Lock and Key Quotes

“There were so many levels to the unknown, from safe to dangerous to outright nebulous, scariest of all.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I always started studying with the best intentions, telling myself that today just might be the day it all fell into place, and everything would be different. But more often than not, though, after a couple of pages of practice problems, I'd find myself spiraling into an all-out depression. When it was really bad, I'd put my head down on my book and contemplate alternate options for my future.
"whoa," I heard a voice say. It was muffled slightly by my hair, and my arm, which I locked around my head in an effort to keep my brain from seeping out.”
― 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 in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“These were always the weirdest trips for me, when it was midnight or even later, and we pulled up to a dark house, trying to be quiet. Like a robbery in reverse, creeping around to leave something rather than take it.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second. There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Family,”_ _ _“They’re the people in your life you don’t get
to pick. The ones that are given to you, as opposed to those you get to
choose.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Looking at the pond, all I could think was that it is an incredivle thing, how a whole world can rise from what seems like nothing at all.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I hoped this was true. Even if it wasn‟t, all I could do was hand over what I could, with the hope of something in return. But of course, this was easier said than done.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Even if you do make tons of new friends,” I told him, “try not to forget where you came from, okay?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Later, though, I wished I had spoken up, or at least tried to explain that once I knew Cora better than anyone. But that was a long time ago, back when she wasn‟t trying to save the whole world. Only me.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn’t already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to try and prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“How ballsy it was to just assume you know, with one glance, the things another person could live without. As if it was the same for everyone, that simple.”
― Sarah Dessen , Lock and Key

“Just remember: the heart! Start there, and you can't go wrong.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“So close, I thought. A shorter fence, a fatter dog, and everything would be different. 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

“If this was my instinct talking, I didn‟t want to hear what it was saying.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I want the white one”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Sure, there was no guarantee any of these things would actually happen as he envisioned. But maybe that wasn‟t the point.It was the planning that counted, whether it ever came to fruition or not.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“But that's just the thing thought. Family isn't something that is 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 James’s family was only the true representation for that day. By the next, something has probably changed. It had to.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“There’s something just obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“In that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“When she finally finished a few minutes later, it was hard to tell if she was even aware that the crowds had thinned... Watching them, I thought again of how 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

“And now she was found, no longer lost. Like a bag I'd given up for good suddenly reappearing in the middle of the night on my doorstep, packed for a journey I'd long ago forgotten. It was odd, considering I'd gotten accustomed to her being nowhere and anywhere, to finally know where my mother was. An exact location, pinpointed. Like she'd crossed over from my imagination, where I'd created a million different lives for her, back into this one.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Nicely put,” I said. “And all in less than two minutes.”
“Conciseness is underrated,” she said easily.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“There were so many times during those years, though, as we moved from one house to another, that I would find myself thinking about my sister. Usually it was late at night, when I couldn‟t sleep, and I‟d try to picture her in her dorm room forty-odd miles and a world away. I wondered if she was happy, what it was like out there. And if maybe, just maybe, she ever thought of me.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Most girls I know would consider that wish fullfillment, not torture.”
I sat back, shaking my head. “Why does everyone keep saying that? Who says just because I’m a girl I’m hardwired to want to spent a hundred and eighty bucks on jeans?”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“The thing about negotiations, not to mention the manipulation, is you can't go too far in any direction. Refusing once is good, twice is usually okay but a third is risky. You never know when the third person will stop playing and you end up with nothing.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“Nothing‟s going to change, Jamie had said that day, but I‟d known even then this wasn‟t true. My mother had always been the point that I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she‟d been gone, I felt like I‟d been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn‟t. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I‟d left behind”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“So close, I thought. A shorter fence, a fatter dog, and everything would be different.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“I want you to give her a possibility. And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key