"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend."
— Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)

"Don't think or judge, just listen."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow complete you."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your heart."
— Sarah Dessen

"I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed. "
— Sarah Dessen

"Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"Wherever you will go,
I will let you down,
But this lullaby goes on. "
— Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)

"'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 (The Truth About Forever)

"There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."
— Sarah Dessen

"You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances."
— 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 in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it."
— Sarah Dessen

"Hate Spinnerbait!"
— 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 (Lock and Key)

"Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself."
— Sarah Dessen

"All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough by to shoulder the rest."
— Sarah Dessen- Just Listen

"And always remember how much your crazy sister loves you."
— Sarah Dessen

"Next thing you know she'll be on the bus and selling T-shirts in the parking lot, showing off her boobs to get in the stage door."

"At least she has boobs to show," Jess said.

"I have boobs," Chloe said, pointing to her chest. "Just because they're not weighing me down doesn't mean they're not substantial."

"Okay, B cup," Jess said, taking a sip of her drink.

"I have boobs!" Chloe said again, a bit too loudly--she'd already had a couple of minibottles at the Spot. "My boobs are great, goddammit. You know that? They're fantastic! My boobs are amazing."
— Sarah Dessen

"I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay."
— Sarah Dessen (Dreamland)

"Plus the fact that the window I was now facing opened up to the part of the lot where people picked up their brand-new cars. Every few minutes, one of the salesmen would walk someone right to the center of the window, hand them their shiny new keys, and then smile benevolently as they drove off into the sunset, just like in the commercials. What a bunch of shit."
— Sarah Dessen

"I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

""Now, now," my father said. "Let's just get the bags."

This was typical. My father, the lone male in our estrogen-heavy household, had always dealt with any kind of emotional situation or conflict by doing something concrete and specific. Discussion of cramps and heavy flow at the breakfast table? He was up and out the door to change oil on one of our cars. Coming home in tears for reasons you just didn't want to discuss? He'd go make you a grilled cheese, which he'd probably end up eating. Family crisis brewing in a public place? Bags. Get the bags."
— Sarah Dessen

"It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys."
— Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)

"You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

"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 (Lock and Key)

"Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in the words."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"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

"Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"If this was my forever, I wouldn't want to spend it here. "
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"I knew that there were no guarantees. No way of knowing what came next for me, or him, or anybody. Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"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 Truth About Forever)

"its reall bad"
— Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)

"The past did affect the present and the future, in ways you could see and a million ones you couldn't. Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past begind, but it would not leave me."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"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 (Just Listen)

"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 (Just Listen)

"What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping The Moon)

"But it's strange, when you've always been told something is true, like the moon will come back. You need proof. And while you wait, you feel the entire balance of your world just tipping. It's crazy. But when it's over, and it does come back, that's the best, because it's all you want, everything narrows to just that. It's this great rush, like for that one second everything's okay with the world again. It's amazing."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

"If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again!"
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)