David Levithan Air Quotations

Our lives change. Our feelings for each other change. Our bearings change. The song changes. The air changes. The temperature of the shower changes. Accept this. We must accept this.

Music is everywhere. It’s in the air between us, waiting to be sung.

Here’s what I know about the realm of possibility— it is always expanding, it is never what you think it is. Everything around us was once deemed impossible. From the airplane overhead to the phones in our pockets to the choir girl putting her arm around the metalhead. As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist within the realm of possibility. Most of the limits are of our own world’s devising. And yet, every day we each do so many things that were once impossible to us.

I don’t like it when you use my shampoo, because then your hair smells like me, not you.

And I told you: I think of a photograph you took of me, up in Montreal. You told me to jump in the air, so in the picture, my feet are off the ground. Later, I asked you why you wanted me to do that, and you told me it was the only way to get me to forget about the expression on my face. You were right. I am completely unposed, completely genuine. In my mind’s eye, I picture myself like that, reacting to you.

She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I had to end it. She was surprised, and asked my why I thought so. I told her it wasn't a thought, more a feeling, like I couldn't breathe and knew I had to get some air. It was a survival instinct, I told her. She said it was time for dinner. Then she sat me down and told me not to worry. She said moments like this were like waking up in the middle of the night: You're scared, your'e disoriented, and you're completely convinced you're right. But then you stay awake a little longer and you realize things aren't as fearful as they seem.

When someone breaks up with you, their beauty-- which you took such satisfaction in-- suddenly becomes unfair.

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.

Sometimes desire is air, sometimes desire is liquid. And every now and then, when everything else is air and liquid, desire solidifies, and the body is the magnet that draws its weight.

Life tells you to take the elevator, but love tells you to take the stairs.

I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable nighttime conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no light in the room.

Even if you were green and had a beard and a male appendage between your legs. Even if your eyebrows were orange and you had a mole covering your entire cheek and a nose that poked me in the eye every time I kissed you. Even if you weighed seven hundred pounds and had hair the size of a Doberman under your arms. Even then, I would love you.

There is no word for the recipient of the love. There is only a word for the giver. There is the assumption that lovers come in pairs.

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.

dissonance, n. Nights when I need to sleep and you can't. Days when I want to talk to you and you won't. Hours when every noise you make interferes with my silence. Weeks when there is a buzzing in the air, and we both pretend we don't here it.