Grace > Grace's Quotes

“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

“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

“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, Lock and Key

“Wherever you will go,
I will let you down,
But this lullaby goes on.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong.”
― 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 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense. ”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“Silence is so freaking loud”
― 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, This Lullaby

“If this was my forever, I wouldn't want to spend it here. ”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“Sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something. ”
― Sarah Dessen

“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

“What you need, what you deserve, is a guy who adores you for what you are. Who doesn't see you as a project, but a prize. you know?”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever