David Levithan, Every Day

"If you want to live within the definition of your own truth, you have to choose to go through the painful process of finding it."

"It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other. Yes, the differences between male and female are biological, but if you look at biology as a matter of percentage, there aren't a whole lot of things that are different. Race is different purely as a social construct, not as an inherent difference. And religion - whether you believe in God or Yahweh or Allah or something else, odds are that at heart you want the same things. 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."

"I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else."

"I wake up. Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just the body—opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I’m fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you’re used to waking up in a new one each morning. It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp. Every day I am someone else. I am myself—I know I am myself—but I am also someone else. It has always been like this."

"Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preserving."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for people to do, but I don't understand why it's so hard, when it's so obvious."

"Her mind is an unquiet one, words and thoughts and impulses constantly crashing into each other."

"The past and future are what’s complicated. It’s the present that’s simple."

"We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough."

"I had made it somewhere special, and I'd gotten there all on my own. Nobody had given it to me. Nobody had told me to do it. I'd climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward. To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself. That, I found, was what I needed."

"happy to see me and unhappy to see me at the same time"

"The past and the future are complicated. It's the present that's simple."

"It’s one thing to fall in love. It’s another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love."

"When Dawn looked at Vic, she saw Vic exactly as he wanted to be seen. Whereas Vic's parents couldn't help seeing who he used to be, and so many friends and strangers couldn't help seeing who he didn't want to be anymore, Dawn only saw him. Call it a blur if you want, but Dawn didn't see a blur. She saw a very distinct, very clear person."