David Levithan

“Honestly, I'm just trying to live day to day”

“And If only I could, I'd make a deal with God...”

“transient, adj. 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 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 I will have to look for other ways to identify the time.”

“Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preserving”

“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.”

“We all have the potential to commit the crime. We chose not to. Every single day, we chose not to. I am no different”

“Love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals.”

“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.”

“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.”

“your life isn’t out there waiting, so don’t think all you have to do is find it and get it. no, your life is right here. and, yeah, it sucks. lives usually do. so if you want things to change, you don’t need to get a life. you need to get off your ass.”

“Why was I thinking about this?Oh, yes—the roses.Something to keep.Something gone.”

“You didn’t move your arm. You let me rest there. You didn’t pull away. You pulled closer. You were so good to me. You knew and pretendedyou didn’t.“Let’s always love each other, and never be in love with each other.”And I agreed.”

“I felt like I was missing something. Missingyou more. Missing whatever was going to happen next.”

“I remembered a time we were going through magazines. There was this one model who looked icy to the touch, in total control. I told you that, andyou said, “That’s what makes it a good photograph. You think you know what’s going on in her head. But the truth? No matter how good aphotograph is, you can never tell what’s going on in the person’s mind. There’s no way to get from here” (you pointed to the room) “to there” (youpointed to her head).”

“I knew you better than anyone else. I was sure of it.”

“And again. I kept clicking until the photograph was demolished, until it was no more than a mosaic of gray tiles, adding up to nothing.Nothing. Because wasn’t that how I felt that day? If you zoom close—if you really get close to someone, if you really get close to yourself—then youlose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can’t see anything anymore. Your mind becomes all these abstract fragments.English becomes math.”

“Hello?” I called.I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.”

“My mind was getting away from reality again, and I reluctantly drew it back in. There is no getting away from reality.”

“I get lost in ifs. They are always there if if if if and I should only be able to tune in to them if I’m on the rightfrequency. But that’s the thing about me: The frequencies don’t divide.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I liked this guy a lot. And I thought he liked me a lot, but in truth he didn’t really like me at all. He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything-he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that’s the danger with flirts-you lose all sense of proportion. So I made a fool of myself, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. I was so devoted to him.”

“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.”

“And yes, Holden would keep those kids from falling off the cliff, but WHO WOULDN'T? Does she think I would just fold my arms or give them a pat on the back before they sailed headfirst to the ground? We are all catchers, and it's sad that she doesn't see it. Instead she sees the PHONINESS, she deplores the world even after I point out that I am in it.”

“and when hecatches meoff guardand says'i love you'i catch himoff guardand say 'i need your help.”

“it's not his bodythat changesright away.it's somethinginside. he sayshe wants tobe a littleweaker. i don'tunderstand.i say 'thinner?'and he says'no, i wantto be strongerin a differentway.' notbecause of me,but for me.”

“iv. who was itwho invented size zero?who was itwho promisedthat if you gotto a certain pointyou would nolongerbe?”

“It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.”

“I notice you, I want to say. Even when no one else does, I do. I will.”

“scapegoat, n.I think our top two are:1. Not enough coffee.2. Too much coffee.”

“hubris, n.Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.”

“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.”

“I use the chopsticks to outline the biggest heart possible. Then I use the Sweet'N Low packets to fill it in. I borrow some from two other tables when I run out.When I'm done, I point to the heart on the table."This," I say, "is only about one ninety-millionth of how I feel about you."She laughs."I'll try not to take it personally," she says."Take what personally?" I say. "You should take it very personally.""The fact that you used artificial sweetener?"I take a Sweet'N Low and fling it at her."Not everything is a symbol!" I shout.”

“Then I told her what I didn’t see. Namely, that I didn’t see her.You could be standing a few feet away—Clara’s dance partner, or across the street taking a picture of Rudolph before he takes �ight. I could havesat next to you on the subway, or brushed beside you as we went through the turnstiles. But whether or not you are here, you are here—becausethese words are for you, and they wouldn’t exist if you weren’t here in some way. This notebook is a strange instrument—the player doesn’t knowthe music until it’s being played.”

“Let’s always love each other, and never be in love with each other.”

“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.”

“You never get involved in the people's lives? The ones you're inhabiting?"I shake my head."You try to leave the lives the way you found them.""Yeah.""But what about Justin? What made that so different?""You," I say.”

“I'm always standing on the edge of something bad.”

“shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?”

“Love me less, but love me for a long time”

“I am not the enter of anything.”

“I checked my email.this is it this is what it feels like to be helpless.”

“In wondered in avenging was being used as an adjective or a verb.”

“What are you thinking, Evan?"So I told him.Every you, every me. Fractals. Fracturs."I wonder who she is now," I said."So do I," Jack admitted. "All the time.”

“If she'd been bleeding in the street, you would've run to get help. It's the same thing!""Typical," I could hear you saying back. "The whole point is that I wasn't bleeding in the street . I wasn't dying of cancer. You couldn't take an X-ray and see what was wrngsithme. You couldn't make such an easy diagnosis. You had to guess. And everybody guessed wrong."But the things is, I hadn't even made the guess. I trusted that you knew what you were doing.You were very convincing.And I destroyed you.”

“you were never worthy if her.she knew so much more than you did.so you had to destroy her.you think you saved her. but you destroyed her.”

“I pressed my head into the pillow and I screamed. Pure sound. No words. But it all came out as your name.”

“Yeah," I said. "You might be human, Jack, but Ariel's mathematics. She's all mathematics."There are so many things I wish I hadn't said.”

“Linked to frustration.I SAWLinked to unfairness.WHAT YOULinked to guilt.TOLinked to helplessness.HERHate.Hate.Hate.DIDLinked to anger.”

“Fill your head with the right pictures of me. Fill your head with the ones you'd hang on the wall.”