Sarah Dessen Quotes

447 Sourced Quotes

Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.

Sarah Dessen
Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.

Sarah Dessen
Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.

Sarah Dessen
It wasn't like I was some expert on the meaning of being supportive. Was it being loyal even against your better judgement? Or, like Olivia, was it making your displeasure known from the start, even when someone didn't want to hear it?

Sarah Dessen
But God! Who could live like this, anyway, with the kind of guesswork that was enough to make a person crazy, just sailing along, taking bumps here and there, no course navigated whatsoever, with any big wave capable of just tipping and sinking you entirely. IT was madness, stipidity, and- (then I saw him)

Sarah Dessen
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
As he heard me approach, he quickly leaped up, grabbing a nearby loaf of bread and holding it in front of him as if struck by a sudden desire to make a sandwich.

Sarah Dessen
Sometimes. It was a good escape. Until, you know, it wasn‟t.

Sarah Dessen
Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential.

Sarah Dessen
But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.

Sarah Dessen
And no relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater.

Sarah Dessen
There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.

Sarah Dessen
So what do you wear to dump somebody?" she asked me, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. "Black, for mourning? Or something cheerful and colorful, to distract them from their pain? Or maybe you wear some sort of camouflage, something that will help you disappear quickly in case they don't take it well.

Sarah Dessen
What," I said, "is that a crime here or something? Like only buying one thing at the Gas/Gro?

Sarah Dessen
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
All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.

Sarah Dessen
We didn't talk about our scars, the ones you could see and the ones you couldn't.

Sarah Dessen
I got back in my car, starting the engine, then drove off. It wasn't until I pulled onto the highway that it all really sunk it, how temporary our friendship had been. We'd been on our breaks, after all, but it wasn't our relationships that were on pause: it was us. Now we were both in motion again, moving ahead. So what if there were questions left unanswered. Life went on. We knew that better than anyone.

Sarah Dessen
D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Austin... and you. I'll be there soon.

Sarah Dessen
Life is long. Just because you don't get your chance right when you want or expect it doesn't mean it won't come. Fate doesn't punch a time clock or consult a schedule.

Sarah Dessen
It was so weird, because usually I was totally nervous talking to guys. But Eli was different. He made me want to say more, not less. Which was maybe not a good thing.

Sarah Dessen
It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.

Sarah Dessen
I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

Sarah Dessen
You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.

Sarah Dessen
The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the way they are.

Sarah Dessen
Now, see," Wes said, nodding at my plate, "this is going to blow your mind." I looked at him. "It's a waffle, not the second coming.

Sarah Dessen
She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

Sarah Dessen
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
I'd chosen instead to just change my route, go miles out of the way, as if avoiding it would make it go away once and for all.

Sarah Dessen
You're not a sucker. You're just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.

Sarah Dessen