Sarah Dessen - People Quotes

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It's okay to accept things from people. It doesn't make you weak or helpless.

Sarah Dessen
Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said 'friendly' relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.

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

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
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
I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we'd all be hanging from nooses. Right?

Sarah Dessen
It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.

Sarah Dessen
Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.

Sarah Dessen
There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it's about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.

Sarah Dessen
Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

Sarah Dessen
It's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.

Sarah Dessen
Sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something.

Sarah Dessen
People don't change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less

Sarah Dessen
The truth was, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it.

Sarah Dessen
I'd known enough people for every minute of the day, and yet still didn't have anyone as my two a.m.

Sarah Dessen
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.

Sarah Dessen
What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.

Sarah Dessen
I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.

Sarah Dessen
Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.

Sarah Dessen
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
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
Family isn't something that's supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They're born, they die. It's always evolving, turning into something else.

Sarah Dessen
Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explain the situation before she had launched into a dozen stories to illustrate the point that Things Happened But People Were Okay in the End.

Sarah Dessen
We were willing to do so much for the people we loved, even if it meant hurting ourselves. Maybe that, in the end, was what love- all kinds- was really about.

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
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
There were so many people, so much to navigate, and as the distance fluctuated between us his hand kept slipping, down my arm to my wrist. And maybe he was going to let go as people pressed in on all sides, but all I could think was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of. So as I felt his fingers loosening around my wrist, I just wrapped my own around them, right, and held on

Sarah Dessen
I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well.

Sarah Dessen
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
My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?

Sarah Dessen