"Yes, it’s true, what I said earlier: A real life doesn’t mean geting what you want; the achievement, the privilege, too, is knowing what you love.But getting what you love? Having what you love love you back? Oh, my friend, it’s miracle: your one tiny life’s head-on collision with divinity. "
— Marisa delos Santos (Love Walked In)

"There’s a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don’t receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving."
— Marisa delos Santos (Love Walked In)

"Tears are the material out of which heaven weaves its brightest rainbow."
— F.B. Meyer

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

"The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and flowers and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a million expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick under my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could ever be over the course of my life, each one better than the last."
— Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)

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

"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

"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)

"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 (The Truth About Forever)

"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)

"But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right."
— Sarah Dessen

"That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. 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 (The Truth About Forever)

"I like flaws. I think they make things interesting."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"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)

"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)

"'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)

"We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.
That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

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

"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."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong."
— Sarah Dessen

"'Okay,' he said. He took a breath. 'What would you do, if you could do anything?'
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. 'This,' I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us. Behind me, I knew Jason was still waiting for an explanation, my sister was still lecturing, and that angel still had her eyes skyward, waiting to fly. As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that meant. But now I finally felt I was on my way. 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 (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)

"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

"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)

"You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those songs."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"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)

"No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood. If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right."
— Sarah Dessen

"Maybe not," she said as we came to the car. "But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works."
— Sarah Dessen (That Summer)

"Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete."
— Sara Zarr (Sweethearts)

". . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless."
— Sara Zarr (Sweethearts)

"You want proof there's a God? Look outside, watch a sunset."
— Frank E. Peretti

"All I want is a best friend whom I can't wait to kiss again."
— Robin Palmer (Cindy Ella)

"Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

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

"If something doesn't work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don't just throw it away. Everything can't be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

"See, Colie, it's all about understanding. We're all worth something."
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

""Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait."

"I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life.""
— Cassandra Clare

"You wouldn't recognize a cunning plan if it painted itself blue and danced around naked singing 'cunning plans are here again'."
— Cassandra Clare

" "You Might want to lie down," Magnus advised. "I find that it helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

""Jesus!" Luke exclaimed.
"Actually, it's just me," said Simon. "Although I've been told the resemblance is startling."
"
— Cassandra Clare

""I am a man" he told her,"and men do not consume pink beverages. Get thee gone woman, and bring me something brown"
-Jace Wayland"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"...love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together."
— Emily Giffin (Love the One You're With)

"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

"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."
— Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)

"We can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone. "
— Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)

"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)

"Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst."
— Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)

"I don't think love is blind, but wanting to be in love, that's probably blind."
— Marisa de los Santos (Love Walked In)

"I stand here on this spring day in the center of my life. Chaos, din, and beauty. For a moment, I am still."
— Marisa de los Santos (Belong to Me: A Novel)

"There's a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don't receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving."
— Marisa de los Santos (Love Walked In)