Quotes from Sarah Dessen

Family,' she announced. 'They're the people in your life you don't get to pick. The ones that are given to you, as opposed to those you get to choose.

If you try something, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again.

But when you had to do something, you had to do it. And eventually, if you were lucky, you did it well.

They do exist. You just have to believe me.

Sorry? For what, Mom? She looked at me, eyes widening, For not protecting you, she said. All this time I'd been the one with everything to hide, everything to be ashamed of. Is hadn't even occurred to me that someone else might think to take the blame. I should have known what was happening. I should have known just by looking at you

Life is full of screwups," he said, chucking another paper at a split-level before taking the corner. "You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence.

Sorry? For what, Mom? She looked at me, eyes widening, For not protecting you, she said. All this time I'd been the one with everything to hide, everything to be ashamed of. It hadn't even occurred to me that someone else might think to take the blame. I should have known what was happening. I should have known just by looking at you.

Whatever you need, I will find a way to get it to you. I will give you the moon, and more.

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, to how it holds you to a place.

Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside.

Just because you don't get your chance right when you want or expect it doesn't mean it won't come. Fate doesn't punch a time clock or consult a schedule.

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally.

Nobody seemed to understand that the only person I could count on not to bring up my dad, not to feel sorry for me, or make The Face -other than my mother- was me.

The best gifts come from the heart, not a store.

It was like I'd waited all my life to have something like this, and I knew even then, at the start, that it would be hard, so hard to lose. The big stuff always is.

It's like forever, always changing.

The dead aren't the only ones who vanish: you, too, can disappear in plain sight if enough is taken from you.

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.

perfect was just over the next hill, close enough to make out the landscape. And it wasn't a place he would just visit. He was going to live there.

And all that pink. It's like a giant vagina in there.

No matter where I was, or what got me there, I would always feel at home when I touched sand.

When people first heard this, or saw me and remembered it, they always made that face. The one with the sad look, accompanied by the cock of the head to the side and the softening of the chin—oh my goodness, you poor thing. While it was usually well intentioned, to me it was just a reaction of muscles and tendons that meant nothing. Nothing at all. I hated that face. I saw it everywhere.

Nobody was all bad, I was learning. Even the worst person had someone who cared about them at some point.

That's my point. That's why we can't forget it. No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together. You see what I'm saying?