't Tell Me, I Am Going To Grab The Nearest Ghostwritten James Patterson Romance Novel And I Am Going To Follow You Through This Store Reading It Out Loud Until You Relent. Would You Prefer Me To Read From Daphne's Three Tender Months With Harold Or Cindy And John's House Of Everlasting Love? I Guarantee, Your Sanity And Your Indie Street Cred Won't Last A Chapter. And They Are Very, Very Short Chapters." Now I Could See The Fright Beneath The Defiance.

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

And Just Like That, The Universe Goes Wrong. Just Like That, All The Enormity Seems To Shrink Into A Ball And Float Away From My Reach. I Feel It, And She Doesn't. Or I Feel It, And She Won't.

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

Finding Yourself

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

Barfly N. You Have The Ability To Talk To Anyone Which Is An Ability I Do Not Share.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

People Are Always Separable.

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.

Her Vulnerability Is Open, But She’s Safe Within It.

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

A Sound Waiting To Be A Word.

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.

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.

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.

Its A Fine Line Between Love And Stalking.

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

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.

And I Told You: I Think Of A Photograph You Took Of Me, Up In Montreal. You Told Me To Jump In The Air, So In The Picture, My Feet Are Off The Ground. Later, I Asked You Why You Wanted Me To Do That, And You Told Me It Was The Only Way To Get Me To Forget About The Expression On My Face. You Were Right. I Am Completely Unposed, Completely Genuine. In My Mind’s Eye, I Picture Myself Like That, Reacting To You.

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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 More Kindness And Justice Are Challenged, The More We Must Embrace Them. Only When You Are Challenged - And Only When You Challenge Yourself - Do You Discover What Truly Matters.

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

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.

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

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.

People Take Love's Continuity For Granted, Just As They Take Their Body's Continuity For Granted. They Don't Realize That The Best Thing About Love Is Its Regular Presence. Once You Can Establish That, It's An Added Foundation To Your Life.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

So I Said I Wanted You To Stay, Even Though Nothing Could Stay The Same.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Love Weaves Itself From Hundreds Of Threads.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Am Here Because Of Love.

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

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.

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.

You Wanna-i Dunno-get Coffee Or Something Sometime?

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

There Was A Pause. I Was Still Scared By Every Gap In Our Conversation, Fearing That This Was It, The Point Where We Had Nothing Left To Say. I Was Still Trying To Impress You, And I Still Wanted To Be Impressed By You, So I Could Pass Along Pieces Of Your Impressiveness To My Friends, Convincing Myself This Was Possible.

You Have To Trust The Words. They Do Not Create Anything More Than Themselves.

The Key Is To Never Recognize These Imbalances. To Not Let The Dauntingness Daunt Us.

It Was A Laugh That Came From The Tip Of His Toes, Gaining Force And Soul As It Traveled Through His Body And Out Into The World In Mirthful Bursts. There Wasn't Anything Fake About It; It Was An Amusement Park Of A Laugh, And When It Appeared, You Wanted To Jump On Board.

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.

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?

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

A Year. A Thousand Kisses. And Now A Thousand One, A Thousand Two. There Are So Many Other Place We Could Have Ended Up, But I Have To Believe None Of Them Would Have Felt This Right. "all I Want Is You" Is Not Entirely True. I Want So Much More, And With You I Think I Can Get It.

She Asked Me What Was Wrong, And I Told Her I Had To End It. She Was Surprised, And Asked My Why I Thought So. I Told Her It Wasn't A Thought, More A Feeling, Like I Couldn't Breathe And Knew I Had To Get Some Air. It Was A Survival Instinct, I Told Her. She Said It Was Time For Dinner. Then She Sat Me Down And Told Me Not To Worry. She Said Moments Like This Were Like Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night: You're Scared, Your'e Disoriented, And You're Completely Convinced You're Right. But Then You Stay Awake A Little Longer And You Realize Things Aren't As Fearful As They Seem.

Why Do We Even Bother? Why Do We Make Ourselves So Open To Such Easy Damage? Is It All Loneliness? Is It All Fear? Or Is It Just To Experience Those Narcotic Moments Of Belonging With Someone Else?

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.

It Is Its Own Form Of Conversation -- You Can Learn A Lot About People From The Stories They Tell, But You Can Also Know Them From The Way They Sing Along, Whether They Like The Windows Up Or Down, If They Live By The Map Or By The World, If They Feel The Pull Of The Ocean.

I Hate The Way You Talk To Me, And The Way You Cut Your Hair. I Hate The Way You Drive My Car. I Hate It When You Stare. I Hate Your Big Dumb Combat Boots, And The Way You Read My Mind. I Hate You So Much It Makes Me Sick; It Even Makes Me Rhyme. I Hate It, I Hate The Way You're Always Right. I Hate It When You Lie. I Hate It When You Make Me Laugh, Even Worse When You Make Me Cry. I Hate It When You're Not Around, And The Fact That You Didn't Call. But Mostly I Hate The Way I Don't Hate You. Not Even Close, Not Even A Little Bit, Not Even At All.

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.

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.

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.

I Mean, What If Love Isn't A Yes-or-no Question? It's Not Either You're In Love Or You're Not. I Mean, Aren't There Different Levels? And Maybe These Things, Like Words And Expectations And Whatever, Don't Go On Top Of The Love. Maybe It's Like A Map, And They All Have Their Own Place, And Then When You See It From The Sky - Whoa.

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

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.

It Doesn't Have To Be On Valentine's Day. It Doesn't Have To Be By The Time You Turn Eighteen Or Thirty-three Or Fifty-nine. It Doesn't Have To Conform To Whatever Is Usual. It Doesn't Have To Be Kismet At Once, Or Rhapsody By The Third Date. It Just Has To Be. In Time. In Place. In Spirit. It Just Has To Be.

Trending Author

Lisa Scottoline

Category