David Levithan Quotes

Some of our parents were always on our side. Some of our parents chose to banish us rather than see us for who we were. And some of our parents, when they found out we were sick, stopped being dragons and became dragonslayers instead. Sometimes that’s what it takes—the final battle. But it should take much, much less than that.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

One of the protestor's sign catches my eye. HOMISEXUALITY IS THE DEVIL'S WORK, it says. And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn't make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.

~ David Levithan

Doubt is an acceptable risk for happiness.

~ David Levithan

The body is the easiest thing to adjust to... It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.

~ David Levithan

I’ve always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

~ David Levithan

Jest when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die.

~ David Levithan

Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die.

~ David Levithan

I once told him that the best way to break up a fight is to step between the two people and start singing ancient folk songs. But I’d never heard of anyone actually doing such a thing.

~ David Levithan

yearning n. and adj.At te core of this desire is the belief that everything can be perfect.

~ David Levithan

I just mean that if we go through this thing and it changes us so much, you have to hope that it changes us for the better, right? If goodness can’t come from bad things, it makes bad things unbearable.

~ David Levithan

My lines all curve. I tend to connect the wrong dots.

~ David Levithan

it's colder than a witch's tit in a steel bra

~ David Levithan

I don't like to do what people expect. Why should I live up to their expectations instead of my own?

~ David Levithan

Be careful what you're doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.

~ David Levithan

Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.

~ David Levithan

The devil doesn't make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.

~ David Levithan

i think the idea of a 'mental health day' is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'i don't want to deal with things today' and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.

~ David Levithan

tiny: did someone die?me: yeah, i did.he smiles again at that.tiny: well, then... welcome to the afterlife.

~ David Levithan

Failure is always louder than success. But there is an accumulation of all the things you don’t do wrong, and that becomes your confidence. You can even get to the point where that confidence lasts longer than the dance. Seconds at first. Then minutes. Then maybe it’ll be there when you’re walking into a party, or meeting people after a show. You know you have something desirable, and you know you can move.

~ David Levithan

When you dance, you measure distance as if it’s a solid thing; you make precise judgments every time two bodies exist in relation to each other. So I knew right away the definition of the space between us.

~ David Levithan

Most dancers find their confidence in dancing. Right is mere millimeters away from wrong. Failure is always louder than success. But there is an accumulation of all the things you don’t do wrong, and it becomes your confidence. You can even get to the point where confidence lasts longer than the dance. Seconds at first. Then minutes. Then maybe it’ll be there when you’re walking into a party, or meeting people after a show. You know you have something desirable, and you know you can move.

~ David Levithan

I had yet to learn that when it came to gender, I was both and neither.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

Even though you're not my type, gender wise, you're certainly my type, person-wise.

~ David Levithan

I think they would like the songs betterif I left out the names, or changedthe pronouns.

~ David Levithan

If you put enough closets together, you have enough space for a room. If you put enough rooms together, you have enough room for a house. If you put enough houses together, you have space for a town, then a city, then a nation, then a world.

~ David Levithan

If you put enough closets together, you have enough space for a room. If you put enough rooms together, you have enough space for a house. If you put enough houses together, you have space for a town, then a city, then a nation, then a world.

~ David Levithan

It was so screwed up, because the thing that made us the most powerless also gave us such power. We could make them turn away. We could bother them and challenge them and mess them up. You think people are afraid of two boys in love? To hell with that. What people are really afraid of is two boys screwing.

~ David Levithan

People like to say being gay isn't like skin color, isn't anything physical. They tell us we always have the option of hiding.But if that's true, why do they always find us?

~ David Levithan

Either way, you were connected. By your desires. By your defiance. By the simple, complicated fact of who you were.

~ David Levithan

Stupid arbitrary shit means it will take a movie star to die and a hemophiliac teenager to die before ordinary people start to mobilize, start to feel that the disease needs to be stopped. Tens of thousands of people will die before drugs are made and drugs are approved. What a horrible feeling that is, to know that if the disease had primarily affected PTA presidents, or priests, or white teenage girls, the epidemic would have been ended years earlier, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives would have been saved

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

The pink-haired boy is scared, so incredibly scared - only the thing you've most wished for can scare you in that way.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

So that's what we did - rocketing down Sixth Avenue, dashing around the rest of the post-concert crowd, splashing our tracks until our ankles were soaked. You took the lead, and I started to lose my sprint. But then you looked back, stopped, and waited for me to catch up, for me to take your hand, for us to continue to run in the rain, drenched and enchanted, my words to Amanda no longer feeling like a requirement, but a foretelling.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan

We are not taught love thy neighbor unless their skin is a different color from yours or love thy neighbor unless they don't make money as you do or love thy neighbor unless they don't share your belies. We are taught love thy neighbor. No exceptions. We are all in this together - every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion. A Great Community does not mean we all think the same things or do the same things. It simply means we are willing to work together and are willing to love despite our differences.

~ David Levithan

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.

~ David Levithan