"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)

"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)

""I don't believe in failure, because simply by saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them.""
— Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)

""...He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.""
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

""Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.""
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"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)

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

""Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to failsometimes. It's a required part of the human existance"
-Eli"
— Sarah Dessen (Along for the Ride)

""What you have to decide... is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So dont be afraid. Be alive.""
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

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

""But I was sure of something to: it's a lot easier to be lost then found. It's the reason were always searching but rarley discover; so many locks not enough keys.""
— Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)

""She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.""
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"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)

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

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

"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)

"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)

"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

"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

"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)

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

"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)

"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 can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances."
— Sarah Dessen

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

"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)

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

"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 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)

"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)

"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 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)

"Hate Spinnerbait!"
— Sarah Dessen

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

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

"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)

"I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well."
— Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)

"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)

"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

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe