Sarah Dessen

Look," I said, "We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn't a surprise, it's what's supposed to happen. It's what we wanted. Right?""Is it?" he asked. "Is it what you want?"Whether he intended it to be or not, this was the final question, the last Truth. If I said what I really thought, I was opening myself up for a hurt bigger than I could even imagine. I didn't have it in me. We changed and altered so many rules, but it was this one, the only one when we'd started, that I would break."Yes," I said.

Isn't that the way everything begins? A night, a love, a once and for all.

Everything in life had its phases, and if you were smart, you learned to appreciate them all. What really mattered, though, were the people in those moments with you. Memories are what we have and what we keep, and I held mine close. The ones I knew well, like a night on the beach with a boy who would always live in my heart, and the ones yet to come with another.

For you, I wish for second chances

You get used to people being a certain way; you depend on it. And when they surprise you, for better or worse, it can shake you to your core.

You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.

Norman picked up a sketch, glanced at it, then put it back down on the table. "I saw Bea Williamson this morning," he said in a low voice. "Lurking about looking for cut glass." "Oh, of course," Mira said with a sigh. "Did she have it with her?" Norman nodded solemnly. "Yep. I swear, I think it's almost gotten ... bigger." Mira shook her head. "Not possible." "I'm serious," Norman said. "It's way big." I kept waiting for someone to expand on this, but since neither of them seemed about to, I asked, "What are you talking about?" They looked at each other. Then, Mira took a breath. "Bea Williamson's baby," she said quietly, as if someone could hear us, "has the biggest head you have ever seen." Norman nodded, seconding this. "A baby?" I said. "A big-headed baby," Mira corrected me. "You should see the cranium on this kid. It's mind-boggling.

I wasn__ ready to think about the other yet: that it wasn__ that I wasn__ right for Macon, but that maybe he wasn__ right for me. There was a difference. Even for someone who things didn__ come easy for, someone like me.

Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.

Life is full of screwups," he said, chucking another paper at the split-level before taking the corner. "You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence.

What was it like to be so confident even in your failings that you weren't the least bit bothered when other people pointed them out? I was almost envious.

There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past.

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.

The important thing to remember, ... is that you are a human being and worthy of respect.

What defines you isn't how many times you crash but the number of times you get back.

for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.

The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.

Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.