{"author":"Sarah Dessen","author_id":"Sarah+Dessen","total_quotes":277,"quotes":[{"text":"Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said ‘friendly' relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["breakup","sad-love","this-lullaby"],"id":738,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"Oh darling, don't be bitter. It's the first instinct of the weak.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["bitter","darling","instinct","truth","weak"],"id":4434,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"I would have thought this would make me feel better.. Getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["love","romance","sad"],"id":4616,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"She 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) ~Ruby.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["family"],"id":4826,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["love"],"id":6822,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["eli","failure"],"id":11800,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so 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.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["amazing","difficult","fight","greatest","life","lose","struggle","truth","value","worth"],"id":12203,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"That 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.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["grief","grieving","language","words"],"id":13136,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"To me she said, 'It's this stupid gotcha thing, they've been doing it for weeks now. Leaping out at each other and us, scaring the hell out of everyone.'It's a game of wits,' Bert said to me.'Half-wits,' Kristy added.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["humour","kristy"],"id":14159,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"},{"text":"Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.","author":"Sarah Dessen","tags":["anything","expect","habit","late-nights","relationship","stupid"],"id":15974,"author_id":"Sarah+Dessen"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":277,"pages":28,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}