Top 825 Quotes & Sayings by Sarah Dessen

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Sarah Dessen.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
Sarah Dessen

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.

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.
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!
I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember. — © Sarah Dessen
I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.
Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.
I'm all about shrimpburgers, reading, and going to the beach.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My books are so tame!
I was always a big reader, mostly because my parents were.
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.
I'm famously secretive about my work. Nobody reads my books till they're finished. — © Sarah Dessen
I'm famously secretive about my work. Nobody reads my books till they're finished.
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.
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.
I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs. I have to start writing even if it's miserable some days.
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.
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.
If I had to pick, I'd say my favorite book is 'A Prayer For Owen Meany', by John Irving.
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.
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.
I've never envied the person who had to put my books together in one script.
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.
I'm always hopeful. I feel like I'm at the prom sitting against the wall waiting for someone to ask me to dance.
Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.
I love writing about the summer between high school and college. It's the last gasp of really being a teen.
I was born in 1970 in Illinois, but all the life I remember I've spent in Chapel Hill, N.C.
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.
I write thank-you notes the minute I throw the wrapping paper away.
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.
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.
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?
There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.
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.
And to know me, as you have discovered, is to love me.
Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.
Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong.
Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human. — © Sarah Dessen
Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human.
Don't think or judge, just listen.
The best gifts come from the heart, not the store.
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.
Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.
You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.
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.
Silence is so freaking loud
I always thought I was different.
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.
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
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.
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.
The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.
Let's just start and see what happens.
The truth about forever is that it is happening right now.
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.
for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.
You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.
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.
It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it.
You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.
Too many locks, not enough keys.
Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.
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