Quotes from Sarah Dessen

Nothing changes for three years, and then suddenly everything does all at once. Maybe those other people's summers I've envied weren't all fun either. You never really know anything until it's happening to you.

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

Don't be afraid, be alive.

Even when words fail me, you never do.

I'd chosen instead to just change my route, go miles out of the way, as if avoiding it would make it go away once and for all.

In midair, dangling lost above the world.

Once, this had been the life I'd wanted. Even chosen. Now, though, I couldn't believe that there had been a time when this kind of monotony and silence, this most narrow of existences, had been preferable. Then again, once, I'd never known anything else.

Its 75 Degrees! In December!

It was hard to remember what the yard had looked like even twelve hours before, undisturbed and pristine. Like it takes so little to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

You said the other day life was long,' I shot back. 'Which is it?' 'It's both,' she said, shrugging. 'It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.' Kristy and Macy; p.135

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

It was just the lightest dusting, and another person might have mistaken it for something else. But I knew where I came from. No matter where I was, or what got me there, I would always feel at home when I touched sand.

Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once.

Don't trust the natives, Olivia has told me, but I was already a step ahead of her. I didn't trust anyone. Not for directions, not for rides, and not for advice either. Sure it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened – good bad or anywhere in between – it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

You know," I said to him. "Pining isn't attractive. On anyone. ... The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.

But this, too, wasn't true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so dammed hard.

Hey, think fast!' I just looked at Fave as he chucked the basketball at me with possibly the worst overhand throw I'd ever seen. It landed to my far right, then bounced past me, banging against my dad's truck. 'Do you have a vision problem of something?' I asked him. 'Just keeping you on your toes,' he replied

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn"t ever want to be found.

but accepting help doesn"t have to mean giving up control.

You couldn't just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn't like a light switch, easy to shut on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out. To me, it didn't seem complicated at all. In fact, it was the simplest thing in the world.

You ready to play? Dave asked, bouncing it. I don't know, I said. Are you going to cheat? It's street ball! He said checking it to me. Show me that love. So chessy, i thought. But as i felt it, solid against my hands, i did feel something. I wasn't sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. All right, I said. Let's play.

Doesn't it seem sometimes that the whole world's uphill but at least we know the way back will be easy...

But as was so often the case, it was the one person missing who you thought about more than the ones who were right in front of you.

Sorry!' Dave's friend yelled when he saw me. 'That was my-' But i wasn't listening as,instead,i took every bit of the anger and stress of the last few minutes and days put it behind the ball, throwing it overhead at the basket as hard as i could. It went flying, hitting the backboard and banging through the netless hoop at full speed before shooting back out and nailing Dave Wade squarely on the forehead. And just like that, he was down.