David Levithan Quotes

We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.

~ David Levithan

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

You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.

~ David Levithan

I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own.It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.

~ David Levithan

It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

The way you're singing in your sleepThe way you look before you leapThe strange illusions that you keepYou don't knowBut I'm noticingThe way your touch turns into arcsThe way you slide into the darkThe beating of my open heartYou don't knowBut I'm noticing

~ David Levithan

Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.

~ David Levithan

It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations—all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In you 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 now just arriving at the place you were always meant to be.

~ David Levithan

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

~ David Levithan

he is both the source of my happiness and the one i want to share it with.

~ David Levithan

Love 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 day.It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirt.It just has to be.

~ David Levithan

Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek and curse? No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it because if you can make yourself happy in the rain, then you're doing pretty alright in life.

~ David Levithan

You don't know me. You know one me, just like I know one you. And you can't know every me, and I can't know every you.

~ David Levithan

Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

I'm told there's no going back. So I'm choosing forward.

~ David Levithan

Some days are like this. And the only way to get through them is to remember that they are only one day, and that every day ends.

~ David Levithan

We pencil-sketch our previous life so we can contrast it to the technicolor of the moment.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

rolf! what? are you really rolling on the floor laughing? well, please stay down there for a sec while I KICK YOUR ASS.

~ David Levithan

So what else can I tell you? I asked. I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me.She triangled her fingers under her chin. Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?Am I a...?Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter.I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't.No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry.Not even a little drip every now and then?I'm trying hard to see how this is germane.I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze.What adjective do you feel the most longing for?That was easy. I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful.Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money.The old woman nodded.Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me.Are you a museumgoer?Is the pope a churchgoer?When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina.

~ David Levithan

Because sometimes you just have to dance like a madman in the Self-Help section of your local bookstore.

~ David Levithan

I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF.

~ David Levithan

now, if there's anything stupider than buddy lists, its lol. if anyone ever uses lol with me, i rip my computer right out of the wall and smash it over the nearest head. i mean, it's not like anyone is laughing out loud about the things they lol. i think it should be spelled loll. like what a lobotomized person's tongue does. loll. loll. i can't think anymore. loll. loll! or ttyl. bitch, you're not actually talking. that would require actual vocal contact or <3. you honestly think that looks like a heart? if you do, that's only because you'v never seen scrotum. (rofl! what? are you really rolling on the floor laughing? well, please stay down there a sec while i KICK YOUR ASS)

~ David Levithan

It’s as simple as that. Simple and complicated, as most true things are.

~ David Levithan

You know there's no such thing as a complete lie. There's always some truth in there.

~ David Levithan

It is much harder to lie to someone's face.But.It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face.

~ David Levithan

He was attractive. I knew that. And I knew that attractive people always got away with things.

~ David Levithan

I want to have faith in strangers. I want to have faith in what we're all going to do next. But I'm worried. I see things shifting from United We Stand to God Bless America. I don't believe in God Bless America. I don't believe a higher power is standing beside us and guiding us. I don't believe we're being singled out. I believe much more in United We Stand. I have my doubts, but I want it to be true. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really came together, if we really found a common humanity? The hitch is that you can't find a common humanity just because you have a common enemy. You have to find a common humanity because you believe that's true.

~ David Levithan

...because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life.

~ David Levithan

It's b******* to think of friendship and romance being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variatons of the same desire to be close.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

Love me less,but love me for a long time.

~ David Levithan

My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they ganged up on my hope and let her get away.

~ David Levithan

I hope suffering don't exist.

~ David Levithan

If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. You memories will be my most lasting impressions.

~ David Levithan