The voices / 275 fragments

Sarah Dessen

Dates not recorded

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Archive entries

01Undated

The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.

Sarah Dessen / quote

02Undated

I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything. "Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste." "Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.

Sarah Dessen / quote

03Undated

Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone?""In the open sea," he said. "Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.

Sarah Dessen / quote

04Undated

When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.

Sarah Dessen / quote

05Undated

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

Sarah Dessen / quote

06Undated

Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative.""Which is?""Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?

Sarah Dessen / quote

07Undated

It’s funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long, lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down the street. Something about fall being so close, another year, another Christmas, another beginning. So much in one summer, stirring up like the storms that crest at the end of each day, blowing out all the heat and dirt to leave everything gasping and cool. Everyone can reach back to one summer and lay a finger to it, finding the exact point when everything changed. That summer was mine.

Sarah Dessen / quote

08Undated

Too many locks, not enough keys.

Sarah Dessen / quote

09Undated

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.

Sarah Dessen / quote

10Undated

So you're always honest," I said."Aren't you?""No," I told him. "I'm not.""Well, that's good to know, I guess.""I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways.""How'd you mean it, then?""I just...I don't always say what I feel.""Why not?""Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said."Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

Sarah Dessen / quote

11Undated

Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”Wes: “How do you win?” he askedMacy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.

Sarah Dessen / quote

12Undated

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

Sarah Dessen / quote

13Undated

But as long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.

Sarah Dessen / quote

14Undated

That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.

Sarah Dessen / quote

15Undated

I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.

Sarah Dessen / quote

16Undated

Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.

Sarah Dessen / quote

17Undated

Oh darling, don't be bitter. It's the first instinct of the weak.

Sarah Dessen / quote

18Undated

It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be 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

19Undated

But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”“You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.

Sarah Dessen / quote

20Undated

You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it'll happen.

Sarah Dessen / quote

21Undated

You said the other day life was long,' I shot back. 'Which is it?' 'It's both,' she said, shrugging. 'It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.'Kristy and Macy; p.135

Sarah Dessen / quote

22Undated

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

Sarah Dessen / quote

23Undated

But it's important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.

Sarah Dessen / quote

24Undated

If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.

Sarah Dessen / quote