Sarah Dessen quote: "Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away."

Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?
SARAH DESSEN

Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
W...
SARAH DESSEN

I'm always hopeful. I feel like I'm at the prom sitting against the wall waiting for someone...
SARAH DESSEN

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and a...
SARAH DESSEN

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, w...
SARAH DESSEN

You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.
SARAH DESSEN

I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?"
"Like I said," he ...
SARAH DESSEN

Okay,' he said. He took a breath. 'What would you do, if you could do anything?'
I took a step ...
SARAH DESSEN

But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you anoth...
SARAH DESSEN

But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to h...
SARAH DESSEN

Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. it's like forever, always ch...
SARAH DESSEN

What you need, what you deserve, is a guy who adores you for what you are. Who doesn't see you as a ...
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...
SARAH DESSEN

That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it...
SARAH DESSEN

Don't think or judge, just listen.
SARAH DESSEN

So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, t...
SARAH DESSEN

for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world...
SARAH DESSEN

Well, it's true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved,...
SARAH DESSEN

Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe ...
SARAH DESSEN

You're not supposed to have it all figured out in high school. If you knew it all, and it was th...
SARAH DESSEN

Love is so unpredictable. That's what makes it so great.
SARAH DESSEN

Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the thing...
SARAH DESSEN

What the hell," I said, pushing off the wall, ready to take off the head of whatever stupid salesper...
SARAH DESSEN

I just thought to my self, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if...
SARAH DESSEN

With love like that, you can't get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is t...
SARAH DESSEN

Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground...
SARAH DESSEN

You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked.
"I want you to give her a possibility," she told...
SARAH DESSEN

He glanced over at me. 'Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine f...
SARAH DESSEN

So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop the...
SARAH DESSEN

As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to l...
SARAH DESSEN

The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.
SARAH DESSEN

This world is an awful/ugly place not to have a best friend.
SARAH DESSEN

I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, trut...
SARAH DESSEN

When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a coloring book, with the inside not y...
SARAH DESSEN

I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you'd thi...
SARAH DESSEN

I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from...
SARAH DESSEN

You can't just turn your heart off like a faucet; you have to go to the source and dry it out, drop ...
SARAH DESSEN

Two a.m.' He swallowed, then said, "You know. The person you can call at two a.m. and, no matter wha...
SARAH DESSEN

Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overt...
SARAH DESSEN

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.
SARAH DESSEN

That's what this has been all about for you, correct? Make it clear. That you and me--it was nothing...
SARAH DESSEN

And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling in...
SARAH DESSEN

It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it should...
SARAH DESSEN

What was it like to be so confident even in your failings that you weren't the least bit bothered wh...
SARAH DESSEN

Look,” he said, “the point is there’s no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anyt...
SARAH DESSEN

So much had happened that morning. Yet it was this image, this moment, that i kept going back to hou...
SARAH DESSEN

I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. "You know, ge...
SARAH DESSEN

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they we...
SARAH DESSEN

Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, espe...
SARAH DESSEN

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.
SARAH DESSEN

Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're l...
SARAH DESSEN

I would miss Colby, but it wasn't going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.
SARAH DESSEN

You want to take me to a movie?" I asked.
"Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is ...
SARAH DESSEN

Story of my life.
SARAH DESSEN

Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.
SARAH DESSEN

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that lo...
SARAH DESSEN

I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The peopl...
SARAH DESSEN

No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you do...
SARAH DESSEN

If this was my forever, I didn't want to spend another second of it here.
SARAH DESSEN

Nah," I said. "But if it does, just tell him I said to get back on the bike."
"What?"
"He'...
SARAH DESSEN

In the end, though, maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at al...
SARAH DESSEN

So," he said as we turned onto the main road, the muffler rattling, "I've been thinking."
"Yeah...
SARAH DESSEN

It was terrible and awful when someone left you. You could move on, do the best you could, but like ...
SARAH DESSEN

Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.
SARAH DESSEN

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.
SARAH DESSEN

But it's strange, when you've always been told something is true, like the moon will come back. You ...
SARAH DESSEN

Apologies come in all shapes and sizes. You can give diamonds, candy, flowers, or just your deepest ...
SARAH DESSEN

Everything always gets crazy at the end. You just have to keep going, regardless of how awful it get...
SARAH DESSEN

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where w...
SARAH DESSEN

The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the
way they are.
SARAH DESSEN

It's not forever', she'd said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice...
SARAH DESSEN

When he first put his arms around me, it was tentative, like maybe he expected
I'd pull away. W...
SARAH DESSEN

And like my dad always said, the first step is always the hardest.
SARAH DESSEN

I felt something catch in my throat, a sudden surge of sadness that caught me unaware, almost taking...
SARAH DESSEN

You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy ...
SARAH DESSEN

Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really abou...
SARAH DESSEN

Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the d...
SARAH DESSEN

Yes,' he said, 'a list. That way, I figure, we'll have a written record of what we've agreed upon as...
SARAH DESSEN

But as I stood watching her, I realized how truly hard it was,really, to see someone you love change...
SARAH DESSEN

Your actions is like a raindrop; it falls into the pond making ripples and then its over...
SARAH DESSEN

Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human.
SARAH DESSEN

How weird was it that so many bits and pieces, all diverse, could make something whole. Something wi...
SARAH DESSEN

When my dad died, it was like everything felt really shaky, you know? And trying to be the best I co...
SARAH DESSEN

But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening...
SARAH DESSEN

This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we...
SARAH DESSEN

So I narrowed my world, cutting put everyone who'd known me or tried to befriend me. It was the only...
SARAH DESSEN

You can't be together, which is exactly why you want to be.
SARAH DESSEN

Just because someone's pretty, doesn't mean she's decent.
SARAH DESSEN

For a second none of us said anything, and I wondered if, in the end, this is
how all disputes ...
SARAH DESSEN

The silence wasn't
like the ones I'd known
lately, though: it wasn't empty as much as chos...
SARAH DESSEN

I would have thought this would make me feel better, for once getting to be the one to leave and not...
SARAH DESSEN

It's not that I believe everything happens for a reason, it's just that...I just think that some thi...
SARAH DESSEN

...feeling and action are always linked
SARAH DESSEN

What would you do, if you could do anything?
SARAH DESSEN

Isn't it weird the way you remember things, when someone's gone?
SARAH DESSEN

But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too h...
SARAH DESSEN

It's hard to do," I said. Wes looked at me. "What is?" I swallowed, not sure why I'd said this out l...
SARAH DESSEN

To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. T...
SARAH DESSEN

Mais dans la vie, tout n'est pas parfait. Parfois, il faut se fabriquer sa propre histoire. Donner u...
SARAH DESSEN

It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it should...
SARAH DESSEN

It was so weird, because usually I was totally nervous talking to guys. But Eli was different. He ma...
SARAH DESSEN

So maybe it wasn't the fairy tale. But those stories weren't real anyway. Mine were.
SARAH DESSEN

What do you do when you finally hear everything you've always thought said aloud?
SARAH DESSEN

He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.
SARAH DESSEN

Odd how it was so easy for a stranger to assume such familiarity. Especially when those who were sup...
SARAH DESSEN

It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit ...
SARAH DESSEN

It wasn't about being happy or unhappy. I just didn't want to be me anymore.
SARAH DESSEN

You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the ans...
SARAH DESSEN

Plus there’s the fact,” he went on, making it clear he didn’t need me to reply anyway, “that...
SARAH DESSEN

I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.
SARAH DESSEN

Sorry!' Dave's friend yelled when he saw me. 'That was my-' But i wasn't listening as,instead,i took...
SARAH DESSEN

Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials
and ideas?"
She can be anyt...
SARAH DESSEN

Hey, and for what it's worth? Friends don't leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who c...
SARAH DESSEN

It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and stru...
SARAH DESSEN

When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not ...
SARAH DESSEN

If you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.
SARAH DESSEN

But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized ...
SARAH DESSEN

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.
SARAH DESSEN

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.
SARAH DESSEN

Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem ...
SARAH DESSEN

It's just that...I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the ...
SARAH DESSEN

If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the w...
SARAH DESSEN

I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, ...
SARAH DESSEN

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in ...
SARAH DESSEN

That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we...
SARAH DESSEN

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the th...
SARAH DESSEN

It's okay to accept things from people. It doesn't make you weak or helpless.
SARAH DESSEN

Oh, God," I said.
"No, it's Dexter," he replied, offering me his hand, which I ignored.
He...
SARAH DESSEN

Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?
SARAH DESSEN

Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
SARAH DESSEN

Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everythi...
SARAH DESSEN

I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, no...
SARAH DESSEN

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time....
SARAH DESSEN

[Adam picks up the camera] "I have to get a shot of this."
The reaction in the room was swift, ...
SARAH DESSEN

If only you could really use a fail-proof system to know who was worth keeping and who needed to be ...
SARAH DESSEN

After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor wo...
SARAH DESSEN

That's not a real answer.'
Says who?'
Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death...
SARAH DESSEN

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all...
SARAH DESSEN

There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the sto...
SARAH DESSEN

I want the white one
SARAH DESSEN

Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there h...
SARAH DESSEN

It didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you we...
SARAH DESSEN

You can't make any one person your world. The trick is to take what each can give you and build a wo...
SARAH DESSEN

It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were y...
SARAH DESSEN

I have a tendency to embellish: I think it's a weakness of fiction writers. Once you know how to mak...
SARAH DESSEN

That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or any...
SARAH DESSEN

The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.
SARAH DESSEN

Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They�...
SARAH DESSEN

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you t...
SARAH DESSEN

You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it'll happen.
SARAH DESSEN

instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her ...
SARAH DESSEN

I've never envied the person who had to put my books together in one script.
SARAH DESSEN

There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me ...
SARAH DESSEN

I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared abou...
SARAH DESSEN

You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lo...
SARAH DESSEN

And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she w...
SARAH DESSEN

Macon: “It’s true. And if that doesn’t work, use the Jedi Mind Trick. But only if you really h...
SARAH DESSEN

Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love...
SARAH DESSEN

Nope.' He sat back. 'Just been there, done that. Done that getting hauled to the police station thin...
SARAH DESSEN

I told you, everyone understands a quest.
SARAH DESSEN

Shit," Delia said. "I mean, shoot. No, actually, I mean shit. I really do.
SARAH DESSEN

Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word th...
SARAH DESSEN

Hollis " I said "you're messing with me right now aren't you You're in Paris or somewhere and just-"...
SARAH DESSEN

Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out ...
SARAH DESSEN

It's true. It's like the hidden secret that no one tells you. we can all be beautiful girls, Colie. ...
SARAH DESSEN

The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be any...
SARAH DESSEN

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went throu...
SARAH DESSEN

You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.
SARAH DESSEN

It wasn't until Kiffney-Brown, when I met Jason Talbot, that I really thought I might actually have ...
SARAH DESSEN

So finally, I decided that the best response — the safest — was none at all.
SARAH DESSEN

So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood about I felt.
SARAH DESSEN

A second later, when he looked up at me, we were face to face, and again, even under these circumsta...
SARAH DESSEN

You're a rule person," he said.
"My sister was a cheater. It sort of became necessary."
"S...
SARAH DESSEN

Please. She sighed. 'Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.
SARAH DESSEN

All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain
everything that had
happened to me i...
SARAH DESSEN

Who knew three dots could make such a difference? Like everything else, a love or a wish or whatever...
SARAH DESSEN

I know you guys have some sort of weird thing going on, with that game you play and everything—" SARAH DESSEN

What were you two talking about?" she whispered as Wes pulls the door shut.
Nothing," I said. "...
SARAH DESSEN

That sucks, though," Wes said finally, his voice low. "You're just setting yourself up to fail, beca...
SARAH DESSEN

Donneven," I said, in my best Monica imitation, and he laughed. "We're not talking about me."
"...
SARAH DESSEN

I listened for the voice I knew so well, the one I always heard at the beginning.
Good girl, Ma...
SARAH DESSEN

and I wondered if, in the end, this is how all disputes are settled, with a shared silence as things...
SARAH DESSEN

And I think she works so much becasue she can be in control of it, you know?' I said. She nodded. 'I...
SARAH DESSEN

You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the c...
SARAH DESSEN

The truth about forever is that it is happening right now.
SARAH DESSEN

Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine.
SARAH DESSEN

I was distracted, thinking about what she'd said, until she got to this last part. "Sherman?" I said...
SARAH DESSEN

But when you had to do something, you had to do it. And eventually, if you were lucky, you did it we...
SARAH DESSEN

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her actually relax and sit still in a way that made it ob...
SARAH DESSEN

Like maybe it's forever, maybe it's not
SARAH DESSEN

It's both, it all depends on how you choose to live it. Forever is always changing.'

[Abo...
SARAH DESSEN

When you only had words, you had to make up for things, say what you might not need to otherwise.
SARAH DESSEN

Everyone else could get through to my mother: all they had to do was dial a number and wait for her ...
SARAH DESSEN

You should have seen your face," she said, her breath hot in my ear. "Sa-woooon.
SARAH DESSEN

During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun
setting in the distance, it w...
SARAH DESSEN

Quiet and incredible. I really envy that.
SARAH DESSEN

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changin...
SARAH DESSEN

Donneven, Bettaquit and Mmmhmmmm
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 ev...
SARAH DESSEN

Why does she have wings?'
So she can fly.
SARAH DESSEN

Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away.

Copied!

Sarah Dessen

Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away.

Sarah Dessen

Share:

Related

More Sarah Dessen