#levithan

Think about it. People in the sixteenth century - not to mention in Jesus's time - didn't look like this: perfect skin, perfect hairdos, spotless clothes. These are people who went to the bathroom in the street, for God's sake. There's no way they looked like this. But that's how we're going to remember them. Our alabaster past. When nothing else is left, art will become the truth of the time. Then people will get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and wonder what happened - how we all became so imperfect. ↗

— Julia David Levithan

#art #david-levithan #history #art

My mother said I should have a 'change of scenery.' The word scenery made be think of a play. And as we were driving around, it made sense that way. Because no matter how much the scenery changed, we were still on the same stage. ↗

— David Levithan

#levithan #scenery #stage #change

I think they would like the songs better if I left out the names, or changed the pronouns. ↗

— David Levithan

#gay #love #what-a-song-can-do #change

The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them. ↗

— David Levithan

#faith #levithan #precarious #word #faith

Also, I feel that crying is almost--like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever-- totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1.Don't care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules. ↗

— John Green

#death

If I don't shut down my brain soon, my imagination will take off so far about what could be with this guy, that nothing will ever just be.-- Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist ↗

— Rachel Cohn

#rachel-cohn #imagination

i feel like my life is so scattered right now. like it’s all these small pieces of paper and someone’s turned on the fan. but talking to you makes me feel like the fan’s been turned off for a little bit. like things could actually make sense. you completely unscatter me, and i appreciate that so much. ↗

— John Green

#life

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. ↗

— David Levithan

#every-day #life

We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most . Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. It's not going to be explained to you in a prayer. And I'm not going to be able to explain it to you. Not because I'm as ignorant and hopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat, and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. but that's only spelling. I don't mean this to sound hopeless. Because in the same way that a kid can realise what "c-a-t" means, I think we can find the truths that live behind our words. I wish that I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learnt the words. It must have been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily. ↗

— Rachel Cohn

#life

Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love. ↗

— David Levithan

#realm-of-possibility #love