Sarah Dessen Quotes (240 Quotes)

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

Even if you couldn't see it beneath the surface, molecules were bonding, energy pushing up slowly, as something worked do hare, all alone to grow.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.

But risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

Still, there was also was something reassuring about working for Commercial, almost hopeful. Like things that were lost could be found again. As we drove away, I always tried to imagine what it would be like to open your door to find something you had given up on.

As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that means. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back - leaving meastounded, amazed and most of all, alive.

If this was my forever, I wouldn't want to spend it here.

That was the thing about being on the inside: the world was just going on, even when it seemed like time for you had stopped for good.

And I felt a sudden whirl in my head, knowing this leap was inevitable, that I wasn't just standing on the cliff, toes poking over, but already in mid-air.

He's getting dumped. And he doesn't even know it yet. He's probably eating a cheeseburger or flossing or picking up his dry cleaning, and he has no idea. No inkling.

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

The lizard stared up at us, and we stared back, taking each other in. He was little and defenseless, I felt sorry for him already. This was a screwed-up place he'd just come into. But he didn't have to know that. Not yet, anyway. There in that room, where it was hot and cramped, the world probably still seemed small enough to manage.

Everyone laughed, and just like that, the conversation shifted, jumping to another topic. It was fast and furious, the talking, the emotions, the back-and-forth and forth-and-back. I realized that if I tried to focus on it too much, I got overwhelmed. So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.

ItÆs the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

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.

Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek to the street, and waited. What for, I didn't know. To be rescued. Or found. But no one came. All I'd ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.

It hadn't even occured to me that somebody would believe mine.

So I learned another system: When in doubt, keep it out - out of earshot, out of the house - even if this meant, really, just keeping it in.

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.

The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

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

The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.

And 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.

I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.

He was the closest thing I'd ever had to something, or someone, that mattered. But in the end, close didn't count. You were either in, or you weren't.

It's still a memory worth having, even if it's not exactly what you imagined.

This is a 911? You know you only text that when someone is dead or dying. You scared the crap out of me.

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

It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it's sometimes even harder to let it out.

So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.

Family isn't something that's supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They're born, they die. It's always evolving, turning into something else.

The only trick was never giving more that you were willing to lose.

But when you're alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.

It took a lot of work to be perfect.

Then I'd crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.

Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?

I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.

Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.

I looked down again at the sign in my hand - ENJOY THE RIDE! - and it seemed, suddenly, to be just that. A sign.

Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.

Watching him, I thought, not for the first time that night, that maybe it should have felt strange to be with him, here, now. And yet it didnÆt, at all. That was one of the things about the night. Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasnÆt so much once you passed a certain hour. It was like the dark just evened it all out somehow.

Honesty in principle was one thing. In someone's face, it was another.

It seemed safer to hold it in, where the only one who could judge was me.

So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story.

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.