Quotes from Sarah Dessen

Who knew three dots could make such a difference? Like everything else, a love or a wish or whatever, it was all in the way you read it.

When you've never gotten love from someone, you don't know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

But against love, the case was solid. Easily argued. And you could, indeed, hold it in your hand.

We were willing to do so much for the people we loved, even if it meant hurting ourselves. Maybe that, in the end, was what love- all kinds- was really about.

You bought me some forks. And knives. And spoons. Because you love me!

The health of the people I love is all that really matters in this world. Period.

But all the love in the world won't save a sinking ship. You have to either bail or jump overboard.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked. "I want you to give her a possibility," she told him, looking at my necklace again. "And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?

It was just a tiny moment. Not a kiss, not even real contact. But for all the things it wasn't, it meant so much.

I love writing about the summer between high school and college. It's the last gasp of really being a teen.

If this was my instinct talking, I didn"t want to hear what it was saying.

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn"t ever want to be found.

Life is long. 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.

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.

It's a big deal when you finally get the chance to do the one thing you want to do - need to do - more than anything. It can kind of scare the crap out of you.

Maybe you could go backwards and forwards at the same time, but it wasn't easy. You had to want to.

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.

It's not always so simple, Haven. Sometimes there isn't a good guy and a bad guy. Sometimes even the ones you want to believe turn out to be liars.

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

Sometimes you dont even want to think aout what people are doing with their groceries.

It was so weird, because usually I was totally nervous talking to guys. But Eli was different. He made me want to say more, not less. Which was maybe not a good thing.

When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. you can't just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it's not perfect.

"I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?"