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I think my biggest problem, though, at least in drafts, is not repeating myself. After eight books I get worried that a character or piece of dialog might be too much like something I've already done. So it's a challenge to keep it fresh.
Sarah Dessen
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If what you're asking is how I debated whether or not to love her the answer is I didn't. Not at all. It just happened. I didn't ever question it; by the time I realized what was happening, it was already done.
Sarah Dessen
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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.
Sarah Dessen
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There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your heart.
Sarah Dessen
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Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.' Are those the only options?' Not always. Just sometimes.
Sarah Dessen
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There's something nice about the silence of a car ride in the dark, going home. When you were tired of the radio and conversation, and it was okay to just be alone with your thoughts and the road ahead. If you're that comfortable with someone, you don't have to talk.
Sarah Dessen
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but accepting help doesn‟t have to mean giving up control.
Sarah Dessen
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I always say that teenagers are the first to know if you're pandering to them.
Sarah Dessen
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She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family. (page 289) ~Ruby
Sarah Dessen
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It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.
Sarah Dessen
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It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.
Sarah Dessen
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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.
Sarah Dessen
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The thing is, you can’t always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.
Sarah Dessen
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Usually when I finish the draft of a book, I'm sure I'll never write another one. I'm just that tired and sick of myself. But then another idea starts percolating. It usually begins with the narrator's name, then some idea that intrigues me about her life or situation. I try to ignore it as long as I can, because I know when I start writing, I'll be right back into it, every single day. But eventually, I just have to. It's a compulsion!
Sarah Dessen
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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.
Sarah Dessen
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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.
Sarah Dessen
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There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it's about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.
Sarah Dessen
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Just because something's damaged doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated with respect.' 'Ad,' Wallace said, 'it's a coffee table, not an orphan.
Sarah Dessen
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I really just love to read, period, whether it be books or magazines or the back of the cereal box. It's the one thing I can always count on to calm me down, take me away and inspire me, all at once.
Sarah Dessen
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It's all about you, Colie." She touched one finger to her temple, tap tap tap. "Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine." There is something infectious about confidence. And for that one moment, with my eyebrows burning and my eyes watering, I believed. "And good hair never hurt either.
Sarah Dessen
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As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. Lately, we didn't seem to see anything the same.
Sarah Dessen
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Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.
Sarah Dessen
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If something doesn't work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don't just throw it away. Everything can't be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs.
Sarah Dessen
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This Lullaby is only a few words, a simple run of chords, quiet here in this spare room, but you can hear it, hear it, wherever you may go, even if I let you down, this lullaby plays on.
Sarah Dessen
