Top 500 Sarah Dessen Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Grieving doesn’t make you imperfect. It makes you human.”

— Sarah Dessen

52. “Forgiveness is hard. Acceptance is doable.”

— Sarah Dessen

53. “The health of the people I love is all that really matters in this world. Period.”

— Sarah Dessen

54. “Love is so unpredictable. That’s what makes it so great.”

— Sarah Dessen

55. “People don’t change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less.”

— Sarah Dessen

56. “It’s only advice. Ignore it if you want.”

— Sarah Dessen

57. “Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone’s bad qualities because they somehow complete you.”

— Sarah Dessen

58. “But all the love in the world won’t save a sinking ship. You have to either bail or jump overboard.”

— Sarah Dessen

59. “Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn’t make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you’re doing it out of fear.”

— Sarah Dessen

60. “Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.”

— Sarah Dessen

61. “Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn’t appreciate and value you.”

— Sarah Dessen

62. “It’s so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.”

— Sarah Dessen

63. “But when you’re alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.”

— Sarah Dessen

64. “Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on.”

— Sarah Dessen

65. “But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.”

— Sarah Dessen

66. “Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour, could make all the difference. So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.”

— Sarah Dessen

67. “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.”

— Sarah Dessen

68. “I always have a goal, even if I keep it to myself. It allows me to keep pushing myself.”

— Sarah Dessen

69. “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

70. “Look, the point is there’s no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you’re left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst.”

— Sarah Dessen

71. “If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.”

— Sarah Dessen

72. “There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.”

— Sarah Dessen

73. “I don’t know. Just because someone’s pretty doesn’t mean she’s decent. Or vice versa. I’m not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.”

— Sarah Dessen

74. “I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.”

— Sarah Dessen

75. “You can’t act like you care about someone but not let them care about you.”

— Sarah Dessen

76. “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

77. “But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.”

— Sarah Dessen

78. “Self respect, Colie. If you don’t have it, the world will walk all over you.”

— Sarah Dessen

79. “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

80. “It’s a funny feeling, being suddenly airborne. Just as you realize it, it’s over, and you’re sinking.”

— Sarah Dessen

81. “Everyone had a forever.”

— Sarah Dessen

82. “All I’d ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.”

— Sarah Dessen

83. “He doesn’t love me. He might still love me as I was at fifteen, when I didn’t know any better. When I trusted everyone. I’m not that person any more. He’s just a boy. He was the first to really hurt me, but he’s just a boy. There were a lot of them.”

— Sarah Dessen

84. “You get what you give, but also what you’re willing to take. The night before, I’d offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to recieve in return.”

— Sarah Dessen

85. “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

86. “Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.”

— Sarah Dessen

87. “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

88. “It’s funny how one summer can change everything.”

— Sarah Dessen

89. “The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.”

— Sarah Dessen

90. “Don’t be a fool. Don’t give up something important to hold onto someone who can’t even say they love you.”

— Sarah Dessen

91. “That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it’s reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

— Sarah Dessen

92. “I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place.”

— Sarah Dessen

93. “Even when words fail me, you never do.”

— Sarah Dessen

94. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”

— Sarah Dessen

95. “The past did affect the present and the future, in ways you could see and a million ones you couldn’t. Time wasn’t a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.”

— Sarah Dessen

96. “I just thought to my self, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if you will. And I had a feeling that something big was going to happen. To both of us. That we were, in fact, meant to be together.”

— Sarah Dessen

97. “Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It’s so easy in the past tense.”

— Sarah Dessen

98. “You can’t always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.”

— Sarah Dessen

99. “I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t regret things. Because at least I didn’t spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.”

— Sarah Dessen

100. “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