Quotes from Sarah Dessen

The mistakes you make now count. Not for everything, and not forever. But they do matter, and they shape you...make your choices well. Because you will always be accountable for them.

Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.

Don't think or judge,' I said. 'Just listen.

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. 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 don't be afraid. Be alive.

It didn't matter that I'd done none of those things. With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts.

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.

People will tell you what they want you to know.

And all of it came down to one thing: love, or the lack of it. The chances we take, knowing no better, to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in, protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.

But down deeper, something I'd seen as solid-- not perfect, but solid-- was suddenly crumbling. I felt like I was falling to pieces right along with it.

But I didn't. I didn't 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'd made my choice, though, and I couldn't take it back.

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close.

But sometimes I longed for that sense of someone pulling me close, feeling another heartbeat against mine.

But you never know what you can do until you try, and if you're lucky, what you love will always be waiting for you.

I'd said I didn't always tell the truth, that I didn't handle conflict well, that anger scared me, that I was used to people just disappearing when they were mad.

So close, I thought. A shorter fence, a fatter dog, and everything would be different.

Home is... not a place but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

Something I had seen as slid–not perfect, but solid–was suddenly crumbling. I felt like I was falling to pieces right along with it.

I hate not having what I want

The thing about negotiations, not to mention the manipulation, is you can't go too far in any direction. Refusing once is good, twice is usually okay but a third is risky. You never know when the third person will stop playing and you end up with nothing.

Life seemed so much more manageable when you could write it down neatly on paper.

For some reason, blame is often directed toward me. I have to be vigilant.

She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived.

More like a door being opened a tiny crack to let a sliver of light in. It wasn't enough to see clearly by, but from then on, we would never be fully in the dark again.