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You know, I think I knew you for about three weeks before I ever really saw you smile. And then one day, Morgan said something and you laughed, and I remember thinking it was really cool because it meant something. You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.
Sarah Dessen
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All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this.
Sarah Dessen
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I was born in 1970 in Illinois, but all the life I remember I've spent in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Sarah Dessen
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My first signing was at my hometown independent bookstore and everyone in the world came. It was so nice. My family was there, my parents, everybody I worked with, all my friends. So I had this great first reading with a like hundred people there.
Sarah Dessen
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You just walk over there and into the office and say, 'Hey, be my prom date,'" he said. "It's that simple.
Sarah Dessen
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Life isn't fair," Owen told her. "Get used to it.
Sarah Dessen
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At every wedding someone stays home.
Sarah Dessen
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And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice. It was my mother.
Sarah Dessen
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I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.
Sarah Dessen
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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
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You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try
Sarah Dessen
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In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.
Sarah Dessen
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The end of a wedding reception is always so depressing. And only the bride and groom are spared, jetting off into the sunset while the rest of us wake up the next morning to just another day.
Sarah Dessen
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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
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And guys don't get attached, guys don't give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That's why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm's length whenever possible.
Sarah Dessen
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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
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You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.
Sarah Dessen
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Very quietly, I heard a voice in my ear.It said, in a weird, cheesy, right-out-of-one-of-my-mother's-novels way, "Ah. Wemeet again." I turned my head, just slightly, and right there, practically on top of me, was theguy from the car dealership. He was wearing a red Mountain Fresh Detergent T-shirt - not just fresh: mountain fresh! - it proclaimed, and was smiling at me. "Oh,God," I said. "No, it's Dexter.
Sarah Dessen
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In midair, dangling lost above the world.
Sarah Dessen
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I think as a writer one of the benefits is that you can put things that you're interested in into your books. I always have put a lot of food and restaurants because I was a waitress and I love to eat.
Sarah Dessen
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A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.
Sarah Dessen
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Fifteen minutes later, a meeting was called. "Okay, look." Deb's face was dead serious. "I know I just joined this project, and I don't want to offend anyone. But I'm going to be honest. I think you've been going about this all wrong." "I'm offended," Dave told her flatly.
Sarah Dessen
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I don't talk about my books while I'm writing them: not even my husband knows what a novel's about until it's done.
Sarah Dessen
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He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.
Sarah Dessen
