Top 500 Sarah Dessen Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “I don’t talk about my books while I’m writing them: not even my husband knows what a novel’s about until it’s done.”

— Sarah Dessen

Featured in: Book Quotes

252. “That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.”

— Sarah Dessen

253. “Donneven, Bettaquit and Mmmhmmmm.”

— Sarah Dessen

254. “This is personal, she’d said. Real. This moment was too, even if you couldn’t see it at first glance. It was fake on the outside, but so true within. You only had to look, really look to tell.”

— Sarah Dessen

Featured in: Real Quotes

255. “See, Colie, it’s all about understanding. We’re all worth something.”

— Sarah Dessen

256. “I just do the best I can under the circumstances.”

— Sarah Dessen

257. “An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn’t really stop, even in a single image. I t just feels that way.”

— Sarah Dessen

258. “All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you’re lucky, there’s someone close enough by to shoulder the rest.”

— Sarah Dessen

259. “And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn’t fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I’d ever jumped at all. It’s not supposed to be like this.”

— Sarah Dessen

260. “There’s a real bonding in someone beating the crap out of you. – Rolly.”

— Sarah Dessen

261. “Conciseness is underrated.”

— Sarah Dessen

262. “Maybe marriage, like life, is’nt only about the big moments, whether they be good or bad. Maybe it’s all the small things – like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day – that stretches out to strengthen even the most tenuous bond.”

— Sarah Dessen

263. “In school, writing was the only thing that really came naturally to me, but it wasn’t until college that I realized that I could do it for more than just fun.”

— Sarah Dessen

Featured in: Fun Quotes

264. “And guys don’t get attached, guys don’t give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That’s why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm’s length whenever possible.”

— Sarah Dessen

265. “Maybe I’d just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing.”

— Sarah Dessen

266. “What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn’t even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both.”

— Sarah Dessen

267. “If you could just be nice, then you wouldn’t have to worry about arguments at all. but being nice wasn’t as easy as it seemed, especially when the rest of the world could be so mean.”

— Sarah Dessen

268. “An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”

— Sarah Dessen

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

269. “Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren’t real, or if I was.”

— Sarah Dessen

Featured in: Real Quotes

270. “The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote.”

— Sarah Dessen

271. “I tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works out for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can’t help but, make a whole.”

— Sarah Dessen

272. “You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.”

— Sarah Dessen

273. “As far as I was concerned, we’d come to a draw: I hadn’t wanted to come, and she didn’t want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn’t see it that way. Lately, we didn’t seem to see anything the same.”

— Sarah Dessen

274. “I had stepped into his arms, showing him my raw, broken heart.”

— Sarah Dessen

275. “Love can make up for a lot.”

— Sarah Dessen

276. “No, no, no to Tallyho.”

— Sarah Dessen

277. “None of it meant anything, and all of it was important.”

— Sarah Dessen

278. “It’s never something huge that changes the everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you’re busy focusing on the big picture.”

— Sarah Dessen

279. “Sawooon.”

— Sarah Dessen

280. “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

281. “Fine just fine.”

— Sarah Dessen

282. “I used to worry I was entirely uninteresting, but the truth is I think if my life was more exciting I’d never have any time to write.”

— Sarah Dessen

283. “Sometimes love can be an ugly thing.”

— Sarah Dessen

284. “Then I’d crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.”

— Sarah Dessen

285. “It’s not forever’, she’d said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control.”

— Sarah Dessen

286. “I trailed off and he didn’t push me to finish. I was finding that I liked that.”

— Sarah Dessen

287. “You bought me some forks. And knives. And spoons. Because you love me!”

— Sarah Dessen

288. “Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.”

— Sarah Dessen

289. “It’s nice to have options even if you can’t take them.”

— Sarah Dessen

290. “You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can’t fake, no matter how hard you try.”

— Sarah Dessen

291. “I’ve always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that’s okay. I know I work in my own way.”

— Sarah Dessen

292. “She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I’d spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.”

— Sarah Dessen

293. “He was the closest thing I’d ever had to something, or someone, that mattered. But in the end, close didn’t count. You were either in, or you weren’t.”

— Sarah Dessen

294. “Teaching was great for me, because I got to show people how writing can really change the way you see not only yourself but the world.”

— Sarah Dessen

295. “In a way, I was almost happy to see her. The worst part of me, out in the flesh. Blinking back at me in the dim light, daring me to call her a name other than my own.”

— Sarah Dessen

296. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, why you like me. Just that you do.”

— Sarah Dessen

297. “But I’d long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren’t guaranteed or promised. You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a good-bye at all.”

— Sarah Dessen

298. “So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood how I felt. Now, though, I sometimes wished for more.”

— Sarah Dessen

299. “But sometimes you lose. Nothing you can do but admit it. -Eli.”

— Sarah Dessen

300. “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.”

— Sarah Dessen