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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

“See for me, it’s immediate. Silence is so freaking loud.' This seemed either deep or deeply oxymoronic. I wasn’t sure which.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“I am not breaking my rules,' I snapped, hating that I'd ended up on the advice-recieving end of things, jumping from Dear Remy to Confused in Cincinnati all in one summer.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Someone Like You

“I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Life isn't fair," Owen told her. "Get used to it.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“I didn't trot my pain out to show around. I kept it better hidden than anyone. I did.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“But I always worked harder when I was up against something, or when someone assumed I couldn't succeed. That's what drove me, all those nights studying. The fact that so many figured I couldn't do it.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

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

“I would miss Colby, but it wasn't going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“Impulsiveness can be charming but deliberation can have an appeal, as well.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Variant: She said writting novels was like childbirth: if you truly remembered how awful it got, you'd never do it again.
Source: This Lullaby

“Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it's not hard to find again.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, 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

“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 book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Did you really believe, that first day, that we were meant to be together?" I asked him.
He looked at me and then said, "You're here, aren't you?”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Variant: Remy: Did you really believe, that first day, that we were meant to be together?

Dexter: You're here, aren't you?
Source: This Lullaby

“Change is inevitable, though," he replied. "As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“And don't change for a guy, ever," Leah added. "If they're worthy, they'll like you just the way you are.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Life isn't only about the big moments whether they be good or bad. Maybe it’s about the small things that stretch out to strengthen the most tenuous bound.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Just because we don’t see eye to eye on everything doesn’t mean we can’t be close.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. you can't just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it's not perfect.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“Now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by an undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“So I learned another system: When in doubt, keep it out – out of earshot, out of the house – even if this meant, really, just keeping it in.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“Some things you don't have to tell. Some things, between sisters, are understood.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

“Everything looks different when you're older, not staring up at the world but down upon it.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

“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 book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in… protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“I'd learn that it's not just where you go, but how you choose to get there. So I pulled that sign off the green bike - ENJOY YOUR RIDE! - and went inside to take the first step toward doing just that.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn't so much once you passed a certain hour.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“I tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works out for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can't help but, make a whole.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“It was so easy to disown what you couldn’t recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“You punched him by accident.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

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

“I planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing." "No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Don't give me no rotten tomato, 'cause all I ever wanted was your sweet potato.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Variant: Don't you give me no rotten tomato," Dexter sang, "just 'cause to your crazy shit I
cannot relate-o.
Source: This Lullaby

“It's a choice, Annabel. And if you make the wrong one, you have only yourself to blame when there are consequences.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Relationships evolve, just like people do. Just because you know someone doesn't mean you know everything about them.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“Because anyone that can make you feel that bad about yourself is toxic.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“But it's important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Variant: Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to awknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn fromt them.
Source: Lock and Key

“What you do in your dreams is never your choice. But it made me happy anyway.”

Sarah Dessen

Source: Saint Anything

“I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby