Quotes from Sarah Dessen

We had just heard that story recounted so many times over the years that it was easy to take the details and fold them into our own sparse memories.

that music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.

The past was always present, in its way, and you can't help but remember. Even if you can't remember at all.

It's not a switch you can just flip off, Dr. Marshall had told me once. If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love-and everything that followed is part of letting it go.

A wedding is a series of special moments, strung together like beads on a chain. Sure, by themselves, they are lovely, but put them all together and you get art.

Macy: Seriously. What's it like?' Wes: Being perfect? I wouldn't know. Macy: Not being perfect. Being... gorgeous. Wes: Again, I wouldn't know. You tell me.

But here in the present, my mother and I had no choice but to move ahead. We worked hard, me at school, her at outselling all the other builders. We parted our hair cleanly and stood up straight, greeting company — and the world — with the smiles we practiced in the quiet of our now-too-big dream house full of mirrors that showed the smiles back. But under it all, our grief remained. Sometimes she took more of it, sometimes I did. But always, it was there.

Bueno, siempre era una lata dejarlo todo y marcharnos de nuevo. Pero también depende de cómo se mire. Si lo consideras un cambio demoledor que te va a arruinar la vida, estás perdida. Pero si lo tomas como una repetición, como una oportunidad de reinventarte y comenzar de nuevo, entonces está muy bien. Estábamos en Lakeview a principios de enero. A partir de ahora, podría ser quien yo quisiera.

More than our old house, or our Wildflower Ridge place, the beach shack was my dad. I knew if he was haunting any place, it would be there, and for that reason I'd stayed away.

Yo sabía que tenía muchos defectos, e incluso más secretos. Pero no quería estar sola. Ni a las dos de la mañana, ni ahora.

Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

The thing is, you can't always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns. Otherwise, how could I have all these things and still be so close to my own Best After Ever?

Parents are always precious. But when you only have one, they become crucial.

That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are

Because that it what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only way that can ever get you home.

The dead aren't the only ones who vanish: you, too, can disappear in plain sight if enough is taken from you. I was still missing, in many ways. And I wasn't sure I wanted to be found.

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

Parents are always precious. But when you have only one, they become crucial. The Rest of the Story

The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though; it wasn't empty so much as chosen. There's an entirely different feel to quiet when you're with someone else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending.

Por qué me tocan siempre a mí las hazañas estúpidas? -Porque eres pelirrojo.

Life is long, just because you don't get your chance right when it comes, doesn't mean It won't come.

It's kind of impressive...you know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway.

It seemed amazing to me that one night could hold so much, from a merry-go-round to a Pop-Tart with frosting to the most beautiful singing I'd ever heard.

What would you do, if you could do anything?