Sarah Dessen - Life Quotes

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The thing is, you can't always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.

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
Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can't fully understand.

Sarah Dessen
I walked over, my eyes scanning Luna Blu, my house, and Dave's. But it was the building behind them, that empty hotel, that had the tiniest light, provided by one word, written in fluorescent paint. Maybe it wasn't what was once there, in real life. But in this one, it said it all: STAY.

Sarah Dessen
I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

Sarah Dessen
Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away.

Sarah Dessen
Like life isn't complicated enough. You should at least be able to follow the signs.

Sarah Dessen
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
The kind who live for music and are constantly seeking it out, anywhere they can. Who can't imagine a life without it. They're enlightened.

Sarah Dessen
Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

Sarah Dessen
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
Once, this had been the life I'd wanted. Even chosen. Now, though, I couldn't believe that there had been a time when this kind of monotony and silence, this most narrow of existences, had been preferable. Then again, once, I'd never known anything else.

Sarah Dessen
She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.

Sarah Dessen
As if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

Sarah Dessen
I'd come here planning to leave as soon as I could. It was a pit stop, not a destination. I had my whole life mapped out." "So what happened?" "I guess that map didn't turn out to be mine after all,

Sarah Dessen
Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?

Sarah Dessen
I'd seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he'd have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.

Sarah Dessen
At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

Sarah Dessen
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
The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.

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
The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.

Sarah Dessen
I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?' There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one. It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.

Sarah Dessen
Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you.

Sarah Dessen
Of course it hurts", she grumbled, tipping my head further back. "Life sucks. Get over it

Sarah Dessen