"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)

"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

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

"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)

"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

"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)

"Hate Spinnerbait!"
— Sarah Dessen

"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)

"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)

"Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"You can't make any one person your world. The trick is to take what each can give you and build a world from it."
— 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)

"You're wishin' too much baby. You gotta' stop wearin' your wishbone where your backbone oughta be!"
— Richard from Texas-- Eat, Pray, Love

"I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me, and Who's in charge?'"
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.

The love that moves the sun and the other stars."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who's in charge?'"
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will protect upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

"Dear me, how I love a library."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

"Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"...we must take care of our families where-ever we find them."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

"I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen."
— Elizabeth Gilbert