01UndatedFamily isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
02UndatedFamily," she announced. "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick. The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose.""You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat. "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common. Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color. It's like they're part of your blueprint. If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them."I nodded and kept writing."But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you. So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals. Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end. Like it or not.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
03UndatedFamily isnt about blood relationships, its about the meaning behind them. I relize now that sharing chromosoms is not the only way to having a family, its about the friendship behind it.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
04UndatedThe point,' Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
05UndatedFor me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'Really,' I said.We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.'...Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.' So it's an endless cycle,' I said.I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about?Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
06UndatedShe smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family. (page 289) ~RubySarah Dessen / quote ↗
07UndatedIt's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
08UndatedI couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
09UndatedWell,' she said, adjusting a pot lid, 'I have my family of origin, which is you and Mom. And then Jaime's family, my family of marriage. And hopefully, I'll have another family, as well. Our family, that we make. Me and Jaimie.'Now I felt bad, bringing this up so soon after Jamie's gaffe. 'You will,' I said.She turned around, crossing her arms over her chest. 'I hope so. But that's just the thing, right? Family isn't something that's supposed to be static or set. People marry in, divorce out. They're born, they die. It's always evolving, turning into something else. even that picture of Jamie's family was only the true representation for that one day. But the next , someone had probably changed. It had to.'...Later, when the kitchen had filled up with people looking for more wine, and children chasing Roscoe, I looked across all the chaos at Cora, thinking that of course you would assume our definitions would be similar, since we had come from the same place. But this wasn't actually true. We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions were as different as we were ourselves.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
10UndatedWhat is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
11UndatedWe were there, together, and in the next room I could hear that monitor beeping. Keeping track of another heart’s beat and giving enduring, solid proof of our own.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
12UndatedJust start somewhere," Dr. Marshall had said to me as I ground a banana-pineapple one to bits between my teeth. "It doesn't have to be at the beginning." She'd pulled her legs up, Indian-style, letting the legal pad she'd been holding drop to the floor."I thought everything always had to start at the beginning," I said. "Not in this room," she said easily. "Go ahead, Caitlin. Just tell me one thing. It gets easier, I promise. The first thing is always the hardest." I looked down at my hands, stained mildly red from the particularly sticky watermelon Rancher. "Okay," I said, reaching forward to take another one out of the bowl, just in case. She was already sitting back in her chair, readying herself for whatever glimpse I would give her into the mess I'd become. "What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?"She blinked, twice, obviously surprised. "Ummm," she said, keeping her eyes on me. "I don't know.""Rogerson did," I told her. "Rogerson knew everything.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
13UndatedOutside, 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 / quote ↗
14UndatedI'm sorry," I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn't eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
15UndatedIf you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again!Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
16UndatedIt 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 / quote ↗
17UndatedThat was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
18UndatedIt was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
19UndatedI was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn't shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and dynamic like my friends. That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
20Undated...You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
21UndatedReally, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
22UndatedHe grinned again. We'd only been seeing each other for a few weeks now, but this easy give-and-take still surprised me. From that very first day in my room, I felt like we'd somehow skipped the formalities of the Beginning of a Relationship: those awkward moments when you're not all over each other and are still feeling out the other person's boundaries and limits. Maybe this was because we'd been circling each other for a while before he finally catapulted through my window. But if I let myself think about it much - and I didn't - I had flashes of realising that I'd been comfortable with him even at the very start. Clearly, he'd been comfortable with me, grabbing my hand as he had that first day. As if he knew, even then, that we'd be here now.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
23UndatedI didn't pretend to know Eli at all, but even so, I'd noticed that his manner was slightly hard to read. It was something in the way he talked that made it difficult to tell whether he was kidding or serious or what. This bothered me. Or intrigued me. Or both.Sarah Dessen / quote ↗
24UndatedWhen's something 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 ↗
