Quotes from Sarah Dessen

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

A ver, ¿qué hay que ponerse para cortar con alguien? ¿Negro, de luto? ¿O algo colorido y alegre, para distraerlos de su dolor? ¿O mejor algo de camuflaje, que te ayude a desaparecer rápidamente en caso de que no se lo tomen bien?

I spent a lot of time looking at that picture. Wondering what I'd think of that girl, if I was someone else, seeing how easily she sits in her boyfriend's lap, laughing, with his arms around her. I would have thought her life was perfect, the way I once thought Cass's was. It was too easy, I was learning, to just assume things.

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.

Calling for delivery is my favorite recipe.

Life was very short, literally. But now that I'm better, it seems so long I have to squint to see even the edges of it. 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 can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.

All I'd ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.

Everything always gets crazy at the end. You just have to keep going, regardless of how awful it gets. So that's what I do.

Later up in my room, I kept thinking about this, the idea of distance and accomplishment. The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. In the end though, maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

Life has a way of disregarding even your best intentions.

You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.' 'You're a freak is what you are,' I said.

Was it really this easy, once you escaped, to just not care?

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

If June was the beginning of a hopeful summer, and July the juice middle, August was suddenly feeling like the bitter end.

Eventually, it wasn't even your dad I wanted, just anybody. Anybody at all.

You just had to know where to look.

The health of the people I love is all that really matters in this world. Period.

A second later, when he looked up at me, we were face to face, and again, even under these circumstances, I was struck by how good looking he was, in that accidental, doesn't-even-know-it kind of way. Which only made it worse. Or better. Or whatever. Yup, he said, as if there'd been any doubt, you're in there, all right. I was warned, too,I told him, as he stood up. I just saw that sculpture, and I got distracted. The sculpture? He looked at it, then at me. Oh, right. Because you know it.

How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me.

Incluso ahora que estaba muerto, era un artista de un solo éxito. O dos, supongo, si me cuento a mí.

Explain it to me. But I couldn't. I'd 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 didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.

I thought of all the times we'd been together, how I kept coming closer, then retreating, while he stayed right where he was. A constant in a world where few, if any, really existed.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

So, she went on, it got me thinking about what cost beauty. Or for that matter, what cost anything? Would you trade love for beauty? Or happiness for beauty? Could a gorgeous person with a mean streak be a worthy trade? And if you did make the trade, decide you'd take that beautiful swan and hope it wouldn't turn on you, what would you do if it did?