- "it is hard to stop seeing your son as a son and to start seeing him as a human. it is hard to stop seeing your parents as parents and start seeing them as human beings."
- "this is what we don't admit about first kisses: one of the most gratifying thing about them is that they are proof, actual proof, that the other person wants to kiss us. we are desirable. we desire. every kiss that matter contains a recongnition at its core."
- "when you need to hold on to something, you should. whatever gets you through, take it."
- "they are creating a kiss, and they are also creating their stories, and by creating their stories, they are creating their lives. this can be a very painful process."
- "you wouldn't think that we would miss physical pain, considering all the pain that we went through. but we do. we miss it. we miss the price we paid for life. because it was a part of life."
- "we know. an amolst certain way to die is to believe you are already dead."
- "we want him to consider that love make the world beareble, but that does not make it a lie."
- "playing things out in his mind. talking to himself because there is no one else to talk to."
- "it is very hard to stay alive just for your own sake. it is very hard to stare into day after day after day without another familiar face staring back. it turns your heart into a purposeless muscle. the fewer conections you have to the world, the easier it is to leave."
- "even though the liquid is easier to see, you have to learn to appreciate the air."
- "you cannot live for anyone else's sake. as much as you may want to, you can't stay alive just because people want you alive. you cannot stay alive for your parents. you cannot stay alive for your friends. and you have no responsibility to stay alive for them. you have bo responsibility to anyone but yourself to live."
- "why must we watch as cooper steps up to the railing? why must we whatch as a twelve-year-old puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger? why must we watch as as fourteen-year-old hangs himself in the garege, to be found by his grandmother two hours later? why must we whatch a nineteen-year-old is strung up on the side of an empty highway and left to die? why must we watch as a thirteen-year-old take a stomach full of pills, then places a plastic bag over his head? why must we watch as he vomits and chokes? why we must die over and over again?"
- "when our bodies were failing, we'd often feel like the space between breaths was centuries long. and then sleep would be over in a blink, leaving us more exhausted than ever."
- "he hopes that maybe i'll make people a little less scared of two boys kissing than they were before, and a little more welcoming to the idea that all people are, in fact, born equal, no matter who they kiss or screw, no matter what dreams they have or love they give."
- "we didn't have many role models of our own - we latched on to the foolish love of oscar wilde and the well-versed longing of walt whitman because nobody else was there to show us an urtortured path. we were going to be your role models. we were going to give you art and musica and confidence and shelter and a much better world. those who survived lived to do this. but we haven't been there for you. we've been here. watching as you become the role models."
- "there will come a time when the stars of your favorite teen tv show will be sixty. there will come a time when you will have the same unalienable rights as your straightest friend. (probably before any of the stars of you favorite teen tv show turn sixty.) there will come a time when the gay prom won't have to be separate. there will come a time when you will look at someone younger than you and feel that he or she will know more than you ever did. there will come a time when you will worry about being forgotten. there will come a time when the gospel will be rewritten."
- "if you play your cards right, the next generation will have so much more than you did."
- "you should all live to meet your future selves. we saw our friends die. but we also see our friends live. so many of them live, and we often toast their long and full lives. they carry us on."
- "there is the sudden. there is the eventual. and in between, there is the living."
- "we do not start as dust. we do not end as dust. we make more than dust. that's all we ask of you. make more than dust."
feb 12 2014 ∞
feb 12 2014 +