Sarah Dessen Quotes

If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.

I wondered if it was really because he cared about me, or if now I was just another challenge.

Who says there has to be a point?" He asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.

I mean, at least with an argument, you know what's happening. Or have some idea. Silence is ... it could be anything.

She leaned back against the step, smoothing her hands over her stomach. Though she wasn't showing yet, just in the last week she'd started to look different. It wasn't something I could describe easily. It was like those stop-action films of flowers blooming that we watched in Biology. Every frame something is happening, something little that would be missed in real time - the sprout pushing, bit by bit, from the ground, the petals slowly moving outward. To the naked eye, it's just suddenly blooming, color today where there was none before. But in real time, it's always building, working to show itself, to become.

I've seen what commitment leads to, and it isn't pretty. Going in is the easy part. It's the endings that suck.

Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative."
"Which is?"
"Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?

For as long as I could remember, other people had either overshadowed me or left me out in the open, alone. But Mac, as Layla had said all those weeks ago, was always somewhere nearby. He left me enough space to stand alone, but stood at the ready for the moment that I didn't want to. It was the perfect medium, I was learning. Like he was my saint, the one I'd been waiting for.

Mayonnaise is a lot like men, it can make everything much better, adding flavor and ease to your life. Or, it can just be sticky and gross and make you nauseous"- "Keeping the Moon

I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?

It's never long distance between friends.

That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.

That was the nice thing about the Spot: you could hear everything, but no one could see you.

But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance.

This was just one night, one chance to vary and see where it took me. The fireflies were probably already out: maybe it wasn't just a season or a time but a whole world I'd forgotten. I'd never know until I stepped out into it. So I did.

Despite our differences, we did have a history. No one understood where I was coming from the way he did.

You can never be sure of anyone until you're close enough to see them clearly.

But sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something. You know?

You need demarcation."
"Demarcation?" I asked.
"It means a clear separation between two things," he told me. "A solid end before a clean beginning. No murky borders. Clarity.

"Demarcation?" I asked.
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I wasn't very happy in high school: it was a confusing and sort of sad time for me.

There was only so much space between us, not even a real distance if measured in miles or feet or even inches, all the things that told you how far you'd come or had left to go. But it was a big space, if only for me. And as I moved forward to him covering it, he waited there on the other side. It was only the last little bit I has to go, but in the end, I knew it would be all I would truly remember. So as I kissed him, bringing this summer and everything else full circle, I let myself fall, and was not scared of the ground I knew would rise up to meet me.

The basic fact is that no, this isnt ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push,so to speak.
-Heidi

I think when you're a beginning author with any publishing company, there's only so much they can put behind you.

My point is,' Jamie continued, 'not everything's perfect, especially at the beginning. And it's all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it ... that's when you get into trouble.'
pg 169-170

Okay, so if that's not real, what is? What counts, to you?" He thought for a second, then said, "I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting." I wasn't sure what answer I'd expected. But this wasn't it. For a second, I just sat there, letting it sink in. "You know," I said finally, "saying stuff like that would make girls even crazier for you. Now you're cuteand somewhat more attainable. If you were appealing before, now you're off the charts.

I waited. Because with Eli, he was never trying to get you to finish for him. He always knew where he was going, even if it took a little while to get there.

For most of us, once something was busted, it was game over. I would have loved to know how it felt, just once, to have something fall apart and see options instead of endings.

That was just it. You never knew what lay ahead; the future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything. One minute you're walking through a dark woods, alone, and then the landscape shifts, and you see it. Something wondrous and unexpected, almost magical, that you never would have found had you not kept going. Like a new friend who feels like an old one, or a memory you'll never forget. Maybe even a carousel.

My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

The specifics of what, exactly, these terms meant were never explained; as with any fantasy, vagueness was part of the appeal.

It was just the lightest dusting, and another person might have mistaken it for something else. But I knew where I came from. No matter where I was, or what got me there, I would always feel at home when I touched sand.

Disappointment is part of life. Just like change.

The truth was, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it.

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.

The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself.

But those words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too.

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

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.

Call it crazy, or just chicken salad.

Morning would come before we knew it. It always did. But we still had the night, and for now, we were together, so I just closed my eyes and drank it all in.

Tic Tacs you actually swallow, though," Esther pointed out. "You own a Tic Tac. Gum is just borrowed.

I was heading off to my new world. But I was taking a part of my past, and the future, along with me for the ride.

I am not breaking my rules,' I snapped, hating that I'd ended up on the advice-recieving end of things, jumping from Dear Remy to Confused in Cincinnati all in one summer.

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater ... The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.

My own life felt flat and sad too much of the time; it was reassuring, somehow, to lose myself in someone else's.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable,walking through this life half-sleeping,everything at arm's length or farther away.
I understood those mermaids.I didn't care if they sang to me.All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again,pulling me upward into light,to drown.

There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your heart.

The end of a wedding reception is always so depressing. And only the bride and groom are spared, jetting off into the sunset while the rest of us wake up the next morning to just another day.

How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me.

I am, of course, a rogue. A rapscallion. A musician. I would bring her nothing but poverty, shame, and bruised shins from my flailing limbs. She is the better for our parting.

This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.

Of course it hurts", she grumbled, tipping my head further back. "Life sucks. Get over it

Life is full of screwups," he said, chucking another paper at the split-level before taking the corner. "You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence.

I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything.
"Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste."
"Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.

I just started to put texting and phones in my books. I want my books to be read 20 years from now; I don't want them to be dated.

You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it'll happen.

You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.'
'You're a freak is what you are,' I said.
He stuck out his hand. 'Come on, slugger. Walk with me. You know you want to.'
And the thing was, despite everything I knew-that it was a mistake, that he was different from the others-I did. How he knew that, I had no idea. But I got up and did it anyway.

This world is an awful/ugly place not to have a best friend.

He ate in your car? No shit?

Only a real asshole takes liberties with someone else's car stereo. That's serious.

Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"
What do you mean?"
I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before that, to everything else."
Wes was nodding before I even finished. "It's even worse when someone's sick for a long time," he said. "You forget they were ever healthy, ever okay. It's like there was never a time when you weren't waiting for something awful to happen."
But there was," I said. "I mean, it's only been in the last few months that I've started remembering all this good stuff, funny stuff about my dad. I can't believe I ever forgot it in the first place."
You didn't forget," Wes said, taking a sip of his water. "You just couldn't remember right then. But now you're ready to, so you can."
I thought about this as I finished off my waffle.

No word has one specific definition.Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life
-Ms.Conyers of Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key

More than anyone in that room, I was aware of exactly the sort of person who did such a thing. What I hadnn't realized until that very moment, though, was that it wasn't just my mother who was guilty of all these offenses. I'd told myself that everything I'd done in the weeks before and since she left was to make sure I would never be like her. But it was too late. All I had to do was look at the way I'd reacted to what Cora had told me that morning- taking off, getting wasted, letting myself be left alone in a strange place- to know I already was...

Perhaps I was just like my mother. But looking up at Cora's hand, I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to trya nad prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.

~Ruby, pg 225

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.

Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.

Lissa lowered her voice and added, "I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines."
"Shave your head?" I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. "You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people's bare heads are? They've got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won't know until it's too late and you're flat-out bald.

It's pretty rare to find someone you actually like to be with in this world. There are a lot of annoying people out there.

I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.

Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.

I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.

It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When i got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my conciousness & memory

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

That's my problem, actually. I don't talk to anybody about what's going on in my head, because I'm afraid they might not be able to take it

And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I'd ever jumped at all. It's not supposed to be like this.

You just had to know where to look.

It was as familiar to me as a song I'd been hearing my whole life, covered by various people but the basic tune the same.

It's both, it all depends on how you choose to live it. Forever is always changing.'
[About if life is short or long]

It's cold. You should come inside.

I tried to see it as bringing things full circle. I'd left and, in doing so, fractured myself. By returning, I'd be able to be whole again.

Donneven, Bettaquit and Mmmhmmmm

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, that's good to know, I guess."
"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways."
"How'd you mean it, then?"
"I just ... I don't always say what I feel."
"Why not?"
"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

I want the white one

Sometimes. It was a good escape. Until, you know, it wasn‟t.

He's very nice. He's something I replied. She considered this zipping her purse shut. Then she said Well everyone is. Everyone is Something. For some reason that stuck with me simple and yet not every since she'd said it. It was like a puzzle as well two vague words with one clear one between them.

I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.

All I want is someone decent." She sniffled again, her eyes filling with tears. "You know? Kind. Good. Like in all those love stories I'm such an expert on. It can't just be fiction. It can't. Those guys are out there, I know it. I just can't find them." Those guys were out there. In fact, one was watching us right now, somewhere nearby. Keeping his distance, knowing she needed me to herself right then, but still, just outside the door.

So when we met that first night," I said, "by the fence, you thought I was friendly?" "I didn't think you weren't," he said. "I wasn't very nice to you." "You were jumping a fence. I didn't take it personally.

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

I write thank-you notes the minute I throw the wrapping paper away.

As if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

After the group vet appointment
during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room
we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.

Love is an excuse to put up with shit that you shouldn't

I still felt unformed, like a cake half baked with edges crisp, but still mushy in the middle.

... You don't want the best of times to be just one thing, forever. You have to have a lot of bests of times, each one topping the last. You know?

You couldn't see the key around my neck: it hung too low under both collars. But if I leaned in close, I could make it out, buried deep beneath. Out of sight, hard to recognize, but still able to be found, even if I was the only one to ever look for it.

I think if you're going to show a true representation of any one life, it can't be about any one thing. I try to see more of a full picture, with the romance just a single part.

Yeah," he agreed, "but when you go for Squeeze Serve with someone, it's a safe zone. What's said there, stays there."
I looked at him. "I think that's Las Vegas."
"That, too.

It passed, though. That was the bad thing. It always passed.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.