Dessen Quotes & Sayings

He shook his head. "Some people think that they like music,but they have no idea what it's really about. They're kindding themselves. Then there are people who feel strongly about music, but just aren't listening to the right stuff. They're misguided. And then there are people like me." ...
"People like you," I said. "What kind of people are those?" ...
"The kind who live for music and are constantly seeking it out, anywhere they can. Who can't imagine a life without it. They're enlightened. — Sarah Dessen

Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer. — Sarah Dessen

The end of a wedding reception is always so depressing. And only the bride and groom are spared, jetting off into the sunset while the rest of us wake up the next morning to just another day. — Sarah Dessen

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common. — Sarah Dessen

As I shut the door and started to walk away, I heard him say, "Hey. Sydney."
"Yeah?"
"You had on a shirt with mushrooms on it, and your hair was pulled back. Silver earrings. Pepperoni slice. No lollipop."
I just looked at him, confused. Layla was walking toward us now.
"The first time you came into Seaside," he said. "You weren't invisible, not to me. Just so you know. — Sarah Dessen

I looked down again at the sign in my hand - ENJOY THE RIDE! - and it seemed, suddenly, to be just that. A sign. — Sarah Dessen

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

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know. — Sarah Dessen

I've seen what commitment leads to. Going in is the easy part. It's the ending that sucks!
-Remy — Sarah Dessen

Change is inevitable, though," he replied. "As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now. — Sarah Dessen

It was the only time I'd ever heard someone ask, "Can you grab me the spoon?" as opposed to "a spoon," which at least connoted there was more than one. — Sarah Dessen

Being a star requires risk-taking shoes. — Sarah Dessen

When you can't save yourself or your heart, it helps to be able to save face. — Sarah Dessen

Like a word on a page that you've printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you've lost something, even if you're not sure what it is. — Sarah Dessen

Which is completely out-of-line behavior. Then you are wholly within your rights to stomp on their foot." "No," Delia said, over her shoulder. "Actually, you're not. Just excuse yourself as politely as possible, and get out of arm's reach." Kristy looked at me, shaking her head. "Stomp them." she said, under her breath. "Really — Sarah Dessen

As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter and silliness and girls that was, somehow, friendship. — Sarah Dessen

Silence is so freaking loud — Sarah Dessen

All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind. — Sarah Dessen

My books are so tame! — Sarah Dessen

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

I took in a breath. "What's the one thing you'd do," I asked. "if you could do anything?"
Pass," he said.
For a second I was sure I'd heard wrong. "What?"
He cleared his throat. "I said, I pass."
Why?"
He turned his head and looked at me. "Because."
Because why?"
Because I just do. — Sarah Dessen

What do you do when you finally hear everything you've always thought said aloud? — Sarah Dessen

How it seemed like you could see everything, but certain things were blocked out, hidden. — Sarah Dessen

I trailed off and he didn't push me to finish. I was finding that I liked that. — Sarah Dessen

If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump. — Sarah Dessen

That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.
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 don't be afraid. Be alive. — Sarah Dessen

Maybe marriage, like life, isn't only about the big moments, whether they be good or bad. Maybe it's all the small things - like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day - that stretches out to strengthen even the most tenuous bond. — Sarah Dessen

All I wanted - all I'd ever wanted - was just to get away. To be somewhere small where I could crowd in and feel safe, all four walls pressed around me, no one staring or pointing or yelling. — Sarah Dessen

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

The choice of no choice. — Sarah Dessen

I was such a smart kid, I should have figured out that the only way to really get my parents' attention was to disappoint them or fail. But by the time I finally realized that, succeeding was already a habit too ingrained to break. — Sarah Dessen

I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything? — Sarah Dessen

If you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed. — Sarah Dessen

Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you. — Sarah Dessen

When I was a teen, I was never really into the captain of the football team or the student body president. The guys I liked were quirky and different: They listened to music I'd never heard of, never had lunch or gas money, and could always make you laugh. — Sarah Dessen

I was distracted, thinking about what she'd said, until she got to this last part. "Sherman?" I said.
She nodded. "That's John and Craig's friend. He's visiting from Shreveport."
"Sherman from Shreveport?" I said. "This is the guy you're determined I go out with?"
"You can't judge a book by its cover!" she snapped. When I slid my eyes toward Forbidden, she grabbed it up, shoving it back under the bed. "You know what I mean. Sherman might be very nice. — Sarah Dessen

Yeah," he agreed, "but when you go for Squeeze Serve with someone, it's a safe zone. What's said there, stays there."
I looked at him. "I think that's Las Vegas."
"That, too. — Sarah Dessen

I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from her entirely. No matter how strong or weak I was, she was a part of me, as crucial as my own heart. I would never be strong enough, in all my life, to do without her. — Sarah Dessen

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough. — Sarah Dessen

I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, and the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers. — Sarah Dessen

I don't want everything to change. — Sarah Dessen

At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut. — Sarah Dessen

Maybe you could go backwards and forwards at the same time, but it wasn't easy. You had to want to. — Sarah Dessen

I've always written in first person. It gives the readers more insight. — Sarah Dessen

Love is so unpredictable. Sometimes you'll know a man for years and then one day, boom! Suddenly you see him in a different way. And other times, it's that first date, that first moment. That's what makes it so great. — Sarah Dessen

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie. — Sarah Dessen

To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. Those 3 or so months between 1 school year and the next always meant change. People got taller or wider or smaller. They broke up or came together, lost friends or gained them, had life experiences that you could tell had transformed them even if you didn't know what they were. In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible. As a teenager, I was always hoping to change, to become someone other than who I was. Each summer, I felt I had the chance to do that. All I had to do was wait and see what happened. — Sarah Dessen

My mother has always been the point 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

It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count. — Sarah Dessen

Never would forever, with all its meanings, be so clear and distinct as in the true, guaranteed end of the world. — Sarah Dessen

Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside — Sarah Dessen

And I felt comfort. Finally. All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this. I knew, deep down, it was more complicated than that, but watching Jason, I was hopeful. He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I had to wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me. So I moved myself closer to him, and I'd been there ever since. — Sarah Dessen

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don't jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going. — Sarah Dessen

what isn't said can hurt the most. — Sarah Dessen

You knew the truth all along, Colie. That's all matters. You knew. — Sarah Dessen

I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing]. — Sarah Dessen

Sometimes love can be an ugly thing. — Sarah Dessen

I was in shock. Funny how the world works. You don't get the something you really covet, but then the universe provides unexpected compensation. Here I thought you had to make a wish for it to come true. — Sarah Dessen

Next thing you know she'll be on the bus and selling T-shirts in the parking lot, showing off her boobs to get in the stage door."
"At least she has boobs to show," Jess said.
"I have boobs," Chloe said, pointing to her chest. "Just because they're not weighing me down doesn't mean they're not substantial."
"Okay, B cup," Jess said, taking a sip of her drink.
"I have boobs!" Chloe said again, a bit too loudly
she'd already had a couple of minibottles at the Spot. "My boobs are great, goddammit. You know that? They're fantastic! My boobs are amazing. — Sarah Dessen

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns. — Sarah Dessen

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

Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can't fully understand. — Sarah Dessen

But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us. — Sarah Dessen

She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore. — Sarah Dessen

The truth was, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it. — Sarah Dessen

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

Who would have thought that grieving an old relationship and enjoying a new one could happen simultaneously, in parallel? Yet another thing you only find out once it's happening to you. — Sarah Dessen

But 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. You know? — Sarah Dessen

I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered. — Sarah Dessen

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

Story of my life. — Sarah Dessen

It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. — Sarah Dessen

It was Isabel's main accessory as she dashed in late to work, always with two or three CDs, usually new, tucked under her arm. At night, when I crawled out on my rooftop, it was what I heard first, — Sarah Dessen

The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly. — Sarah Dessen

Like maybe it's forever, maybe it's not — Sarah Dessen

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

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

During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun
setting in the distance, it was
somehow easier to say things aloud, and regardless of what was said, we just
kept moving toward that
horizon. — Sarah Dessen

When you only had words, you had to make up for things, say what you might not need to otherwise. — Sarah Dessen

From up above, in a plane passing over, you'd just see one little light in all this dark, with no idea of the lives that were being lived within it, and in the house beside, and beside that one. So much happening in the world, night and day, hour by hour. It was no wonder we were meant to sleep, if only to check out of it for a little while. — Sarah Dessen

Please God, I'm begging you — 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

Having no expectations for some people in your life can be depressing, if not devastating. But with others, it's what is necessary. The hard part is not just figuring out which one applies, but accepting it. — Sarah Dessen

I was born in 1970 in Illinois, but all the life I remember I've spent in Chapel Hill, N.C. — Sarah Dessen

If what you're asking is how I debated whether or not to love her the answer is I didn't. Not at all. It just happened. I didn't ever question it; by the time I realized what was happening, it was already done. — Sarah Dessen

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real. — Sarah Dessen

You couldn't see the key around my neck: it hung too low under both collars. But if I leaned in close, I could make it out, buried deep beneath. Out of sight, hard to recognize, but still able to be found, even if I was the only one to ever look for it. — Sarah Dessen

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her actually relax and sit still in a way that made it obvious she wasn't already thinking about the next six things she had to do, and maybe the six after that — Sarah Dessen

I thought this was a cookout. You know, dogs and burgers, Tater Tots, ambrosia salad" Dexter picked up a box of Twinkies, tossing them into the cart. "And Twinkies."
"It is," ... "Except that it's a cookout thrown by my mother."
"And?"
"And my mother doesn't cook."
He looked at me waiting.
"At all. My mother doesn't cook at all."
"She must cook sometimes."
"Nope."
"Everyone can make scrambled eggs, Remy. It's programmed into you at birth, the default setting. Like being able to swim and knowing not to mix pickles with oatmeal. You just KNOW. — Sarah Dessen

Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stp it. There's just os much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up ... — Sarah Dessen

Again, this made me think of Daisy, and her white lie about the dresses. We were willing to do so much for the people we loved, even if it meant hurting ourselves. Maybe that, in the end, was what love
all kinds
was really all about. — Sarah Dessen

And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I'd ever jumped at all. It's not supposed to be like this. — Sarah Dessen

I missed him," she said finally.
I put my hand over hers and sat down, pulling my chair closer. "I know," I said softly.
"You came back from Florida feeling really good, and then you find out he's such a rat bastard that he - "
"No," she said distractedly, interrupting me. "I missed him. All those Ensures, and not
a one made contact. I have terrible aim." And then she sighed. "Even just one would have made it
better. Somehow. — Sarah Dessen

I'm really interested in the idea of anomynity and familiarity. And sunglasses, you know, are so indicatitve of that. I mean, they're worn by some people to hide themselves. But they're also a fashion statement, meant to be noticed. So there's a dichotomy there. — Sarah Dessen

I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself fo the next hit, and fel something. Something grainy and samll, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park.
Oh Cass, I thought. I miss you so, so much. — Sarah Dessen

Destinations are overrated, as long as your moving, your going somewhere — Sarah Dessen

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

Together, we looked down at the tiny house, the sole thing on this vast, flat surface. Like the only person living on the moon. It could be either lonely or peaceful, depending on how you looked at it. "It's a start," I said. — Sarah Dessen

Conciseness is underrated — Sarah Dessen

You said the other day life was long,' I shot back. 'Which is it?'
'It's both,' she said, shrugging. 'It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.'
Kristy and Macy; p.135 — Sarah Dessen