Sarah Dessen

“This thought was interrupted, suddenly, by a crash from the front entrance. We all looked over just in time to see Adam bending back from the glass, rubbing his arm."Pull open," Maggie called out. As Leah rolled her eyes, she said, "He never remembers. It's so weird.”

“I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?""Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example.""Why not?""Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff.""Like ride bikes?" I said."No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And...""Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?""They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference.”

“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.”

“Family isnt about blood relationships, its about the meaning behind them. I relize now that sharing chromosoms is not the only way to having a family, its about the friendship behind it.”

“You know, when it works, love is amazing. It's not overrated.”

“I've seen what commitment leads to. Going in is the easy part. It's the ending that sucks!-Remy”

“Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?”

“Love is so unpredictable. That's what makes it so great.”

“The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote”

“But God!Who could live like this , anyway, with the kind of guesswork that was enough to make a person crazy, just sailing along, taking bumps here and there, no course navigated whatsoever, with any big wave capable of just tipping and sinking you entirely. IT was madness, stipidity, and- (then I saw him)”

“After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room--we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.”

“Just because something's damaged doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated with respect.''Ad,' Wallace said, 'it's a coffee table, not an orphan.”

“Nope.' He sat back. 'Just been there, done that. Done that getting hauled to the police station thing because of it, too.I appreciate your quest and everything, but I have to draw the line somewhere.''Wait,' I said, holding up my hand. 'My quest?'He turned to look at me. We were at a red light, no other cars were anywhere in sight. 'Yeah,' he said. 'You know, like in Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars. You're searching for something you lost or need. It's a quest.'I just looked at him.'Maybe it's a guy thing,' he said. 'Fine, don't call it a quest. Call it chicken salad, I don't care. My point is, I'm in, but within reason. That's all I'm saying.”

“See, Colie, it's all about understanding. We're all worth something.”

“If something doesn't work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don't just throw it away. Everything can't be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs.”

“Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.”

“Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time. ”

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

“There are worse addictions than reality TV, chocolate and coffee.”

“Sometimes really, really bad things happen to people, and there is no explanation and no reason whatsoever.”

“Forgiveness is hard. Acceptance is doable.”

“What the hell," I said, pushing off the wall, ready to take off the head of whatever stupid salesperson had decided to get cozy with me. My elbow was still buzzing, and I could feel a hot flush creeping up my neck: bad signs. I knew my temper.I turned my head and saw it wasn't a salesman at all. It was a guy with black curly hair, around my age, wearing a bright orange T-shirt. And for some reason he was smiling."Hey there," he said cheerfully. "How's it going?""What is your problem?" I snapped, rubbing my elbow."Problem?" "You just slammed me into the wall, asshole."He blinked. "Goodness," he said finally. "Such language."I just looked at him. Wrong day, buddy, I thought. You caught me on the wrong day."The thing is," he said, as if we'd been discussing the weather or world politics, "I saw you out in the showroom. I was over by the tire display?"I was sure I was glaring at him. But he kept talking."I just thought to myself, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if you will. And I had a feeling that something big was going to happen. To both of us. That we were, in fact, meant to be together.""You got all this," I said, clarifying, "at the tire display?""You didn't feel it?" he asked."No. I did, however, feel you slamming me into the wall," I said evenly."That," he said, lowering his voice and leaning closer to me, "was an accident. An oversight. Just an unfortunate result of the enthusiasm I felt knowing I was about to talk to you.”

“So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream. But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.”

“It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When i got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my conciousness & memory”

“After all with me & Marshall, it had never been about words or conversation, where there was too much to be risked or lost. Here, though, in the quiet pressed against each other, this felt familiar to me. And it was nice to let someone get close again, even if it was just for a little while.”

“The only trick was never giving more that you were willing to lose.”

“Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.”

“That was the thing: Once, the difference between light and dark had been basic. One was good, one bad. Suddenly, though, things weren’t so clear. The dark was still a mystery, something hidden, something to be scared of, but I’d come to fear the light, too. It was where everything was revealed, or seemed to be. Eyes closed, I saw only the blackness, reminding me of this one thing, the most deep of my secrets; eyes open, there was only the world that didn’t know it, bright, inescapable, and somehow, still there.”

“Well, it's true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved, and been loved. and that carries a weight of its own. A greater weight, in my opinion. It's like that pie chart we talked about earlier. in the end, I'll look back on my life and see that the greatest piece of it was love. The problems, the divorces, the sadness... those will be there too, but just smaller slivers, tiny pieces.”

“It's true. It's like the hidden secret that no one tells you. we can all be beautiful girls, Colie. it's so easy. it's like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home. You could do it all along.”

“For once, you believed in yourself. You believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.”

“You know, I think I knew you for about three weeks before I ever really saw you smile. And then one day, Morgan said something and you laughed, and I remember thinking it was really cool because it meant something. You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.”

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

“Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. it's like forever, always changing. for any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. you can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count. what you have to decide is how you want your life to be. if your forever was ending tomorrow, is this how you'd want to have spent it?”

“Plus there’s the fact,” he went on, making it clear he didn’t need me to reply anyway, “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. Which is pretty amazing, when you actually think about it.”

“But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.”

“You don't have to say it out loud. I already know why you like me.''You do, huh?''Yep.'He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer. 'So,' I said. 'Tell me''It's an animal attraction,' he said simply. 'Totally chemical.''Hmm,' I said. 'You could be right.''It doesn't matter, anyway, why you like me.''No?''Nope.' His hands were in my hair now, and I was leaning in, not able to totally make out his face, but his voice was clear, close to my ear. 'Just that you do.”

“Fine just fine.”

“See you in dreamland”

“With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they-and those that you knew best, for that matter-did not disappoint.”

“We can all be beautiful girls.”

“Norman picked up a sketch, glanced at it, then put it back down on the table. "I saw Bea Williamson this morning," he said in a low voice. "Lurking about looking for cut glass." "Oh, of course," Mira said with a sigh. "Did she have it with her?" Norman nodded solemnly. "Yep. I swear, I think it's almost gotten ... bigger." Mira shook her head. "Not possible." "I'm serious," Norman said. "It's way big." I kept waiting for someone to expand on this, but since neither of them seemed about to, I asked, "What are you talking about?" They looked at each other. Then, Mira took a breath. "Bea Williamson's baby," she said quietly, as if someone could hear us, "has the biggest head you have ever seen." Norman nodded, seconding this. "A baby?" I said. "A big-headed baby," Mira corrected me. "You should see the cranium on this kid. It's mind-boggling.”

“But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.”

“Sitting there, watching my sister, I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got itout, the story was really all that mattered.”

“I was so scared about being discovered, but nobody came. Nobody heard. In my own ears, though, my sobs sounded primal and scary, like something I would have turned off if I'd been able to.”

“The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.”

“There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.”

“The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true.”

“I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.”

“Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.”