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It wasn't like I was some expert on the meaning of being supportive. Was it being loyal even against your better judgement? Or, like Olivia, was it making your displeasure known from the start, even when someone didn't want to hear it?
Sarah Dessen -
"Look," I said, "We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn't a surprise, it's what's supposed to happen. It's what we wanted. Right?" "Is it?" he asked. "Is it what you want?" Whether he intended it to be or not, this was the final question, the last Truth. If I said what I really thought, I was opening myself up for a hurt bigger than I could even imagine. I didn't have it in me. We changed and altered so many rules, but it was this one, the only one when we'd started, that I would break. "Yes," I said.
Sarah Dessen
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The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home.
Sarah Dessen -
You bought me some forks. And knives. And spoons. Because you love me!
Sarah Dessen -
You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.
Sarah Dessen -
I'm really interested in the idea of anomynity and familiarity. And sunglasses, you know, are so indicatitve of that. I mean, they're worn by some people to hide themselves. But they're also a fashion statement, meant to be noticed. So there's a dichotomy there.
Sarah Dessen -
I tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works out for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can't help but, make a whole.
Sarah Dessen -
I always thought I was different.
Sarah Dessen
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I've given lots of people chances. But there's only so much faith you can have in people.
Sarah Dessen -
But against love, the case was solid. Easily argued. And you could, indeed, hold it in your hand.
Sarah Dessen -
The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.
Sarah Dessen -
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.
Sarah Dessen -
That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.
Sarah Dessen -
In the dark everyone felt the same: the edges blurred. When I think of myself then, what I was like two years ago, I feel like a wound in a bad place, prone to be bumped on corners or edges. Never able to heal.
Sarah Dessen
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I mean, to me, freaking out is different. More of a running away, not telling anyone what's wrong, slowly simmering until you burst kind of thing.
Sarah Dessen -
Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.
Sarah Dessen -
And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since June, when I was willing to hand myself over free and clear. Now I needed her to return it all to me, with the faith that I could make my own way.
Sarah Dessen -
This is personal, she'd said. Real. This moment was too, even if you couldn't see it at first glance. It was fake on the outside, but so true within. You only had to look, really look to tell.
Sarah Dessen -
It's a great compliment that people think they're fast reads. It's always funny to me because it takes so long to get a book (written) -- for me, it's never quick.
Sarah Dessen -
This was how I was dealing with everyone and everything lately, taking the good when it came, and the bad the same way, knowing each would pass in its own time.
Sarah Dessen
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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?
Sarah Dessen -
It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.
Sarah Dessen -
Maybe you could go backwards and forwards at the same time, but it wasn't easy. You had to want to.
Sarah Dessen -
Says the girl with no thyme.
Sarah Dessen