The voices / 275 fragments

Sarah Dessen

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01Undated

We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.

Sarah Dessen / quote

02Undated

You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.

Sarah Dessen / quote

03Undated

I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.

Sarah Dessen / quote

04Undated

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

Sarah Dessen / quote

05Undated

But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.

Sarah Dessen / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

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 / quote

08Undated

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.

Sarah Dessen / quote

09Undated

I knew that in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late again. I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.

Sarah Dessen / quote

10Undated

It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.

Sarah Dessen / quote

11Undated

After all, it's all kinds of things that make up a life, right? The big, like falling in love and spending time with your family, and the little....like blow drying your hair, applying concealer, and cursing those magazine inserts. It all counts. It has to.

Sarah Dessen / quote

12Undated

But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.

Sarah Dessen / quote

13Undated

As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that means. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back - leaving meastounded, amazed and most of all, alive.

Sarah Dessen / quote

14Undated

Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.

Sarah Dessen / quote

15Undated

The thing is, you can’t always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.

Sarah Dessen / quote

16Undated

Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?

Sarah Dessen / quote

17Undated

My mother was strong, in all the ways I was weak. She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you will never know.

Sarah Dessen / quote

18Undated

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.

Sarah Dessen / quote

19Undated

Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose.

Sarah Dessen / quote

20Undated

I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.

Sarah Dessen / quote

21Undated

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

Sarah Dessen / quote

22Undated

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

Sarah Dessen / quote

23Undated

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 / quote

24Undated

The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

Sarah Dessen / quote