David Levithan

“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.”

“I was starting to think I was making up memories, just to have answers.Our brain does that sometimes.Or at least mine does.”

“I couldn't remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.”

“But there are people you know, and there are people you have a connection with....Wasn't that what make us feel responsible-not for what happened, but responsible for you? We always felt responsible for you. That's the nature of connection-not just the attachment, but the responsibility.”

“People are always separable.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I have learned how 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.”

“Jesus died for our sins," Noah says solemnly."What?!?" I reply, choking back my thoughts."I was just seeing if you were listening.”

“Do you really exist?" I blurt out."Not at all," he says with a smile, "I've known that since I was four.”

“I guess I don't believe these things can ever be easy, although I also don't see why they have to be hard.”

“I can flirt with the best of them, but only when it doesn't matter.”

“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.”

“autonomy, n."I want my books to have their own shelves", you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.”

“This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.”

“It was rather awkward, insofar as we were both teetering between the possibility of something and the possibility of nothing.”

“Now she’s lit by the warm orange spreading from the horizon as not-quite-day, becomes not-quite-night”

“i know he's been looking forward to this--and i know that i've been looking forward to this. but now i have to stop looking forward and start looking at where i am. it's hard.”

“How do you commemorate a year?A paper anniversary, but we arethe words written down, not the paper.”

“Every time you love someone, you put not justyour faith in them, but your faith in everythingto the test.”

“It is not desire.Instead it is something deeper. I don't want to be with himconstantly and forever. I want to be with him for the moment, and I want the moments to go on forever.”

“She looked like she was waking up in a strange place—only she knew she hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and that this was actually life.”

“you ask me what I'm looking for, and I outline you.you don't recognize the shape, offer other names.you say my time will come, and I hope.”

“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.”

“havingsomeone think of me that way was like discoveringa new window in the room i'd lived in all my life.”

“i have never had anybody talk to me like this.this is not a flirty sixth-grade phone call or bantering with friends or words passed in a note.i feel that if my soul could talk it wouldtalk like this.”

“and at first i didn't really know jed wasalthough i was sure he knew that i wasbut gradually we both knewand we knew.”

“He is much stronger than I think I am. He is mischievous, outgoing, ready to soarthrough the clouds, while I often feellike the cloud itself.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When we’re alone together, I’m the destination. When I’m here in her life at school, I’m the disruption.”

“It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it.”

“I am breathing. In dreams, we never bother to breathe.”

“I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.”

“If other people see you differently, you’ll end up seeing them differently, too.”

“Little less than a promise, and a little more than a chance.”

“I’ve found that people tend to trust other people who dress like them.”

“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.”

“I find faith in human perseverance, even as the universe throws challenge after challenge our way.”

“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.”

“She is carrying herself through the day, and it’s not an easy task.”

“Her vulnerability is open, but she’s safe within it.”

“They don’t have silences together; they have noise. Mostly his.”

“I have seen this too many times before. 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.”

“Simple and complicated, as most true things are.”

“She is so lost in her sadness that she has no idea how visible it is.”

“I know from experience that beneath every peripheral girl is a central truth. She’s hiding hers away, but at the same time she wants me to see it.”

“We all contain mysteries, especially when seen from the inside.”

“That's not what it means," you told me."And anyway don't you feel naked now?"You fell quiet, gestured for me to listen.The sound of the woods, the feel of the air. ... The sky, so present.And you, watching me take it all in.Naked to the world, the world naked to us.”