Sarah Dessen Quotes

Connection and love: We all want it. Most people settle for connection because love's too scary.

Being vulnerable is the hardest thing for so many people, including myself, but it's also the most satisfying thing.

I'm much more careful now about who I let into my life, but I don't think you could ever change what you're attracted to. You can make choices if you want to be with those people.

I have been continuously surprised by people who come to me and say they are afraid of love. What is the fear of love? It is because when you really love somebody your ego starts slipping and melting. You cannot love with the ego; the ego becomes a barrier. and when you want to drop the barrier the ego says, 'This is going to be a death. Beware!'

I think there's a little bit of idiot in everybody and I think some people cover it better than others but I think I am very much a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

People are a lot more open than even they think they are. And I feel like I carry a heavy story about where I come from and those roots, but also what I like as a thinker.

I think it would do a lot of people good just to realize how vulnerable they are.

I'm a person who doesn't necessarily enjoy feeling vulnerable, so I think my loved ones and my family make me feel vulnerable. Also, being connected with people when I'm working is a very vulnerable place to be.

...available people are the ones who are dangerous, because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy.

When people think the world of you, be careful with them.

I think I unknowingly seek people who are better than me in the sense of strength and wisdom. It's like I've got to know and trust that you have the answers and that you can carry me if needed.

I guess my main worry is that people will start hating what I hate about myself. I worry that everyone will think I am really annoying and just want me to shut up. Which would make so much sense because I annoy myself... I guess I want people to know that if they are annoyed with me, I get it, it's totally cool. Please forgive me.

There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface. There is, I think, a fear of love. There is a fear of love.

I think a lot of people, when they read about a woman who acknowledges her sexuality and her feelings, get really scared. They say they want to be fearless, but in reality they're terrified. If they acknowledge their deepest feelings, they might have to change their lives.

I heard this wonderful quote - "Only the brave show what they love." It's so-embarrassing to approach somebody and say you want to look at them. But without that risk taking, nothing can happen, so I have to make myself vulnerable. What I think is the unifying aspect in people that I like is that they have a sense of their own vulnerability, and I respond to that.

I think that the inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched. And if you can't be touched, you can't be changed. And if you can't be changed, you can't be alive.

I think to be honest, that being is inside. I meet that being in so many people that I meet everywhere in the world and when I do meet that being, in other people, what I want to ask is "How do we keep opening ourselves so that we can become as vulnerable and as willing to live in the deepest complexity and ambiguity and truth that we can?

It's not hard for me to figure out who I like or who my friends are. I trust my energy meter, but I'm also not afraid to let people in who might hurt me.

I was afraid of looking into my heart...afraid of thinking seriously about anything...I did not want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to admit to myself that I was not loved.

In intimate relationships, if we start trying to be more real, it's very scary.

I think the hardest part to get to is that point of asking for help or reaching out to other people and being honest with yourself.

I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take different looks as you get older, but it's something you keep coming back to. I've always been interested in the relationship between vulnerability and control. That's something that's a big thing for people, whoever they are, no matter how old you are. I think at different times, you're more aware than others.

I don't think as highly of myself as some people make me out to be. I am so far from arrogant, because I have been through enough to know that everything can go away in a moment. You know, I really don't understand why anyone would want to put me on a pedestal.

I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.

It's one thing when you are photographing others, but when you are exposing yourself and your insecurities, that's the biggest risk. That's always scary.