Sarah Dessen Quotes
Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.

Quotes to Explore
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We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.
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I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.
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The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced.
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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We had to work five back-to-back shows, forty-five minutes on, fifteen minutes off. That's just an awful lot of singing.
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There's some awfully good things done today and some awful terrible things done today,
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Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.
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The idea of what it is like to lose everything is awful.
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Hello, Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?
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There are few punishments too severe for a popular novel writer.
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It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that there are an awful lot of people in Manhattan. And it's getting worse.
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I have an awful lot to learn. My dream is to get better and better as I get older.
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Turks continued their previous policy. They would not stop committing massive and most awful massacres that even Leng Timur would not dare to do.
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I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.
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I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.
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History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.
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I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; “the things people don’t say.
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There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
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My novels tend to come about from a fusion of two big ideas, creating a critical mass that then fissions, throwing off hundreds of other particles, riffs, tropes and characters.
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I just think my body can't handle it any more. I did try a little drink a while back, and I was actually physically ill. I went into an immediate depression, and felt awful, just dreadful. So that's it. I'm over it now.
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My name has become a brand - it could be make-up, clothing, perfume.
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Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.