Sarah Dessen Quotes

It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering.

Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.

I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.

But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.

It was like discovering that some part of you wasn't yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn't claim.

When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.

If you have just one person believe in you, you'll always find your way

Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.

If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.

I mean, it's impossible to fake anything if you've already seen the other person in a way they'd never choose for you to. You can't go back from that.

You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try

Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never really learning a single thing.

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

With love like that, you can't get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is that it's there. Better late than never.

So you should remember that, when you're thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it's not so bad.

It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.

It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.

I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I'd ever known.

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

You couldn't just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn't like a light switch, easy to turn on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out.

I would have thought this would make me feel better.. getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.

Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.

Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.

You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you.

I would miss Colby, but it wasn't going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.

There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.

Family isnt about blood relationships, its about the meaning behind them. I relize now that sharing chromosoms is not the only way to having a family, its about the friendship behind it.

All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.

So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood how I felt. Now, though, I sometimes wished for more.

Hey, and for what it's worth? Friends don't leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who come and take you out.

That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.

Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.

...You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.

It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.

Yeah. I mean, acknowledging is easy. Something happened or it didn't. But understanding... that's where things get sticky.

Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.

It's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.

I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it - it wasn't Will's. It was mine.

Harder to get in than out, like so little else.

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

He just stood there, looking at me, as if I had actually changed before his eyes. But this was the girl I'd been all along. I'd just hidden her well.

Say what you will, but you’re never prepared for the surprise attack.

So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.

He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.

I'm starting to think, though, that some things never get that. The replay, and all. So at some point you have to make peace with it as it is, not keep waiting for a chance to change it

When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. you can't just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it's not perfect.