Will Grayson, Will Grayson Love Quotes

"I'm in love." I roll my eyes, because he falls in love every hour on the hour with some poor new boy. They all look the same: skinny and sweaty and tan, the last an abomination, because all February tans in Chicago are fake, and boys who fake tan—I don't care whether they're gay— are ridiculous.

"You're so cynical," Tiny says, waving his hand at me.

"I'm not cynical, Tiny," I answer. "I'm practical."

"You're a robot," he says. Tiny thinks that I am incapable of what humans call emotion because I have not cried since my seventh birthday, when I saw the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. I suppose I should have known from the title that it wouldn't end merrily, but in my defense, I was seven. Anyway, I haven't cried since then. I don't really understand the point of crying. Also, I feel that crying is almost—like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever—totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1. Don't care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules.

"I know love is real because I feel it," Tiny says. (1.8-12)

And Tiny is saying, "If you can't trust your gut then what can you trust?" And I say, "You can trust that caring, as a rule, ends poorly," which is true. Caring doesn't sometimes lead to misery. It always does.

"My heart is broken," Tiny says, as if the thing has never happened before to him, as if it has never happened before to anyone. And maybe that's the problem: maybe each new breakup feels so radically new to Tiny that, in some way, it hasn't happened before. (1.77-78)

later that night i get an email from him.

i feel like my life is so scattered right now. like it's all these small pieces of paper and someone's turned on the fan. but talking to you makes me feel like the fan's been turned off for a little bit. like things could actually make sense. you completely unscatter me, and i appreciate that so much. GOD I AM SO IN LOVE. (2.75-77)

I have the distinct feeling that flirting is occurring. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy flirting as much as the next guy, provided the next guy has repeatedly seen his best friend torn asunder by love. But nothing violates the rules of shutting up and not caring so much as flirting—except possibly for that enchantingly horrible moment when you act upon the flirting, that moment where you seal your heartbreak with a kiss. There should be a third rule, actually: 1. Shut up. 2. Don't care too much. And 3. Never kiss a girl you like. (3.18)

"I would never come on to you, because you're not gay. And, like, boys who like girls are inherently unhot. Why would you like someone who can't like you back?"

The question is rhetorical, but if I wasn't trying to shut up, I'd answer it: You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot. (3.33-34)

"Do you believe in epiphanies?" she asks. We start walking again.

"Um, can you unpack the question?"

"Like, do you believe that people's attitudes can change? One day you wake up and you realize something, you see something in a way that you never saw it before, and boom, epiphany. Something is different forever. Do you believe in that?"

"No," I say. "I don't think anything happens all at once. Like, Tiny? You think Tiny falls in love every day? No way. He thinks he does, but he doesn't really. I mean, anything that happens all at once is just as likely to unhappen all at once, you know?" (9.22-25)

"Four," he says. "So I realized, in spite of my great and terrible fabulousness, the play can't be about me. It must be about something even more fabulous: love. The polychromic many-splendored dreamcoat of love in all its myriad glories. And so it had to be revised. Also retitled. And so I had to stay up all night. And I've been writing like crazy, writing a musical called Hold Me Closer. We'll need more sets than I thought. Also! Also! More voices in the chorus. The chorus must be like a f***ing wall of song, you know?" (13.30)

tiny: you know what's a great metaphor for love?
me: i have a feeling you're about to tell me.

he turns away and makes an attempt to swing high. the swing set groans so much that he stops and twists back my way.

tiny: sleeping beauty.
me: sleeping beauty?
tiny: yes, because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up.
me: so i'm a thicket?
tiny: and the beauty that isn't fully awake yet. (16.90-92)

so i'm getting out the phone. i'm not even thinking about it. i'm pressing the number and i'm hearing the ring and as soon as it's answered, i'm shouting into the phone:

me: I LOVE YOU. DO YOU HEAR ME, I LOVE YOU?

i'm screaming it, and it sounds so angry and so frightened and so pathetic and desperate. on the other end of the phone, my mother is asking me what's wrong, where am i, what's happening, and i'm telling her that i'm at home and that everything's a mess, and she's saying she'll be home in ten minutes, will i be okay for ten minutes? (16.116-118)

tiny: maybe there is something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it matters.

no, i think. NO.

it doesn't have to hurt.

i stand up. and then i almost sit down again. it is taking all of my strength to stand up.

i look at gideon.

tiny: but i just fell and landed and i am still standing here to tell you that you've gotta learn to love the falling, because it's all about falling.

i reach out my pinkie. gideon takes it in his.

tiny: just fall for once. let yourself fall! (20.79-86)