I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from her entirely. No matter how strong or weak I was, she was a part of me, as crucial as my own heart. I would never be strong enough, in all my life, to do without her.
Sarah Dessen
Related I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I ... ERIN MORGENSTERN I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how s... WILLIAM J. CLINTON My mother was a full-time mother. She didn't have much of her own career, her own life, her own ... ANGELINA JOLIE As I watched her, I understood why a mother would starve herself to feed a baby; how there was alway... JODI PICOULT My mother was totally different from the mothers of my friends. She would never separate from me. In... CHANTAL AKERMAN Grandmam, as I have seen in looking back, was the decider of my fate. She shaped my life, without of... WENDELL BERRY When I was younger, I used to pray that I would die before my mom. That's just how much my mom m... DAK PRESCOTT I tried!” She screamed, her eyes filled with raw emotion. All Sarah could do is stand there, speec... ZOE SANTANA I once knew a girl that meant the world to me, she was just amazing. She's that one girl in my life ... MAHMOUD EL HALLAB My mother may no longer be (if she ever was) a mast to which I can rope myself. But I fear the loss ... TREVOR COLE What was she like?" I tell the truth. "She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding... NICHOLAS SPARKS I never thought I would bury my niece. I will keep her in my heart no matter what. COURTNEY GREEN I've been talking to myself a lot lately. I don't know what that's about, but my mother was the same... DAN CHAON My mother had heard the story of Hannah and Samuel, so she prayed that if God would give her a son, ... STANLEY HAUERWAS A woman's body never really belongs to herself. As an infant, my body was my mother's, a det... ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would ... JOHN GREEN She deserves so much better than what I can give her. I don’t, however, think she deserves better ... COLLEEN HOOVER We stared at each other for several moments, neither of us speaking or moving, and then I was in fro... JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, kee... KRISTIN HANNAH I remember running down a road on my way to a nursery of flowers. I remember her smile and her laugh... JENNIFER NIVEN If I had it my way, Harper and I wouldn't be standing in this room right now, we wouldn't be pressed... MOLLY MCADAMS My mother was a phenomenal speaker. She used to amaze me. There was not a note in front of her. It w... JOAN MCGEE I think I realized my parents' relationship was special when I had my first girlfriend, and she ... BRETT YOUNG My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it... RUTH REICHL Do you love me?' I asked her. She smiled. 'Yes.' 'Do you want me to be happy?' as I asked her this I... NICHOLAS SPARKS she didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surp... JODI PICOULT She would not have done that to my mother. She and my mom were very close. She would have never left... ANITA GATTIS My aunt looked like Lucille Ball, and everything she touched was beautiful and elegant. But I was in... SANDRA LERNER I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I di... CAROLINE KENNEDY When I was a child, next to my own mother, no woman that ever lived took as much interest in me, gav... HEBER J. GRANT And so she cut out her heart and offered it as a sacrifice. She would pay whatever price her mother ... KIERSTEN WHITE wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into darkness and dissolve. Her... AMY TAN She glared at him through tear-filled eyes. “You talk of your pain? You cannot even begin to under... CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE I don't know what I'm going to do without her ? she was my best and only friend. DAWN HEIDTMAN Mrs. Eckert was a strong force in my life. She helped to develop in me a strong work ethic. She was ... LARRY PEARL I must see her and press her to my heart. I love her to the point of madness, and I cannot continue ... NAPOLEON BONAPARTE When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, a... AL PACINO Before every show, I would call my mother and say, 'Mummy, I don't know how I will sing toda... SONU NIGAM My mother was truly my saving grace, because she would take me to church with her. I would see my mo... TYLER PERRY My first female lover was a Jewish woman. She was butch, but not in a swaggering macho way- she coul... LAWRENCE SCHIMEL Last year I don't think she was as mobile or as strong as she is now. It took her a part of last sea... GLENN CROOKS She put her hands over her face. Ah crap. What do I do now? Do I say something, do I not say somethi... ILONA ANDREWS But as I stood watching her, I realized how truly hard it was,really, to see someone you love change... SARAH DESSEN She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my ow... NICHOLAS SPARKS I felt hollowed out. My mom's death was not useful. I felt a shot of rage at her, and then imagined ... GILLIAN FLYNN And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she w... SARAH DESSEN My daughter Stacia was born when I was 31, after I was divorced from David, and she was my gift to m... ANGELA BOWIE I lived with my mother all my life until she died, and I don't really think I knew her, because ... HARRIET WALTER I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my ... JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER She comes back to tell me she's gone. As if I didn't know that, as if I didn't know my own bed. As i... PAUL SIMON I will never be able to read my mothers favourite books without thinking of her - an when I pass the... WILL SCHWALBE We shall miss Leopardstar. I remember her from all the way back when I was an apprentice in ThunderC... ERIN HUNTER Because from the day I met her I'd known I wanted to be part of any world she belonged to. Did that ... RANSOM RIGGS Me being an ant, at her mountain, I would have tried my best for my voice to reach her peak. But our... ANTHONY LICCIONE I suppose poets have written sonnets for a thousand years about being in love. A lot of people say, ... ROBERT BLAKE Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. ... ALYSON NOEL My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension i... NATALIE MERCHANT I remember her when she was an NBC reporter -- correspondent in Japan -- and I thought she did great... WALTER CRONKITE My original idea was to photograph Princess Diana in her tiara. But then I thought, am I interested ... MARIO TESTINO Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, alwa... KATE DICAMILLO I couldn't understand; cheating was the one thing I'd told her all those years ago would be unforgiv... GARTH RISK HALLBERG Believe me what I did came from my heart. She asked me for help and I gave it to her. She wanted her... JOE SPARICO My mother was a huge influence on me. She was a living example of what a Christian should be. Her co... BARRY SANDERS My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of t... POLLY TOYNBEE [But she was closer to her mother.] I adored my mother. She was very formal and proper, but she was ... JOAN RIVERS There were a lot of times people would do my makeup, and it would be awful, and I would be orange. N... ZENDAYA From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, ... V.C. ANDREWS I wasn't actually trained by my mother, she said she never taught me but she was a great singer hers... JOAN SUTHERLAND I smiled and looked at her- there she was with such a genuine grin and twinkle in her eyes. I kissed... JORI NUNES I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, ... NINA LACOUR She (my mother) could still recite them (the poems) in full when she was lying helpless and nearly b... EUDORA WELTY When I was eight, my mum found me humming to myself and scribbling on a scrap of paper. When she ask... NEIL JACKSON Losing Sarah and my boy was the hardest thing I've ever lived through. But even then, you see, I kne... JENNIFER ASHLEY Sometimes, as Eve was born from one of Adam’s ribs, a woman was born during my sleep from a crampe... MARCEL PROUST Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking ... KATHERINE HANNIGAN She [my mother] was the force around which our world turned. My mother was propelled through the uni... NICOLE KRAUSS I've known my best friend since I was a baby, and I don't know what I would do without her. ... JASMINE GUINNESS My mother is a natural care giver, ... When she would do something for me, I would thank her, and sh... ANGELA MOORE Cece was all I had. Without her, I’d be totally alone in the world. Oh, God. I probed her ge... JULIE ANNE PETERS Sarah is very strong. She's really intelligent and she's very physically capable. I like to ... YVONNE STRAHOVSKI I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it w... JOHN SCALZI If I moved back, my mother would love for me to move in because she absolutely loves her boys. 12 bo... TERRY BRADSHAW I would never do anything like that to her, even if she isn't my favorite person in the world. It wa... DANA CONVISSAR Did she make you laugh? Did she love you as much as you loved her? Did she protect you and warm you ... JUDITH KRANTZ You are so much more than I bargained for,” I confessed, which gained her attention. “I knew I w... C.A. HARMS My mother told me on several different occasions that she was livin' her dream vicariously throu... BUCK OWENS They never found out who did it, and I never came forward. There was, after all, no evidence. I had ... MARIE LU I believe this with all my heart: The greatest coach of all time in my eyes is my mom. She's ins... SCOTT BROOKS Nothing they say or do can ever change the man you are,” Trinity continued. “A man I love with a... C.A. HARMS While struggling with all the loss in her life, she mournfully thought, "If only I could forget..." ... DONNA LYNN HOPE I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing... PATRICK ROTHFUSS My father died in 1989 before I knew what I was going to do with my life. I had just graduated from ... PAUL GIAMATTI From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her mor... ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE From this experience I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to... ARTHUR GOLDEN From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came t... ARTHUR GOLDEN ... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother would never... let me kiss her... She used to run awa... GASTON LEROUX It would never be both Michael and myself running because as a mother ... I would never put my child... PAULA ZAHN I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use ... AGATHA CHRISTIE I have a memory of my mother kneeling in front of a cabinet in our home, tenderly cradling her weddi... ROMA DOWNEY She would figure out how to get what she wanted, what she needed, even when her long lashes failed t... KASS MORGAN
More Sarah Dessen
It's okay to accept things from people. It doesn't make you weak or helpless. SARAH DESSEN When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not ... SARAH DESSEN But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” “You don’t have to assum... SARAH DESSEN The best gifts come from the heart, not the store. SARAH DESSEN He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that... SARAH DESSEN Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend. SARAH DESSEN So you're always honest," I said. "Aren't you?" "No," I told him. "I'm not." "Well, t... SARAH DESSEN There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single f... SARAH DESSEN And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself ... SARAH DESSEN You, have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit. SARAH DESSEN But it was okay not to fit in everywhere, as long as you did somewhere. SARAH DESSEN Okay,' he said. He took a breath. 'What would you do, if you could do anything?' I took a step ... SARAH DESSEN The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affe... SARAH DESSEN But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized ... SARAH DESSEN I realized how truly hard it was, really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not... SARAH DESSEN But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you anoth... SARAH DESSEN But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to h... SARAH DESSEN I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into a... SARAH DESSEN I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?' There we... SARAH DESSEN If this was my forever, I wouldn't want to spend it here. SARAH DESSEN the truth about forever is that it is happening right now SARAH DESSEN Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. it's like forever, always ch... SARAH DESSEN I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As lo... SARAH DESSEN Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place. SARAH DESSEN We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe... SARAH DESSEN What you have to decide... is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, wou... SARAH DESSEN But I'd long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised. Yo... SARAH DESSEN Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense. SARAH DESSEN It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You ... SARAH DESSEN What you need, what you deserve, is a guy who adores you for what you are. Who doesn't see you as a ... SARAH DESSEN Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem ... SARAH DESSEN I like flaws. I think they make things interesting. SARAH DESSEN It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end... SARAH DESSEN That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it... SARAH DESSEN It's just that...I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the ... SARAH DESSEN If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the w... SARAH DESSEN There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd bet... SARAH DESSEN All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bit... SARAH DESSEN I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, ... SARAH DESSEN Don't think or judge, just listen. SARAH DESSEN I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, a... SARAH DESSEN How it felt to have the world moving beneath me, a hand gripping mine, knowing if I fell, at least I... SARAH DESSEN Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, w... SARAH DESSEN There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifti... SARAH DESSEN If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and eve... SARAH DESSEN You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it. SARAH DESSEN Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human exist... SARAH DESSEN Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you. SARAH DESSEN If you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed. SARAH DESSEN It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and stru... SARAH DESSEN Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and a... SARAH DESSEN He thought about this for a second. "True. But if you never really make friends, you probably don't ... SARAH DESSEN Hey, and for what it's worth? Friends don't leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who c... SARAH DESSEN You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those ... SARAH DESSEN No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to giv... SARAH DESSEN Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow comple... SARAH DESSEN I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he ... SARAH DESSEN Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Bec... SARAH DESSEN Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memo... SARAH DESSEN I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft lan... SARAH DESSEN This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in ... SARAH DESSEN I don't lie." "You don't lie," I repeated. "That's what I said." "Ever." "Nope."... SARAH DESSEN for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world... SARAH DESSEN I don't live in New York or California. I'm in the grocery store, at the park with my kids, ... SARAH DESSEN I'm always hopeful. I feel like I'm at the prom sitting against the wall waiting for someone... SARAH DESSEN When I was a teen, I was never really into the captain of the football team or the student body pres... SARAH DESSEN It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no ma... SARAH DESSEN I thought this was a cookout. You know, dogs and burgers, Tater Tots, ambrosia salad" Dexter picked ... SARAH DESSEN Oh, God," I said. "No, it's Dexter," he replied, offering me his hand, which I ignored. He... SARAH DESSEN What the hell," I said, pushing off the wall, ready to take off the head of whatever stupid salesper... SARAH DESSEN But you, fine sir." John Miller clapped Dexter on the shoulder, a bit unsteadily. "You have problems... SARAH DESSEN Plastic ware," he said slowly, "like knives and forks and spoons?" I brushed a bit of dirt off ... SARAH DESSEN Are those the only options? Nothing or forever? SARAH DESSEN I just thought to my self, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if... SARAH DESSEN I was born in 1970 in Illinois, but all the life I remember I've spent in Chapel Hill, N.C. SARAH DESSEN Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everythi... SARAH DESSEN Maybe if I'd agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of ridin... SARAH DESSEN Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside SARAH DESSEN Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the thing... SARAH DESSEN Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actu... SARAH DESSEN Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn't so much once you passed a certain h... SARAH DESSEN Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relat... SARAH DESSEN I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead,... SARAH DESSEN Look, everyone mourns at their own pace. Maybe you're just a little bit ahead of her, but she'll get... SARAH DESSEN She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands f... SARAH DESSEN But anyone can begin. It was the part with all the promise, the potential, the things I loved. More ... SARAH DESSEN There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise. SARAH DESSEN Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.” W... SARAH DESSEN funny how a beautiful song could tell such a sad story SARAH DESSEN Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know? SARAH DESSEN Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of reg... SARAH DESSEN Well, it's true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved,... SARAH DESSEN She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the th... SARAH DESSEN I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, kn... SARAH DESSEN Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on. SARAH DESSEN I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, no... SARAH DESSEN Maybe not," she said as we came to the car. "But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that... SARAH DESSEN Remy: Did you really believe, that first day, that we were meant to be together? Dexter: ... SARAH DESSEN Love is so unpredictable. That's what makes it so great. SARAH DESSEN Silence is so freaking loud SARAH DESSEN Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the boo... SARAH DESSEN You're not supposed to have it all figured out in high school. If you knew it all, and it was th... SARAH DESSEN I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time.... SARAH DESSEN Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe ... SARAH DESSEN That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we... SARAH DESSEN because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. no matter what... SARAH DESSEN I've never envied the person who had to put my books together in one script. SARAH DESSEN Sometimes, you get things right the first time. Others, the second. But the third time, they say, is... SARAH DESSEN He glanced over at me. 'Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine f... SARAH DESSEN In midair, dangling lost above the world. SARAH DESSEN And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up ... SARAH DESSEN And to know me, as you have discovered, is to love me. SARAH DESSEN Sometimes you dont even want to think aout what people are doing with their groceries. SARAH DESSEN Best Friends. And I thought of what she had done all the millions of times I cried to he... SARAH DESSEN Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with yo... SARAH DESSEN I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared abou... SARAH DESSEN It was something I couldn't put my finger on or define clearly, but a whole mishmash of words and in... SARAH DESSEN As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to l... SARAH DESSEN The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end. SARAH DESSEN This world is an awful/ugly place not to have a best friend. SARAH DESSEN its reall bad SARAH DESSEN Just like that, with one phone call, she was a daughter again. SARAH DESSEN I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother'... SARAH DESSEN If you have just one person believe in you, you'll always find your way SARAH DESSEN You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lo... SARAH DESSEN And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she w... SARAH DESSEN I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, trut... SARAH DESSEN He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either. SARAH DESSEN When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a coloring book, with the inside not y... SARAH DESSEN Mom." I couldn't believe she was doing this again. She was taking this moment, this time when I was ... SARAH DESSEN I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you'd thi... SARAH DESSEN Macon: “It’s true. And if that doesn’t work, use the Jedi Mind Trick. But only if you really h... SARAH DESSEN Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love... SARAH DESSEN I've given lots of people chances," she said suddenly, as if Marion was still in the room to hear us... SARAH DESSEN You can't just turn your heart off like a faucet; you have to go to the source and dry it out, drop ... SARAH DESSEN You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lo... SARAH DESSEN What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they we... SARAH DESSEN Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overt... SARAH DESSEN Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself. SARAH DESSEN The bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get... SARAH DESSEN An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led u... SARAH DESSEN So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop the... SARAH DESSEN Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts. -Maggie SARAH DESSEN Two a.m.' He swallowed, then said, "You know. The person you can call at two a.m. and, no matter wha... SARAH DESSEN So much had happened that morning. Yet it was this image, this moment, that i kept going back to hou... SARAH DESSEN [Adam picks up the camera] "I have to get a shot of this." The reaction in the room was swift, ... SARAH DESSEN You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take. SARAH DESSEN It didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you we... SARAH DESSEN There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other peo... SARAH DESSEN You can't make any one person your world. The trick is to take what each can give you and build a wo... SARAH DESSEN Hate Spinnerbait! SARAH DESSEN It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovere... SARAH DESSEN It doesn't matter, anyway, why you like me. Just that you do. SARAH DESSEN Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground... SARAH DESSEN There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me ... SARAH DESSEN Oh for God's sake,' Heather said, 'I wish you two would just go out, fail miserably as a couple, and... SARAH DESSEN It's a great compliment that people think they're fast reads. It's always funny to me because it tak... SARAH DESSEN Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on. SARAH DESSEN I think my mother characters have changed a lot since Sasha was born, just because I understand what... SARAH DESSEN With love like that, you can't get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is t... SARAH DESSEN You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked. "I want you to give her a possibility," she told... SARAH DESSEN What was it like to be so confident even in your failings that you weren't the least bit bothered wh... SARAH DESSEN Look,” he said, “the point is there’s no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anyt... SARAH DESSEN Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all... SARAH DESSEN Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the... SARAH DESSEN I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran... SARAH DESSEN Nothing like being scolded by a hippie. SARAH DESSEN After all, it's all kinds of things that make up a life, right? The big, like falling in love and sp... SARAH DESSEN I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I'd practically invented. SARAH DESSEN Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never rea... SARAH DESSEN After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor wo... SARAH DESSEN It [I'm leaving] wasn't really necessary to say, especially if you were already walking away. Almost... SARAH DESSEN It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it should... SARAH DESSEN When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need. SARAH DESSEN That's not a real answer.' Says who?' Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death... SARAH DESSEN It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean. SARAH DESSEN I want the white one SARAH DESSEN As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pret... SARAH DESSEN Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?" What do you mean?"... SARAH DESSEN I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as... SARAH DESSEN So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me. "Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie." SARAH DESSEN Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?" He thought for a moment. "Who says there h... SARAH DESSEN I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings... SARAH DESSEN If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don�... SARAH DESSEN Restoring order of my personal universe suddenly seemed imperative, as I refolded my T-shirts, stuff... SARAH DESSEN There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the sto... SARAH DESSEN That's what this has been all about for you, correct? Make it clear. That you and me--it was nothing... SARAH DESSEN And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling in... SARAH DESSEN Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak. SARAH DESSEN It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were y... SARAH DESSEN These were always the weirdest trips for me, when it was midnight or even later, and we pulled up to... SARAH DESSEN You couldn't just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn't like... SARAH DESSEN Story of my life. SARAH DESSEN instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her ... SARAH DESSEN I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, callin... SARAH DESSEN I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am ... SARAH DESSEN I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had t... SARAH DESSEN Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. it doesn't just catch up: it overtak... SARAH DESSEN Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though. SARAH DESSEN So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that lo... SARAH DESSEN