David Levithan: Likeness

“Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.”

“You like him because he's a lost boy. Believe me, I've seen it happen before. But do you know what happens to girls who love lost boys? They become lost themselves. Without fail.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“3. You think that looks like a heart? If you do, that's only because you've never seen scrotum.”

“what i really want - and what i never get - is to be appreciated. do you know what it’s like to work so hard to make sure everyone’s happy, and to have not a single person recognize it”

“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.”

“You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.”

“Deep down? That sounds like settling to me. You shouldn't have to venture deep down in order to get to love.”

“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.”

“Making love without noise is like playing a muted piano-fine for practice, but you cheat yourself out of hearing the glorious results.”

“People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.”

“The tenderness between two people can turn the air tender, the room tender, time itself tender. As I step out of bed and slip on an oversize shirt, everything around me feels like it's the temperature of happiness.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“This is the thing they don't tell you about being a third wheel - it's not like you're the wheel that's added on. You were one of the original two wheels, but suddenly you're not so important anymore. The relationship drives fine without you.”