Quotes by Sarah Dessen

I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, its perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.

Thats the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are

With love like that, you cant get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is that its there. Better late than never.

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.

As long as I didnt say it aloud, it wasnt real

Once you love something, you always love it in someway. You have to. its like, part of you for good.

In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”“How do you win?” he asked.“That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”“What, girls don’t like to win?” He snorted. “Please. You’re the one who got all rule driven on me claiming Instant Breakfast isn’t a food.”“It’s not,” I told him. “It’s a beverage.” He rolled his eyes. I can’t believe this, I thought. A week or two ago putting a full sentence together in front of Wes was a challenge. Now we were arguing about liquids.“Okay,” he said, “back to Truth. You were saying?”I took in a breath. “To win, one person has to refuse to answer a question,” I said. “So, for example, let’s say I ask you a question and you don’t answer it. Then you get to ask me a question, and if I answer it, I win.”“But that’s too simple,” he said. “What if I ask you something easy?”“You wouldn’t,” I told him. “It has to be a really hard question, because you don’t want me to win.”“Ahhh,” he said, nodding. Then, after mulling it for a second he said, “Man. This is diabolical.” “It’s a girl’s game,” I explained, tilting my head back and looking at the stars. “Always good for a little drama at the slumber party. I told you, you don’t want to play.”“No. I do,” he squared his shoulders. “I can handle it.

I understand that you are under a lot of pressure and that its hard being a bride. That is all well and good. But it does not, ever, entitle you to be rude, selfish, uncaring, and generally obnoxious to me or Haven or anyone else. Weve been very patient with you because were your family and we love you, but it stops here. I dont care if the wedding is two weeks or two hours away, you were never raised to behave this way.

Its hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. Shed been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true.

For as long as I could remember, other people had either overshadowed me or left me out in the open, alone. But Mac, as Layla had said all those weeks ago, was always somewhere nearby. He left me enough space to stand alone, but stood at the ready for the moment that I didn’t want to. It was the perfect medium, I was learning. Like he was my saint, the one I’d been waiting for.

I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.

Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. Its a lie. Its just something that people say theyll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said ‘friendly relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and its like breaking up all over again. But messier.

I planned my whole future around Adam, she said now, quietly. And now I have nothing.No, I told her, now you just dont have Adam. Theres a big difference, Lissa. You just cant see it yet.

But I didnt. I didnt say anything, if only because I had no idea how to respond to such an overture. If my experience with friends was sparse, what I knew about boys- other than a competitors for grades or class rank- was nonexistent

I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mothersPTA and Boos strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,and led right to me.She can be anything, Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. And so can you.

Isnt it weird? The way you remember things when its gone.

Theres a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when its about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.

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 Id never heard of, never had lunch or gas money, and could always make you laugh.

I love writing about the summer between high school and college. Its the last gasp of really being a teen.