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Sarah Dessen Quotes
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Sarah Dessen is an American novelist who lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

✵ 6. June 1970
Sarah Dessen photo
Sarah Dessen: 511 quotes15 likes

Sarah Dessen Quotes

“Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“Never would forever, with all its meanings, be so clear and distinct as in the true, guaranteed end of the world.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“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 book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“I knew that in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late again. I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“If you're not getting hurt, you're not riding hard enough.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“I meant what I said to you. I wasn't playing some kind of summer game. Everything I said was true, from the first day. EVERY GODDAMN WORD.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

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

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“This Lullaby is only a few words, a simple run of chords, quiet here in this spare room, but you can hear it, hear it, wherever you may go, even if I let you down, this lullaby plays on…”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
Wes: “How do you win?” he asked
Macy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream. But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“The basic fact is that no, this isnt ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak.
-Heidi”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“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 wan't Will's. It was mine.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Total commitment," I said. "You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Variant: You have to admit, it's kind of impressive.... Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?
Source: Lock and Key

“I've always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that's okay. I know I work in my own way.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“What do you do when you finally hear everything you've always thought said aloud?”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her secrets, while keeping our own to ourselves, as always.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Story of my life.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“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 book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“That's not a real answer.'
Says who?'
Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.'
Clowns.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“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 book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“If you could just be nice, then you wouldn't have to worry about arguments at all. but being nice wasn't as easy as it seemed, especially when the rest of the world could be so mean.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“All the bitchy girls in the world are just a training ground for what men can do to you.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“You know, feeling and action are always linked, one can't exist without the other. It's sort of a hippie thing.-Wes”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I've given lots of people chances, she said suddenly, as if Marion was still in the room to hear us. But there's only so much faith you can have in people.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

“Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Hey, and for what it's worth? Friends don't leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who come and take you out.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“If what you're asking is how I debated whether or not to love her the answer is I didn't. Not at all. It just happened. I didn't ever question it; by the time I realized what was happening, it was already done.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“I've seen what commitment leads to. Going in is the easy part. It's the ending that sucks!
-Remy”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“It was like discovering that some part of you wasn't yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn't claim.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“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 book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“How weird was it that so many bits and pieces, all diverse, could make something whole. Something with potential. 'Perfect.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever