Quotes from Sarah Dessen

With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts.

As I crossed the lobby to the boardwalk, all I could think was that regardless of the performance I'd just witnessed, it didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.

Odd how it was so easy for a stranger to assume such familiarity. Especially when those who were supposed to know you best often didn't, not at all.

Caitlin?' Cass said, and I turned away from the window, looking down the stairs and out the front door, trying to picture her making that walk away from this. It seemed like so far, and I was so tired. Tired of keeping time, of studying faces, of hiding bruises. Of disappearing, bit by bit, while my world just kept going without me, even as I slipped farther beneath the water, drowning.

Loce is so unpredictable. Sometimes you'll know a man for years and then one day, boom! Suddenly you see him in a different way. And other times, it's that first date, that first moment. That's what makes it so great.

Lost means forever, it's gone. But misplaced... that means it's still around, somewhere.

Jennifer Anne had prepared some complicated-looking recipe involving chicken breasts stuffed with sweet potatoes topped with a vegetable glaze. They looked perfect, but it was the kind of dish where you just knew someone had to have been pawing at your food for a long while to get it just right, their fingers all in what now you were having to stick in your mouth.

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

The choice of no choice.

You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends.

All anyone really wants from another person is their attention. It's so easy to give and counts for so much.

Why would I tell you anything but the truth? -Ethan For safety's sake we learn to be less honest at the beginnings of things, not more. But Ethan was different. With him and me, it was always about the truth. Why would I tell you anything but? It was the closest thing to I love you a boy had ever said to me. Maybe it meant even more.

Okay, he said. He took a breath. What would you do, if you could do anything? I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. This, I said. And then I kissed him

Like that box held the last little piece of what was normal, and I wasn't ready to give it up just yet.

I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her actually relax and sit still in a way that made it obvious she wasn't already thinking about the next six things she had to do, and maybe the six after that

So many things we ask for, hope for, prayers put out into the world so wide: there was no way they could all be answered. But you had to keep asking. If you didn't, nothing even had a chance of coming true.

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise. For some people, it's love. Others, money or alcohol. Mine was even worse: calculus.

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

Emergencies shouldn't feel the same, with similar colors and noises, when each one is so unique, all its own.

You can't measure love by the time put in, but by the weight of those moments.

There were endless ways to spend your days, I knew that, none of them right or wrong. But given the chance for a real do-over, another way around, who would say no? Not me. Not then. Call it crazy, or just chicken salad. But within reason, or even without it, I was in, too.

Tic Tacs you actually swallow, though," Esther pointed out. "You own a Tic Tac. Gum is just borrowed.

Everything seemed bright and different after so long in the darkness. Even though most of the businesses were closed, there was one neon sign lit in the window of a narrow storefront. COFFEE AND PIE, it read. Two bikes were parked just outside. On the boardwalk, in the thrown light of the neon sign, his head dipped down as I pulled my fingers through his hair. The night still in progress, with daylight hours away.