TOPICS
SPEAKERS
HOME
BROWSE TOPICS
BROWSE SPEAKERS
◀ BACK

Sarah Dessen Quotes

Writer
1
2
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 dont be afraid. Be alive.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'
There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.
It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's not always easy being her daughter.'

I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You want to take me to a movie?" I asked.
"Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe if I'd agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I'd always tell her, why can't I do both? Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It all counts,' Adam said again. 'And the bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it's one more, you're all good.-pg 325 Along for the Ride
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.
From Saint Anything
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 dont be afraid. Be alive.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'
There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.
It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's not always easy being her daughter.'

I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You want to take me to a movie?" I asked.
"Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe if I'd agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I'd always tell her, why can't I do both? Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It all counts,' Adam said again. 'And the bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it's one more, you're all good.-pg 325 Along for the Ride
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.
From Saint Anything
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 dont be afraid. Be alive.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'
There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.
It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's not always easy being her daughter.'

I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You want to take me to a movie?" I asked.
"Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.
From The Truth About Forever
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose.
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.
From What Happened to Goodbye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Maybe if I'd agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I'd always tell her, why can't I do both? Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.
From Someone Like You
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It all counts,' Adam said again. 'And the bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it's one more, you're all good.-pg 325 Along for the Ride
From Along for the Ride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.
From Saint Anything
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
1
2