Quotes from Sarah Dessen

It had to be the best bargain in Toyota history

And with that, my mother was off and running. Hard to believe that once schmoozing was as painful to her as multiple root canals. But when you had to do something, you had to do it. And eventually, if you were lucky, you did it well

Al hacerlo, sentí un nuevo acceso de furia hacia mi hermano. Sus decisiones equivocadas habían causado varios daños colaterales, pero este en concreto lo iba a sufrir yo sola. Muchas gracias.

It was terrible and awful when someone left you. You could move on, do the best you could, but like Eli had said, an ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.

I'd spent so many months feeling like I was underwater, half in dreamland with those mermaids, hearing all the voices from up above. And since I'd been at Evergreen I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.

And I listened to them talking in the hallway, my mother explaining the best way to serve the tuna salad, on lettuce, while Rina made listening noises and popped her gum. And Rogerson's phone rang, on and on. No answer.

In the end, I went away for the summer, fell in love, and everything changed. It's the oldest story in the world.

I didn't care that they snickered when I answered yes, or spoke in hushed tones. Because now, I didn't care what they thought. It wasn't new, this realization that I would never be like them. What was different now was that I was glad.

El hogar no era una casa concreta, ni una ciudad en el mapa, sino el lugar donde están las personas a las que quieres, siempre que están juntos. No es un espacio, sino la suma de los momentos que se van construyendo, uno sobre otro, como ladrillos, un refugio sólido que llevas contigo toda tu vida, vayas donde vayas.

If only I'd been able to just tell him everything else, as well. But you can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can, under the circumstances.

I looked up and Rina was standing in the doorway of my room, her arms crossed over her chest. She had on a short, pink dress and strappy high-heeled sandals, and her skin — thanks to her mother's tanning bed — was already a deep brown. Her blond hair was down, curling over her shoulders, a pair of white sunglasses parked on top of her head. She looked so healthy and alive it was like she was almost sparking, right there in front of me.

What you have to decide," Kristy said to me, leaning forward, "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?

But something had changed in me, even if I didn't know what it was just yet. All I could think was that I felt alive for the first time since my birthday. From wherever she was, Cass had finally spoken to me, reaching out from dreamland to where I stood in this waking world, half-asleep and wobbly, under those bright, bright stars.

I was the only one who ever went in there, and when I did the air always smelled stale and strange, pent up like the sorrow my mother carried in her shoulders, her heart, and her face.

What can I do to make you happy?

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

It's so stupid," she added softly, "what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid." And she kept her head turned, as if I wasn't even there.

It's not that I believe everything happens for a reason," she said. "It's just that . . . I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is.

I wonder again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance when you'd think it would be the easier path. You had to fight to be virtuous

the truth is, nothing is guaranteed.

That racing of my heart, the flushing of my face I was feeling: it was what happened when you got hurt, true, but also when you got back up and went on.

It wasn't morning. The room was dark, with the moon big and yellow and hanging just where I'd left it in the corner of the window.

But I didn't hear her, couldn't, was already gone, turning and walking out the door with the food in my hands to the parking lot before I even knew what was happening. Over the years I had perfected removing myself from situations. It was kind of like automatic pilot; I just shut down and retreated, my brain clicking off before anything that hurt could sink in.

Something was changing, something I could sense even though I'd never been here before, like the way baby turtles know to go to the water at birth, instinctively. They just know.