Bill Konigsberg Quotes & Sayings

I don't think about relatability (when writing), I think about the heart of the character. — Bill Konigsberg

I knew that she was right, obviously. But part of me didn't want to. I wanted to have someone to call my own so badly that I just couldn't let it go. — Bill Konigsberg

I think anyone who stops at a gas station at night is up to no good. I think that if cops want to stop drunk driving, they should hide out in the bushes at the Taco Bell drive-through. I think if you're a guy and you pull down your pants and the girl you're with starts texting, you have a small penis. — Bill Konigsberg

Some things you remember, and some you forget. Of the things you remember, you have to wonder what's real and what's translated into a memory from a story you heard. — Bill Konigsberg

Maybe in life, most of us feel inferior because we compare our dress rehearsals to [Janelle Monae's] final performance.
page 113 — Bill Konigsberg

Oh, I'm so glad. You love a boy," my mom said. "You're still our Rafe, underneath this hideous straight disguise ... . — Bill Konigsberg

He was staring into my eyes, and I felt that shivery thing that happens when you look in someone's eyes and you get goose bumps because you're gaining access. — Bill Konigsberg

Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where no one thought being gay was even something to ride someone about? — Bill Konigsberg

It needs to be said that sometimes my mom forgets important details when she talks. Like the time she told us she was considering leather (couches, it turns out), or when I was little and she said, "Here's a napkin to put your balls in" (the Atomic Fireballs that I was eating, she meant). — Bill Konigsberg

The world needs people who are more comfortable standing still. We keep the earth on it axis when everybody else is bouncing around. — Bill Konigsberg

And I think, What's the opposite of suffocation? — Bill Konigsberg

Lean forward, and head on down the mountain. — Bill Konigsberg

We were dancers and drummers and standers and jugglers, and there was nothing anyone needed to accept or tolerate. We celebrated. — Bill Konigsberg

You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it doesn't feel good. — Bill Konigsberg

Selflessness involves giving up your self. You become a martyr. Like the Hindu kamikaze warriors. These Japanese Hindus chose to give up their lives, and they were killed if they didn't. Imagine what their families felt. One day you have a father, and next, you're watching him fly a plane into a ship on Pearl Harbor on television. Those kids didn't do anything wrong. They just lived in an evil country. The axis of evil. That sort of evil is beyond anything you or I will experience in our lifetimes. So be glad. Be glad we live in the US of A. Be glad we get to choose, with our freedoms. Now get out there and fight! — Bill Konigsberg

Yes, my name is Seamus - pronounced SHAY-mus - Rafael Goldberg. Try being five with that name. — Bill Konigsberg

The hole in my heart, I can't even begin to describe. It's hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they're not in it anymore. It doesn't matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can't feel it anymore. I knew it might be there a little while. Or maybe even a long while. For both of us. — Bill Konigsberg

As I said, it wasn't even a gay thing. But it made me think how hard some kids have it with their families. Me, I could show up as Lady GaGa dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, and Mom would be like, "How was your day, honey?" That's just not the case for most kids. — Bill Konigsberg

I could see the combinations and permutations flutter through their minds. This was Boulder. It could easily be two moms. Two dads. A dad, a mom, and an orangutan. Three Amish hipsters and a transgendered Aboriginal mermaid. — Bill Konigsberg

I was thinking about how snakes shed their skin every year, and how awesome it would be if people did that too. In lots of ways, that's what I was trying to do. As — Bill Konigsberg

That was the thing about Ben. He could get away with saying shit like that. I totally couldn't. I wasn't big or masculine enough. In my mind, anyway. But Ben could get all agape on your ass, and you'd just sit there like, huh. Agape. Interesting. — Bill Konigsberg

Then I wondered if that was what this was, like a Brokeback Mountain thing. We'd sleep in the same bed for a year, and finally we'd do it, but we'd never talk about it, ever, and then Ben would get married and I'd be killed in Texas.
Probably not, but you can never be too careful with these things. — Bill Konigsberg

Men in India hold hands walking down the street," Ben said, his voice right up against my ear.
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's just part of their culture. They don't, you know, do things sexually. They just hold hands. Here, that would be, like, weird."
"Yeah. We Americans are so uptight," I said. — Bill Konigsberg

I'd never been part of a group like that, so it was interesting, like a National Geographic special on wolves that I might watch with my dad.
And I was part of the pack. — Bill Konigsberg

Actually, tolerance and acceptance are different. To tolerate seems to mean that there is something negative to tolerate, doesn't it? — Bill Konigsberg

To me, religion is the Walmart of spirituality ... I mean it's prepackaged. Lowest common denominator. People just have to follow the present motions and rituals and rules. The don't have to think about how the words reconcile with their own hearts. Their own experience. — Bill Konigsberg

What do you call it when a straight person comes out? ... A conversation — Bill Konigsberg

I'm not getting this. How do you take a break from who you are, Shay Shay? — Bill Konigsberg

I really don't worry about that anymore. When you're dying, you don't have time for that junk. The shit people did to you? It's over. — Bill Konigsberg

I tried to imagine myself part of a pack of guys who picked up local public school girls on weekends. It was hard to envision, but I was definitely willing to try. Not the pickup part. Just the being in a posse part. — Bill Konigsberg

More and more these days, I'm realizing that I might be crazy, but I'm loved too. I don't think I ever really knew that before, but I do now. — Bill Konigsberg

Guilt is about something you do. Shame is about who you are. — Bill Konigsberg

Acceptance is an affirmation that you're good enough. — Bill Konigsberg

Having no room of my own to "take care of things" had begun to weigh on me. I wondered if storing up semen would have a health impact on me, positive or negative, like shinier hair or weight gain. — Bill Konigsberg

We hugged, and my dad cried a little. I don't have a macho-type dad, who hunts and fishes and collects guns. He's sensitive and caring. He drives me crazy most of the time, but I do admire that he's not afraid to show his "feminine side. — Bill Konigsberg

It's hard to be different," Scarborough said. "And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated. — Bill Konigsberg

I could see he didn't understand that knowing a person is about more than knowing whom they fantasize about. That's the small stuff, actually. Not the big stuff. The big stuff is lying next to a guy on the floor and locking eyes and having deep conversations about philosophy. The big stuff is letting a friend know your hopes and your fears and not having to make a joke about it. That's what matters. — Bill Konigsberg

I had the strong sensation that I'd underestimated my parents and their devotion to me. Of course they'd be on my side, whether they understood or not. That was just the kind of parents they were. — Bill Konigsberg

It's hard to explain," she says. "I would say that I'm more spiritual than religious at this point." "What does that even mean?" I stare upward at the gleaming stars. "To me, religion is the Walmart of spirituality. — Bill Konigsberg

Then Albie reached into his pocket and pulled out one shiny Jonathan apple.
"Hungry?" he asked us.
"How'd you do that?" I asked, wondering when he'd had time to pocket an apple.
"Oh, I have four of them," he said, patting his megalarge pockets. "Next time you won't laugh when I tell you to watch Survival Planet. — Bill Konigsberg

Do you know how you get the urge to clean your room, and it's no big deal? But when your mom tells you that you have to clean your room, you don't want to? That's me, anyway. — Bill Konigsberg

The Greeks were smarter than us, and they had different words for different kinds of love. There's storge, which is family love. That's not us. There's eros, which is sexual love. There's philia, which is brotherly love. And then there's the highest form. Agape." He pronounced it 'aga-pay'. "Thats transcendental love, like when you place the other person above yourself. — Bill Konigsberg

Is this your boyfriend?" the first nun asked.
Clair Olivia looked me up and down. "No. This is my gay friend who decided he was straight and single-handedly wrecked havoc at an all-boys school in Massachusetts this fall. He's gay again and home for Christmas, so yay! — Bill Konigsberg

We were at a swap meet in Cochituate last year, and there was this Boy Scout troop with a sign that read, 'Help Boy Scouts, Blind Kids.' Toby saw it, and he grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me away. I asked what was wrong, and with this scared expression on his face, he said, That's not right. They need to be stopped.'
I cracked up. 'Oh, no,' I said.
'When I asked him why helping blind kids and Boy Scouts was bad, Toby's whole face went white. He said, 'Forget it. Let's go.' But I had to know what the hell he was talking about, so I made him walk back over with me. We looked at the sign together, and finally he mumbled, 'I didn't see the comma. — Bill Konigsberg

Wow. Did I just write that? I didn't want who I am to come between us? How could I not have seen that? — Bill Konigsberg

Straight people don't have to think every time they talk, about whether they are coming out. We do. That might be hard, but that's also why we have to come out. if we don't, it's pretty much impossible to have a conversation about anything beyond the weather without lying. we really have no choice, do we ? — Bill Konigsberg

Straight people have it so much easier. They don't understand. They can't. There's no such thing as openly straight. — Bill Konigsberg