Quotes by Sarah Dessen

It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering.

Its hard to do, I said. Wes looked at me. What is? I swallowed, not sure why Id said this out loud. Get it right.

The thing about negotiations, not to mention the manipulation, is you cant 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.

Love is so unpredictable. Sometimes youll know a man for years and then one day, boom! Suddenly you see him in a different way. And other times, its that first date, that first moment. Thats what makes it so great.

You think its all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, its all in who is doing the looking.

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 Sabrinas and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.

Isnt it weird the way you remember things, when someones gone?

I dont know, I said. What else did you do for your first eighteen years?Like I said, he said as I unlocked the car, Im not so sure that you should go by my example.Why not?Because I have my regrets, he said. Also, Im a guy. And guys do different stuff.Like ride bikes? I said.No, he replied. Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on peoples front porches. And...Girls cant set off firecrackers on peoples front porches?They can, he said... But theyre smart enough not to. Thats the difference.

It was just a tiny moment. Not a kiss, not even real contact. But for all the things it wasnt, it meant so much.

It wasnt about being happy or unhappy. I just didnt want to be me anymore.

I put my pen to the paper and began to write. I’d made so many wishes for so many couples quietly in my head as they drove away, but writing the words out made it seem more real, possible. For them, and maybe for me.FOR YOU, I WISH FOR SECOND CHANCES.I folded it shut, then put it on the wall before I could change my mind, right above Jilly’s. As Michael Salem called out to her and she started his way, I crossed the backyard, moving toward the music. When I looked back at the wish wall from a distance, it was a sea of squares: I couldn’t even find mine among them. So many things we ask for, hope for, prayers put out into a world so wide: there was no way they could all be answered. But you had to keep asking. If you didn’t, nothing even had a chance of coming true.

You stop believing in wishes when the only one you want to make can never come true.

She was dressing for the life she wanted, not the one she had.

Hes very nice. Hes something I replied. She considered this zipping her purse shut. Then she said Well everyone is. Everyone is Something. For some reason that stuck with me simple and yet not every since shed said it. It was like a puzzle as well two vague words with one clear one between them.

The first step is always the hardest

It was like discovering that some part of you wasnt yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldnt claim.

We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesnt really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. Its only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

It was so quiet, I could hear my own breathing, loud in my ears. Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesnt really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. Its only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.

Explain it to me.But I couldnt. Id had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood., If you didnt, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.