Top 825 Quotes & Sayings by Sarah Dessen

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Sarah Dessen.

Last updated on September 16, 2024.

Sarah Dessen is an American novelist who lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Born in Illinois, Dessen graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her first book, That Summer, was published in 1996. She has since published more than a dozen other novels and novellas. In 2017, Dessen won the Margaret Edwards Award for some of her work. Two of her books were adapted into the 2003 film How to Deal.

American - Novelist | Born: June 6, 1970

Source: Wikipedia

When I was a teen, I was never really into the captain of the football team or the student body president. The guys I liked were quirky and different: They listened to music I'd never heard of, never had lunch or gas money, and could always make you laugh.

Sarah Dessen

I don't live in New York or California. I'm in the grocery store, at the park with my kids, and I'm a normal person. I'm feeding my chickens and agonizing about my next book!

Sarah Dessen

I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.

Sarah Dessen

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

Sarah Dessen

I'm all about shrimpburgers, reading, and going to the beach.

Sarah Dessen

In high school, I was lucky enough to have a big group of girlfriends that have really inspired a lot of the stories in my books. I'm still close with my friends from that time, so it's never very hard to put myself back into that place, that voice.

Sarah Dessen

You're not supposed to have it all figured out in high school. If you knew it all, and it was the best, it's all downhill from there.

Sarah Dessen

I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.

Sarah Dessen

I just started to put texting and phones in my books. I want my books to be read 20 years from now; I don't want them to be dated.

Sarah Dessen

My books are so tame!

Sarah Dessen

I was always a big reader, mostly because my parents were.

Sarah Dessen

I was so thrilled that I was having a girl, because I just am so girly myself, but I think the teenage years are going to be very interesting.

Sarah Dessen

I'm famously secretive about my work. Nobody reads my books till they're finished.

Sarah Dessen

I really just love to read, period, whether it be books or magazines or the back of the cereal box. It's the one thing I can always count on to calm me down, take me away and inspire me, all at once.

Sarah Dessen

Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the book as tight as I can, but you reach a point as the author where you have lost all perspective.

Sarah Dessen

I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs. I have to start writing even if it's miserable some days.

Sarah Dessen

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went through a period where I was close with my mom and had to break with her in order to find myself and come back. Since that was my experience, that's often what happens in my books.

Sarah Dessen

I always wished I could move around and switch schools. It was hard to have these radical transformations. You'd think, 'I will be a totally different person tomorrow,' but it never worked.

Sarah Dessen

If I had to pick, I'd say my favorite book is 'A Prayer For Owen Meany', by John Irving.

Sarah Dessen

I love YA, and it's been a really good fit for me. But at some point, I would like to try something else: a collection of short stories, or writing about something other than high school. A lot has happened to me since I was eighteen.

Sarah Dessen

On the whole, I think I spent a lot of high school just trying to stay under the radar: I don't think I was all that memorable.

Sarah Dessen

I've never envied the person who had to put my books together in one script.

Sarah Dessen

I think my mother characters have changed a lot since Sasha was born, just because I understand what a hard job it is now, and I'm coming at it from another angle - like you just love and care about this person so much, and just want to protect them from everything.

Sarah Dessen

I'm always hopeful. I feel like I'm at the prom sitting against the wall waiting for someone to ask me to dance.

Sarah Dessen

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

Sarah Dessen

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

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

I think part of the problem sometimes is that there's so much happening in my books, to whittle it down into a single script is hard.

Sarah Dessen

I write thank-you notes the minute I throw the wrapping paper away.

Sarah Dessen

Sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something.

Sarah Dessen

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater.

Sarah Dessen

My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?

Sarah Dessen

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.

Sarah Dessen

The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.

Sarah Dessen

And to know me, as you have discovered, is to love me.

Sarah Dessen

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.

Sarah Dessen

Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong.

Sarah Dessen

Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human.

Sarah Dessen

Don't think or judge, just listen.

Sarah Dessen

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

Sarah Dessen

It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.

Sarah Dessen

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

Sarah Dessen

You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.

Sarah Dessen

There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.

Sarah Dessen

Silence is so freaking loud

Sarah Dessen

I always thought I was different.

Sarah Dessen

It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys.

Sarah Dessen

We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody gets hurt. It's basic.

Sarah Dessen

Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

Sarah Dessen

The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.

Sarah Dessen

Let's just start and see what happens.

Sarah Dessen

The truth about forever is that it is happening right now.

Sarah Dessen

What you have to decide... 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? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So dont be afraid. Be alive.

Sarah Dessen

for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.

Sarah Dessen

You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.

Sarah Dessen

But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.

Sarah Dessen

It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it.

Sarah Dessen

You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.

Sarah Dessen

Too many locks, not enough keys.

Sarah Dessen

Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.

Sarah Dessen