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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.

-David Levithan

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This Is What Love

David Levithan

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

If Smart People Are Parodying It, That's A Sure Sign That Some Less Smart People Are Believing It.

One Of My Best Friends Is Named David Leventhal, And It Has Always Been A Constant Source Of Amusement To See How The Similarity And Differences Play Out In Our Lives.

There Has To Be A Moment At The Beginning Where You Wonder Whether You’re In Love With The Person Or In Love With The Feeling Of Love Itself. If The Moment Doesn’t Pass, That’s It—you’re Done. And If The Moment Does Pass, It Never Goes That Far. It Stands In The Distance, Ready For Whenever You Want It Back. Sometimes It’s Even There When You Thought You Were Searching For Something Else, Like An Escape Route, Or Your Lovers’ Face.

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

Every Person Is A Possibility. The Hopeless Romantics Feel It Most Acutely, But Even For Others, The Only Way To Keep Going Is To See Every Person As A Possibility.

Hopeless Romantic

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

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

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

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 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.

I Feel The Universe Is Telling Me Something. And It Doesn't Even Matter If It's True Or Not. What Matters Is That I Feel It, And Believe It.

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.

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

I Hope That George Doesn't Internalize Her Scare Tactics. I Want To Argue With Her, Tell Her That "sins Of The Flesh" Is Just A Control Mechanism -- If You Demonize A Person's Pleasure, Then You Can Control His Or Her Life. I Can't Say How Many Times This Tool Has Been Wielded Against Me, In A Variety Of Forms. But I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation.

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.

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.

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.

I See Nick's Number. I Debate Whether To Assign A Name To His Number. If I Commit To That, Then I Will Truly Be Heartbroken If He Never Calls Me Again; My Heart Will Knot Each And Every Time I Use This Phone And See His Name In There. I Would Probably End Up Having To Trash The Phone Entirely.

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

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.

Neophyte, N. There Are Millions Upon Millions Of People Who Have Been Through This Before-- Why Is It That No One Can Give My Good Advice?

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.

I Never Felt The Urge To Jump Off A Bridge, But There Are Times I Have Wanted To Jump Out Of My Life, Out Of My Skin.

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

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.

Readers Embrace All Kinds Of Characters As Long As They Are Written With Emotional Truth.

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.

Putting Up With The Fear Of Being With The Wrong Person Because You Can't Deal With The Fear Of Being Alone.

Fear Of Being Alone

This Is As Much A Part Of My Story As Anything Else. Friendship Is Love As Much As Any Romance.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Never Understood Why Anyone Would Have Sex On The Floor. Until I Was With You And I Realized: You Don't Realize You're On The Floor.

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.

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.

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

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'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.

I Have Become Very Good At Clearing Histories.

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

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.

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

Make Yourself Happy

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.

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

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.

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.

Teenagers Are Never Joking. When Seeking To Prove A Point, Principals And Teachers Should Remember That Teenagers Are Never, Ever Sarcasic Or Ironic. If They Say "i Wish Someone Would Drop A Bomb On This School Right Now," That Means They Have Arranged For A Nuclear Arsenal To Be Emptied Onto The School And Should Be Immediately Suspended And Ridiculed. If They Say They Were Merely Coming Up With A Joking Excuse To Postpone A Bio Test, Reply That All Jokes Are Funny, And That Since Dropping A Bomb On A School Is Not Funny, It Is Therefore Not A Joke.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Love Me Less, But Love Me For A Long Time

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

School Is School-she Wants It To Be Over, But She's Afraid Of It Being Over, Because Then She'll Have To Figure Out What Comes Next.

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

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

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

The World, Right Now, Is Only Us.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

As Sisters, They Probably Have Closer To 99 Percent In Common, But They’re Not About To Recognize That. They’d Rather Fight Over What Kind Of Pet They’re Going To Get … It’s An Argument For Its Own Sake.

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.

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.

Every You, Every Me. Fractals. Fractures.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Unwarranted Devotion. Putting Up With The Fear Of Being With The Wrong Person Because You Can't Deal With The Fear Of Being Alone. The Hope Tinged With Doubt, And The Doubt Tinged With Hope. Every Time I See These Feelings In Someone Else's Face, It Weighs Me Down.

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.

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.

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

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

The First Sentence Of The Truth Is Always The Hardest. Each Of Us Had A First Sentence, And Most Of Us Found The Strength To Say It Out Loud To Someone Who Deserved To Hear It. What We Hoped, And What We Found, Was That The Second Sentence Of The Truth Is Always Easier Than The First, And The Third Sentence Is Even Easier Than That. Suddenly You Are Speaking The Truth In Paragraphs, In Pages. The Fear, The Nervousness, Is Still There, But It Is Joined By A New Confidence. All Along, You've Used The First Sentence As A Lock. But Now You Find That It's The Key.

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.

I'm Always Standing On The Edge Of Something Bad.

Standing On The Edge

It Doesn't Feel Like A Date. It Doesn't Feel Like Friendship. It Feels Like Something That Fell Off The Tightrope But Hasn't Yet Hit The Net.

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.

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.

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

Seven Wonders Of The World And I Have To Ask For An Eighth Fill A Bottle With Some Prayers And Spend Them On Hope Create An Easy Route Just So I Can Complicate Send My Heart Down That Slippery Slope

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

Its A Fine Line Between Love And Stalking.

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?

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 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

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

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.

I Am Proud That I Defy Your Categories. I Am Proud That I Don't Fit Easily Into Any Box. I Am Proud Of All The Things I Am And All The Things I Can Be. Question Yourself Every Time You Think You Only See One Thing In Me.

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

It’s As Simple As That. Simple And Complicated, As Most True Things Are.

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

I Can Honestly Say Ive Never Thought For A Second About Whether A Character Reflects Poorly On Any Group. All That Matters To Me Is That The Character Is True To My Belief In Who He Or She Is.

I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words.

"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.

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 Most Understandable Thing In The World Should Be How Minutes Lead To Hours, How Hours Lead To Days, How Days Can Make A Year. And Yet, This Neat Progression Can Still Be Surprising.

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Word For Our Kind Of Friendship. Two People Who Don't See Each Other A Lot, But Can Make Each Other Effortlessly Happy

Everyone In Our School Has Afterschool Activities. Mine Is Going Home.

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

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.

I Am Not Dangerous. Only The Stories Are Dangerous. Only The Fictions We Create, Especially When They Become Expectations.

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

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.

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

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

I Know There Are Epic Tales Of Romance, Where Love Means You're Supposed To Die. Where It's All About Sacrifice. But I Don't Want To Die. I Don't Want Stephen To Die. I'm Looking For The Scenario Where We Both Get To Live. Where We Can Continue This Marvel That Is Love And Discovery And Trust.

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

No Matter How Happy We Are, No Matter How Much We Want Our Night To Stretch Out Infinitely, Sleep Is Inevitable.

Once The Storm Comes Out, The Landscape Changes. What You Had Before Is Altered In Some Way. And You Have A Choice: Build Something New And Better From What Is Left Or Abandon It.

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.

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.

So What Do You Have To Confess Now?" I Don't Know Why I'm Saying Any Of This, Except That Is The Truth. "i'm Confessing That I Don't Know If I'm Ready For This." "what Is 'this'?" "being Open. Being Hurt. Liking. Not Being Liked. Seeing The Flicker On. Seeing The Flicker Off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Think They Have Compatible Silences.

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.

...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.

I'm Not Good At Relationships I Always Manage To Find The Flaws Sometimes In Others But Mostly My Own. I Foretell The Ending Then Go And Create The Cause Save Myself And End Up Alone

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

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

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.

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.

The Key To A Successful Relationship Isn’t Just In The Words, It’s In The Choice Of Punctuation. When You’re In Love With Someone, A Well-placed Question Mark Can Be The Difference Between Bliss And Disaster, And A Deeply Respected Period Or A Cleverly Inserted Ellipsis Can Prevent All Kinds Of Exclamations.

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

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.

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?

That Lasting Things Do, In Fact, Last.

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

He Doesn’t Just Look Upset—he Looks Newly Blind. There Is Such Loss In His Eyes, And It Permeates Every Other Part Of His Body.

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

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

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

It's One Of The Secrets Of Strength: We're So Much More Likely To Find It In The Service Of Others Than In Service To Ourselves.

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.

It Won't Be A Normal Life-i Know That. But It Will Be A Life. A Life Together.

This Is My Life, I Think. I Am An Accumulation Of Objects.

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

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

By The Time I Got There, You’d Already Decided. And I Quickly Decided To Let You Decide. You Were Already Seeing The Rooms As Ours, And That Was Enough For Me.

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

Pink Is Female - But Why? Are Girls Any More Pink Than Boys? Are Boys Any More Blue Than Girls? It's Something That Has Been Sold To Us, Mostly So Other Things Can Be Sold To Us.

A Sound Waiting To Be A Word.

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

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

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.

Sharing Truth Is Not The Kind Of Gift That Comes In Wrapping Paper - Ripped Open Once And, There, You're Done. No, This Is A Gift That Must Be Unfolded.

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.

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 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

A Guy Can Do Far Far Worse Than Surrounding Himself With People Who Restore His Faith In Humanity.

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

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.

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 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.

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

Wants To Be Alone

I Think Of Friendship In Terms Of Love.

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