You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.
Interpretation
Words can create lasting memories and sensations in our interactions, even if we forget the exact phrases.
This quote by David Levithan reflects the profound impact that words and conversations have on our lives. While the specific words we exchange may fade over time, the feelings and connections derived from those interactions linger. The essence of conversation transcends the literal language, leaving behind a sensation that shapes our memories and relationships with others.
In practice
In a speech about the power of storytelling, this quote can illustrate how shared words create unforgettable bonds.
this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.
This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.
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.
I am made for running. Because when you run, you could be anyone. You hone yourself into a body, nothing more or less than a body. You respond as a body, to the body. If you are racing to win, you have no thoughts but the body's thoughts, no goals but the body's goals. You obliterate yourself in the name of speed. You negate yourself in order to make it past the finish line.
It doesn't have to be on Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn't have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn't have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third date. It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirit. It just has to be.
Even though I'm seventeen, I guess I still thought this would always be true - that there would always be that lost-and-found, and not the lost-and-still-lost that I am now trapped inside.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.
A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.
My people are still poor. They're still working class. All of the characters that I write about are inspired by the community that I'm from.
Adults should not weep, I knew. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.
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