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Teaching was great for me, because I got to show people how writing can really change the way you see not only yourself but the world.
Sarah Dessen
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I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.
Sarah Dessen
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During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.
Sarah Dessen
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I was bored. Sad. Lonely. It was only a matter of time before I cracked.
Sarah Dessen
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My experience is that sequels are rarely as good as the originals.
Sarah Dessen
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And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she was wrong. I had seen that comet. I knew it as well as I knew my own face, my own hands. My own heart.
Sarah Dessen
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Don't give me no rotten tomato, 'cause all I ever wanted was your sweet potato.
Sarah Dessen
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I have SO many books I didn't sell. Some my agent rejected outright, others made it all the way to my editor to be turned away. Not everything is a winner, which is tough when you've devoted eight or nine months of your life to something.
Sarah Dessen
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I wasn't ready for this, but then I probably never would be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn't wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching and begin in earnest, alone. So I did
Sarah Dessen
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I looked down again at the sign in my hand - ENJOY THE RIDE! - and it seemed, suddenly, to be just that. A sign.
Sarah Dessen
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That sucks, though," Wes said finally, his voice low. "You're just setting yourself up to fail, because you'll never get everything perfect." "Says who?" He just looked at me. "The world," he said, gesturing all around us, as if this party, this deck encompassed it all. "The universe. There's just no way. And why would you want everything to be perfect, anyway?" "I don't want everything to be perfect," I said. Just me, I thought. Somehow. "I just want—
Sarah Dessen
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Like so many before them, they didn't care that my dad was only the messenger. They still wanted to shoot him.
Sarah Dessen
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I looked at the sweatshirt again. "'You swim' is a philosophy?" He shrugged. "Better than 'you sink', right?
Sarah Dessen
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It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder ― or impossible ― to lose.
Sarah Dessen
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Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.
Sarah Dessen
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No," I snapped. "I mean, no. I'm answering. I'm just collecting my response." Another few seconds passed. Is there a time limit for this?" he asked. I shot him a look. "Just wondering.
Sarah Dessen
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Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.
Sarah Dessen
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An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. I t just feels that way.
Sarah Dessen
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She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.
Sarah Dessen
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You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.
Sarah Dessen
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Lissa lowered her voice and added, "I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines." "Shave your head?" I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. "You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people's bare heads are? They've got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won't know until it's too late and you're flat-out bald.
Sarah Dessen
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Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns.
Sarah Dessen
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There were so many levels to the unknown, from safe to dangerous to outright nebulous, scariest of all.
Sarah Dessen
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Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.
Sarah Dessen
