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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

“We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“Nate: “And,” he said, “boys at twelve aren’t exactly slick with the ladies.”
Ruby: “’Slick with the ladies’?” I said. “Are you twelve?”

Sarah Dessen

“Fine… a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Oh, God," I said.
"No, it's Dexter," he replied, offering me his hand, which I ignored.
He glanced behind him, then back at me. "I'll see you soon," he said, and grinned at
me.
"Like hell," I replied”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second place finishes left behind.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“Suddenly, I felt so helpless. If I hated the crowds but also my own company, where did that leave me?”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“Theres this other half of him i dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret…. if he would just let me inside so i can help”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

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

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Variant: Being nice wasn't as easy as it seemed especially when the rest of the world could be so mean
Source: Just Listen

“We can all be beautiful girls.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Pretend to be a delinquent?" I asked clarifying.
"You can do it," Dave advised me. "Just don't smile, and try to look like you're considering stealing something.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“You get used to people being a certain way; you depend on it. And when they surprise you, for better or worse, it can shake you to your core.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“When faced with the scariest of things, all you want to do is turn away, hide in your own invisible place. But you can't. That's why it's not only important for us to be seen, but to have someone to look for us, as well.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“For all the invisible girls and for my readers, for seeing me”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“I trailed off and he didn't push me to finish. I was finding that I liked that.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise. For some people, it's love. Others, money or alcohol. Mine was even worse: calculus.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“It’s never something huge that changes the everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you’re busy focusing on the big picture.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“I just do the best I can under the circumstances.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

“But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“There's a difference between the wordsand. And it's more than three words.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“When you've never gotten love from someone, you don't know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“All I could think was that right there, in ever passing second, was the future winding itself own. 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

“During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“But anyone can begin. It was the part with all the promise, the potential, the things I loved. More and more, though, I was finding myself wanting to find out what happened in the end..”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“I didn't want to talk about what happened, so it seemed safest not to talk at all.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back - leaving me astounded, amazed, and most of all, alive.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“what you have to decide, is how you want your life to be. if your forever was ending tomorrow, would this b the way you'd want to have spent it?”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I'd wanted a real kiss, something to remember, but i'd long ago learned not to be picky with farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised. You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a goodbye at all.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Variant: But I'd long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised.
You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a good-bye at all.
Source: The Truth About Forever

“And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she was wrong. I had seen that comet. I knew it as well as I knew my own face, my own hands. My own heart.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Someone Like You

“As impossible, in fact, as keeping the moon… So I looked down the line at all my friends, knowing I would always remember this. And then I turned my gaze back up to the sky, and put my faith in that moon and its return.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“This was just one night, one chance to vary and see where it took me. The fireflies were probably already out: maybe it wasn’t just a season or a time but a whole world I’d forgotten. I’d never know until I stepped out into it. So I did.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“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 book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“I bet you can't eat ten bananas!"
"I bet you're right.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Fine just fine.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

The Truth About Forever

“Sometimes, you get things right the first time. Others, the second. But the third time, they say, is the charm.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

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

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

“Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Let's just start and see what happens.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“You didn't fail. You just opted out. There's a difference.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“There's no shame in trying to make stuff work, is how I see it. It's better than just accepting the broken.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“Don't I know it.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key