Happy Birthday, Levi! [3]

I have been friends with Levi since the end of 2012. We met online through a mutual friend, and even though we occasionally saw each other in person, most of our friendship was through Facebook chat. This changed in the summer of 2014 as he started attending my church. I have enjoyed the opportunity to see him on a regular basis and get to know him better, and now have even more quotes to share for his birthday: most of them are from church, a few are from his blog when he was on a missions trip, and many close to the end are from a movie night with friends at his house.

      “I never really thought about how you’d have to do a baby announcement… The way I see it, babies come all the time, and society just rolls with it!”

“I’m sorry… I’m listening. I heard what you said. It registered. But they have BANANA PUDDING!”

“Every word I say is going on my record. Do I need an attorney?”

“They’ll be like, wow, great-great-uncle Levi was so lame!”

“I really appreciate how when Josh tells stories, to make sure it’s clear, he repeats the crucial details three times.”

“I really hope the world doesn’t end yet, and goes on for a few generations more, so that people can find and read your journals.”

Making fun of Sophie: “You’re like, what if we were all dead? And I adopted kids? Chinese children. And they couldn’t read. No, they’re all illiterate! And BLIND!”

“Oh, he was a crayon-eater? That’s never a good sign!”

“I think I was thirteen or fourteen before I realized that push pins were actually not called poky pins. THANKS MOM.”

“At some moment, when I was three or four, my mom was like, ‘Levi, don’t touch those poky pins!’ Totally makes sense, right? She was using a word her four-year-old would understand. She talked at my level so that I would know that those pins, which were poky, could hurt me. But I kept on calling them ‘poky pins,’ and she never corrected me!”

“I read that, and was like, ‘I AM A PSCYHO MANIAC! What? What?!”

About the concept of sharing a birthday with Hitler: “Think about that level of being a horrible human being! You’ve taken one of three hundred sixty-five days people would want to be born on! You’re SO BAD that you take out one of 365 options out of the whole year!”

“When someone thinks it’s safe to drink, that’s the perfect comedic moment to drop your one-liner.”

“I feel like Noahs are always either super solid people or Really Bad News.”

“You’re like, ‘oh, don’t worry… He’s not stupid in context.”

“There was one time that I told somebody, ‘Some of the dumbest things I’ve ever said have come out of my mouth.’ I couldn’t believe it! That was not what I meant to say!” It took me a second, and then, DANGIT!”

“We are plenty of fun! She is writing it down.”

“That’s like claiming that you’ve run into a cement wall and would do it again.”

“All feet are gross! Well, not baby feet. Baby feet can be cute, and you play with their toes, but then they start walking on ‘em, and their feet aren’t cute anymore! Once you start walking on them, feet are GROSS!”

“You okay, Lemon-eater?”

“You don’t want to go to the hospital for choking on a lemon rind.”

“And it all comes full circle. I love it when quips offered in the heat of the moment turn out to consistently apply to hypothetical life.”

 “What if it were customary for everyone to backhand Owen in the face every time they saw him?”

“I need to wear sunscreen because I’m white and it’s Mexico.”

“*Munches pensively on lemony fig newton while gazing out first class window into the horizon* Maybe someday I’ll write in a way that's less like a rambling squirrel with attention issues.…maybe someday.”

“Also, never eat the super sour powdery lemon "candy" that they sell here. I'm 95% sure the stuff is basically Comet toilet bowl cleaner and could clean the rust off a car that's been hauled out of the ocean. Needless to say, my innards despised me for the next two days.”

“I almost had to drive here in crazy Mexico, and I definitely did eat chili-powdered grasshoppers. It’s true that the legs get caught in your throat. I bet my mom will be thrilled to read this.”

 “Not sure how I managed to accidentally switch the filter to black and white, but rest assured, it's not because I was trying to be artsy.”

 “I wanted to say hi, but the person I was with was sharing something semi-serious, and I didn’t want to be like, ‘hold your important thought’ and then ‘HEYYYYYY!’”

“If you want to be judged, go to [local coffee shop]!"

“I don’t like calling it a ‘man bun.’ It’s a samurai bun. That’s what it is!”

“Yeah, getting ready for the ‘what stupid things has Levi said this year that he doesn’t even remember saying’ post! My birthday’s not that far away!”

“I wonder from what height you could jump into a ball pit and live?”

“Why do I say ‘golly?’ Because it’s rustic and old-fashioned! *looks at me* …That’s going in the book isn’t it?”

“He has the best quotes ever. Well… after Jesus. It’s Jesus, then Paul, and then Ron Swanson!”

“I knew what a tornado would sound like, but I didn’t know it would make your ears pop, and I thought, the reason I don’t know about this is because everyone who experienced it DIED!”

“You’re like, ‘I wrote a novel, and then wrote even more because there was more month left!”

“I just love that he wrote a short story because he didn’t want to write! That’s some kind of procrastination!”

“Jermaine and I went to Lowes Foods and looked at the cauliflower, but it was awful… Just disgusting. I didn’t want to feed you compost!”

“Well, I have a blog, and if someone told me they’d read through it, I’d be glad. If you put something out there online, you’re not going to be like, oh no! Someone read it!”

“I am self-conscious at church because I’m afraid your memory will know that I’m wearing the same shirt two weeks in a row. Every week, I look at my closet and think, oh no, I don’t remember what I wore last week, and surely Dorie will know!”

“She’s just writing down the funny things we say.”

About a family dog: “She’s old and insane. …That one’s gonna get written down.”

“We don’t know when she’s gonna kick it, but I’ve made my peace.”

About Captain America: “Going from no Internet to cryosleep to Internet… Imagine all the conspiracy theories and fan ideas he would believe until someone told him, ‘no, that’s not actually real.’”

"I’m ninety-five percent sure he’d die.” (Someone else asked, “Not completely sure?”) “No, that other five percent is the hand of the Lord.”

On recognizing spoken French: “Yeah, it sounds like they’ve got yogurt stuck in their throats.”

To his girlfriend: “Wow, you did beat me with that toilet suction story!”

“It’s nice that they have a little percentage counting down to your doom so that when you die, it’s not a surprise.”

“You know, the last time I looked around the corner of my house with a shield, it was protecting myself from Nerf darts with my dad.”

“If I have to massage my food… Something’s so wrong.”

After Captain American jumped through a glass elevator and plummeted several stories down, crashing down onto broken glass in the middle of a street: “He’ll just shake it off. He’ll be fine.”

“He just carries his shield around like a blankie!”

“Your mind is on miles of VHS tape!”

“Superman’s not an American? What?” (Other person: “He’s Kryptonian.”) “Are you saying immigrants aren’t Americans? Got you there!”

“If I was AntMan, I’d crawl in someone’s ear and wreak havoc.”

“That’s our Apocalypse plan, Caley. I care about you, and I need you to be ready.”

“That’s the second time you’ve cut through the bottom of a car to escape in one movie!” (To which our friend Sydney responded, “That’s two too many!”)

“Okay, let’s be solemn for the end of this movie. Not laughing like we were a minute ago. Let’s pay our respects to the dead.”

“I specifically asked you not to judge me!”

“So what you’re saying is that you were a well-spoken idiot?”

“I’m going to try hard to do the right thing and be honorable, but in the meantime, I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Oh, we were off! It was Henry II, or maybe there was more than one mad King Henry. *types* Mad King Henry with the wives.”

When Sophie told him that he’s one of three people she knows who says ‘golly’: “I need to meet the other two! We’d have a lot of fun.”

“It was really nice of whoever named this road to call it ‘Aviation Parkway.’ It’s like calling it Airplane Road’ so that people like me can get there.”

“Instead of complaining about her leaving stuff in my car, I should say, ‘thank you, Caley, for donating nonperishable food items in case I ever need them!”

“Oh, yes, the Gift of Singleness… It just sounds like a desperate plea for validation!”

“I still think it’s so funny that you drive that huge truck… I don’t know many guys with a ride that tough. And here you are, the quietest, nicest girl anybody knows, driving this huge truck! You’re just… you’re so quiet and nice, and a fairly small woman, and it’s not what anyone would expect. I’m just glad that I’m secure and don’t question my masculinity every time you drive by.”

“I drive an old man car, so I gave it an old man name.”

After Ava wailed that she wanted to be packed in Sophie's carry-on bag to fly with her out of the country: “That would raise a lot of questions, going through security. Do you often travel with a skeleton?”

“When they ask you if you’re bringing any goods with you into the country, you’ll have to tell them about that biscuit batter on your sleeve!”

On staying in an airport overnight in freezing temperatures: “What was I supposed to do? Tear two chairs apart to make a blanket?”

“It seems terrible to say that I enjoy crises… but I like being able to assist.”

When we saw Sophie off early enough to still make it to church, and I was concerned about my not very church-appropriate t-shirt: “Oh, it’s fine. It’s the thesaurus shirt! It’s great. If I was the pastor, I would love to have someone wearing that… I would feel really nervous if everyone was in a suit and tie but then I could look out in the congregation and think, there’s a thesaurus shirt! Now I have the courage to deliver the Word of God!”

“If the world goes on long enough… Anne Frank only had one diary. Just imagine what it will be like when people uncover Dorothy’s hundreds!”

      2015 quotes
      2014 quotes