-
You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.
Sarah Dessen
-
Hey, think fast!' I just looked at Fave as he chucked the basketball at me with possibly the worst overhand throw I'd ever seen. It landed to my far right, then bounced past me, banging against my dad's truck. 'Do you have a vision problem of something?' I asked him. 'Just keeping you on your toes,' he replied
Sarah Dessen
-
I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second. There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?
Sarah Dessen
-
No, no, no to Tallyho.
Sarah Dessen
-
What were you two talking about?" she whispered as Wes pulls the door shut. Nothing," I said. "Running." You should have seen your face," she said, her breath hot in my ear. "Sa-woooon.
Sarah Dessen
-
Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.
Sarah Dessen
-
Then what are you like, Annabel?" he shot back. "A liar, like you told me that first day? Come on. That was the biggest lie of all.
Sarah Dessen
-
Conciseness is underrated
Sarah Dessen
-
See for me, it’s immediate. Silence is so freaking loud.' This seemed either deep or deeply oxymoronic. I wasn’t sure which.
Sarah Dessen
-
"I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example." "Why not?" "Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff." "Like ride bikes?" I said. "No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..." "Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?" "They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference."
Sarah Dessen
-
I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.
Sarah Dessen
-
There were endless ways to spend your days, I knew that, none of them right or wrong. But given the chance for a real do-over, another way around, who would say no?
Sarah Dessen
-
But you only get so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.
Sarah Dessen
-
Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human.
Sarah Dessen
-
Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its 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
Sarah Dessen
-
The past did affect the present and the future, in ways you could see and a million ones you couldn't. Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.
Sarah Dessen
-
It's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.
Sarah Dessen
-
He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.
Sarah Dessen
-
I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.
Sarah Dessen
-
Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.
Sarah Dessen
-
I just thought to my self, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if you will. And I had a feeling that something big was going to happen. To both of us. That we were, in fact, meant to be together.
Sarah Dessen
-
Forgiveness is hard. Acceptance is doable.
Sarah Dessen
-
There comes a point when things are undeniable and can't be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.
Sarah Dessen
-
I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell anyone. As long as I didn't say it aloud, it wasn't real.
Sarah Dessen
