"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)

"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)

"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

"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)

"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)

"'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)

"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)

"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)

"So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, that's good to know, I guess."
"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways."
"How'd you mean it, then?"
"I just...I don't always say what I feel."
"Why not?"
"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."
— 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)

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

"'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)

"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)

"But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get 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

"Is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head."
Eddie DeChooch"
— Janet Evanovich (Seven Up)

"Only men you can count on these days are Ben and Jerry."
— Janet Evanovich

"Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth."
— Janet Evanovich

"I attributed the incidence to temporary insanity, and in my own defense, I'd like to say I haven't run over anyone since."
— Janet Evanovich (One for the Money)

"You dont love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not"
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?"
— Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)

"If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?"
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn; color your hair; watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.
In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world; or you can just jump off it. "
— Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)

"Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"I'm lonely. Why do you think I had to learn to act so independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has it's own zip code. Plus, I get certifiably crazy when I've got PMS. You don't love someone because they're perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they're not."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Do you know how sometimes - when you are riding your bike and you start skidding across sand, or when you miss a step and start tumbling down the stairs - you have those long, long seconds to know that you are going to be hurt, and badly?"
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"...seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded"
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound.
You become the mutant who fell into the vat of acid, the Joker who can't remove his mask, the bionic man who's missing all his limbs and none of his heart.
You are the thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you can't even remember what it was like. "
— Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)

"Lately, I have been having nightmares, where I'm cut into so many pieces that there isn't enough of me to be put back together."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.

Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.

The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.

"
— Jodi Picoult

""If you focus on sandbagging the beachhead, you can ignore the tsunami that's approaching. Try it any other way and you'll go crazy.""
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

" Shooting stars are not stars at all. They re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on when we see one is only a trail of debris."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say. "
— Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)

"When you believe in something, stand up for it, even if everyone is sitting."
— Natasha Friend (Perfect: A Novel)

""Hey!" Lauren Moffat's voice, sounding noticeably irritated, floated up to us. "What-ew! What's in my hair?"

We all three ducked beneath our table so Lauren couldn't see us if she realized what was happening and looked up. I could see her between the slits of the fencing around the balcony, but I knew she couldn't see me. She was shaking out her hair. Becca, crouching across from me, had to put her hands across her mouth to keep from giggling. Jason looked like he was about to pee in his pants, he was trying so hard not to laugh.

"What's the matter, babe?" Mark came out from beneath the balcony, putting his wallet into his back pocket.

"There's something--sand or something-in my hair," Lauren said, still fluffing out her hair-which you could tell she didn't want to do, since she flat-ironed it so straight.

Mark leaned in closer to examine Lauren's hair. "Looks okay to me," he said.
Which just made us laugh harder, until tears were streaming out of the corners of our eyes. "
— Meg Cabot

"It was only when they'd rounded the corner toward the Penguin that we finally sat up, Laughing semi-hysterically.

"Oh my God, did you see her face?" Becca asked between guffaws. "'There's something in my hair!'"

"That was fantastic, Crazytop," Jason said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Best master plan yet."

-How to be Popular"
— Meg Cabot

""Clearly," Jason said, "you are not doing nothing. You are most definitely doing something. What it looks like you're doing is pouring packets of sugar on Lauren Moffat's head."

"Shhh," I said. "It's snowing. But only on Lauren." I shook more sugar out of the packets. "'Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter,'" I called softly down to Laren in my best Jimmy Stewart imitation. "'Merry Christmas, you old building and Loan.'"

Jason started cracking up, and I had to hush him as Becca saw my sugar supply running low and hastened to hand me more packets.

"Stop laughing so loud," I said to Jason. "You'll spoil this beautiful moment for them." I sprinkeled more sugar over the side of the balcony. "'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.'"

-How to be Popular"
— Meg Cabot

"I am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"'...Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?'
Jace said, "Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself."
..."At least," she said, "you don't have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland."
"Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

" "I don't want to be a man," said Jace. "I want to be an angst-ridden teeenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead."
"Well," said Luke, "you're doing a vantastic job.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"'...in fact, don't touch any of my weapons without my permission.'
"Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on ebay," Clary muttered.
"Selling them on what?"
Clary smiled blandly at him, "A mythical place of great magical power.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"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)

"I'll just have them change the entry in the demonology textbook from 'almost extinct' to 'not extinct enough for Alec. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then throw it in the
face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the
oranges you originally asked for."
— Cassandra Clare

""That does it," said Jace. "I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?" Isabelle said.
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)