Lock and Key Quotes

“The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But now, I was beginning to wonder if you didn't always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper. In the moments that it really counts, maybe it's enough- more than enough, even- just to be there.
~Ruby, pg 399”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“You're not a sucker. You're just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked.
"I want you to give her a possibility," she told him, looking at my necklace again. "And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to awknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn fromt them.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But I saw Blake earlier and he said he and Nate were taking off for an overnight business thing. So..."
"... you're just going to jump their fence and their pool," I finished for her.
Silence. Then Jamie said, "It's twenty-five degrees! In December! Do you know what this means?"
"The apocalypse?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room--we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it'll happen.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“My point is,' Jamie continued, 'not everything's perfect, especially at the beginning. And it's all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble.'
pg 169-170”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.'...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Conciseness is underrated”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all.

~Ruby, pg 38”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Funny how a beautiful song could tell such an ugly story.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But unfriendly is usually one of those things you pick up on right away. You know, like B.O. There's no hiding it if it's there.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“It's okay to accept things from people. It doesn't make you weak or helpless.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“You have to admit, it's kind of impressive.... Total commitment. 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

“It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When i got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my conciousness & memory”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“He glanced over at me. 'Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine for real or something?'
'No,' I said.
'Of what, then?' he asked.
I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. 'You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone.'
'Yeah,' he said, adding some cheese straws to the car, but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.'
I picked up a box of cheese straws, examinig it. 'Yeah,' I said. 'But it's not all about chance, either.'
'Meaning what?' he asked, taking the box from me and adding the rest.
'Just that, if you know ahead of time that there might an issue that dooms everything- like, say, you're incredibly controlling and independent, like Harriet- maybe it's better to acknowledge that and not waste your time. Or someone else's.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Just wait a second. We can't leave it like this." But this too, wasn't true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“And so really, you have given me no choice but to take you shopping by
force.” She sighed, then reached up, dropping her sunglasses down from
their perch on her head to cover her eyes. “Do you even realize how happy
the average teenage girl would be in your shoes? I have a credit card. We’re
at the mall. I want to buy you things. It’s like adolescent nirvana.”

- Cora”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family.
(page 289) ~Ruby”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But it's important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“In the end, though, maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“More than anyone in that room, I was aware of exactly the sort of person who did such a thing. What I hadnn't realized until that very moment, though, was that it wasn't just my mother who was guilty of all these offenses. I'd told myself that everything I'd done in the weeks before and since she left was to make sure I would never be like her. But it was too late. All I had to do was look at the way I'd reacted to what Cora had told me that morning- taking off, getting wasted, letting myself be left alone in a strange place- to know I already was...

Perhaps I was just like my mother. But looking up at Cora's hand, I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to trya nad prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.

~Ruby, pg 225”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“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 there, regardless.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Maybe my sister and I shared more than we thought. We were both waiting and wishing for something we couldn't completely control: I wanted to be alone, and she the total opposite. It was weird, really, to have something so contrary in common. But at least it was something.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Well,' she said, adjusting a pot lid, 'I have my family of origin, which is you and Mom. And then Jaime's family, my family of marriage. And hopefully, I'll have another family, as well. Our family, that we make. Me and Jaimie.'
Now I felt bad, bringing this up so soon after Jamie's gaffe. 'You will,' I said.
She turned around, crossing her arms over her chest. 'I hope so. But that's just the thing, right? 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. even that picture of Jamie's family was only the true representation for that one day. But the next , someone had probably changed. It had to.'
...
Later, when the kitchen had filled up with people looking for more wine, and children chasing Roscoe, I looked across all the chaos at Cora, thinking that of course you would assume our definitions would be similar, since we had come from the same place. But this wasn't actually true. We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions were as different as we were ourselves.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But wasn't that always the way. It's never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key