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I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it - it wasn't Will's. It was mine.
Sarah Dessen
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"I thought this was a cookout. You know, dogs and burgers, Tater Tots, ambrosia salad" Dexter picked up a box of Twinkies, tossing them into the cart. "And Twinkies." "It is... Except that it's a cookout thrown by my mother." "And?" "And my mother doesn't cook." He looked at me waiting. "At all. My mother doesn't cook at all." "She must cook sometimes." "Nope." "Everyone can make scrambled eggs, Remy. It's programmed into you at birth, the default setting. Like being able to swim and knowing not to mix pickles with oatmeal. You just KNOW."
Sarah Dessen
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It's just that...I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is.
Sarah Dessen
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Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.
Sarah Dessen
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Okay. Enough." I got out of the closet, brushing myself off, then turned around to face her. "This is happening. So you need to go downstairs, face your fears, and make the best of it, and everything will be okay." She narrowed her eyes at me. "When did you suddenly become so positive?" "Just get out of there.
Sarah Dessen
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So you should remember that, when you're thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it's not so bad.
Sarah Dessen
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Whether it was a song, a person, or a story, there was a lot you couldn’t know from just an excerpt, a glance, or part of a chorus.
Sarah Dessen
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closed my eyes and listened. It was like music I'd heard all my life, even more than "This Lullaby." All those keystrokes, all those letters, so many words. I brushed my fingers over the beads and watched as her image rippled, like it was on water, breaking apart gently and shimmering before becoming whole again.
Sarah Dessen
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It’s funny how one summer can change everything.
Sarah Dessen
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Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.
Sarah Dessen
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From this distance, in the dimness, the model looked surreal, made up of parts filled with buildings, bordered by long stretches of empty space. It reminded me of the way cities and towns look when you are flying at night. You can't make out much. But the places where people have come together, and stayed, are collections of tiny lights, breaking up the darkness.
Sarah Dessen
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In my group of friends, I was always the one who remembered everything. The stories, the boys my friends and I dated, all the details. So I think a part of me was always filing them away, although at the time I wasn't sure why.
Sarah Dessen
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He was looking at me, jsut as I'd thought he would be, but like Bert's, his light was not what I expected. No pity, no sadness: nothing had changed. I realized all the times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought one I wore, the feelings only I felt.
Sarah Dessen
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But unfriendly is usually one of those things you pick up on right away. You know, like B.O. There's no hiding it if it's there.
Sarah Dessen
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I hadn't said goodbye. It had been easier, like always, to just disappear, sparing myself the messy details of another farewell. Now, my fingers hovered over my track pad, moving the cursor down to his comment section before I stopped myself. What was the point? Anything I said now would only be an afterthought. Elizabeth who goes by her middle name
Sarah Dessen
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Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment.
Sarah Dessen
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As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter and silliness and girls that was, somehow, friendship.
Sarah Dessen
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I don't believe in failure, because simply by saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them.
Sarah Dessen
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It's hard to do," I said. Wes looked at me. "What is?" I swallowed, not sure why I'd said this out loud. "Get it right.
Sarah Dessen
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It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When i got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my conciousness & memory
Sarah Dessen
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In the end, though, maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.
Sarah Dessen
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Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.
Sarah Dessen
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I think whenever a writer is really enjoying themselves and liking what they are doing, that shows on the page.
Sarah Dessen
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I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.
Sarah Dessen
