David Levithan Quotes

I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow up. Mine grew up with me. We coexist. I don't try to change them anymore, and I don't think they try to change me.

I've had this conversation with friends who have had challenging relationships with one or another parent. The only thing I can say is what I feel: The other person isn't going to change. That is who they are.

'Thirteen' was really hard on my family. I wrote this movie about them and their flaws and imperfections and what it was like growing up. It was from one kid's perspective and not a well rounded one. You get older, and it's like, 'How dare I portray my father as being a totally vacant, careless schmuck?'

I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow up. Mine grew up with me. We coexist. I don't try to change them anymore, and I don't think they try to change me. We agree to disagree.

For a long time I was cautious of working with my parents because I wanted to feel separate from them in the community. Now there's no more wasting time.

One of the most startling events in my life was when my older son was about 16, and he blamed me for all the troubles of the world. So I, I felt like telling him, 'Oh no, I was just like you when I was your age; I wanted to change the world, too.'

I think that at a certain point in our lives we should have to interview our parents.

I think I am a better son than a husband.

Honestly, I have been able to accept my father's new relationship because you get to that point with your parents that you realise it's their life, not yours.

Most people acquire a softer side with age and sometimes with dad that has been quite weird to see.

When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him, that I didn't have with my father.

This was not a good idea coming home for Christmas. I'm too old. Years ago, coming back from schools or trips, I always expected some sort of new perspective or fresh insight about the family on returning. That doesn't happen anymore-the days of revelation about my parents, at least, are over... its time to move on. I think we'd all appreciate that.

When I wrote the book, I thought that I was the hero of my story. And in writing it, I came to realize over time that my mom was the hero. And I was, you know - I was just her punk-ass sidekick.

Parenthood always involves recognizing your child as separate and different from you.

I've learned to become a progressive man because I have four women in my life. And their mother, who I'm not married to anymore, but who impresses me because of our relationship. Because we have a very deep and friendly relationship that is completely about who we really are now. Before it was husband, wife, mother, father. But now it's about who we are as human beings. Because we didn't give up on each other. And because we didn't hurt each other and blister each other from a divorce. We became tight. Best friends. And more than that even, because now we're best parents.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.

Times change, people change, thought and feeling take new shapes, put on fresh garments, sons bow their heads unwillingly to that which enraptured their fathers.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

My grandfather stood beside me and looked across the street, too. "No, Bryce," he said softly. "She's the same as she's always been; you're the one who's changed." He clapped his hand on my shoulder and whispered, "And son, from here on out, you'll never be the same again.

You can learn technological things, you can learn about specific things, but the real problems that people deal with in any subject, existential subjects or romantic subjects, you never learn anything. So you make a fool of yourself when you're 20, you make a fool of yourself at 40, at 60 at 80. The ancient Greeks were dealing with these problems. They screwed up all the time. People do now.

For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass.

I really grew up more of a people pleaser and I just wanted to make people happy, and maybe didn't always say exactly how I was feeling.

When parents see their children's problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children. . . . This paradigm is powerful in business as well.