Sarah Dessen Quotes

Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.

There's a book called 'The Shack' - it had a lot to do with me coming full circle, meeting my birth mother. Awhile back, my birth mom and my adopted mom came to my show together, and it was pretty surreal.

I think that parents grow up with an idea of what they want their kids to be like - and then their kids grow up to be people of themselves, of their own.

I think there is a time in every person's life where they have to let their parents go and figure out what being a parent means for themselves.

'Mom' is an emotional family drama that's also thrilling. It's the story about a mother and a daughter, their emotions, and how their lives change. Being a mother myself helped me understand those emotions better.

When you are sixteen you do not know what your parents know, or much of what they understand, and less of what's in their hearts. This can save you from becoming an adult too early, save your life from becoming only theirs lived over again--which is a loss. But to shield yourself--as I didn't do--seems to be an even greater error, since what's lost is the truth of your parents' life and what you should think about it, and beyond that, how you should estimate the world you are about to live in.

I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children.

When you go into mama-bear mode and have no choice but to just go with the flow, that's kind of when I realized...it put life into perspective. Just seeing my little girls and knowing I was going to experience life all over again - I'd be able to take them to the same things that my mom did - it was beautiful. When you become a mom, you gain this vulnerability that is so beautiful. Just the fact that I'm vulnerable but I'm never ashamed is so cool.

I love my father, but I have worked to develop a separate and distinct identity in different projects I have worked on.

I'm excited about turning 40. I've been an adult for a long time, but there is a difference between being an adult and being a grown-up. I'm someone's mummy now and I'm enjoying that. I feel as if I'm about to hit my peak.

My father wasn't around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, 'Why me? Why don't I have a father? Why isn't he around? Why did he leave my mother?' But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, 'I don't know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?'

I was trying to write an autobiography using prints and patterns that reference emotional, psychological, and personal development in my work, as a person growing up, figuring out who I was. I used fabrics to stand in for occurrences.

You make sacrifices to become a mother, but you really find yourself and your soul.

When I was young, I thought I wouldn't be a good mother. Now I think I would be, but I'm too long in the tooth.

It gets easier as you get older because life deals its particular hand, and our experiences get deeper, richer, more profound. When I gave birth to my son, something happened. It is a huge thing for a woman: a whole set of emotions you never had before arrives, and a love you never had before in your life is now on tap.

A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience.

Being a mom has made me a better person. It's made me more compassionate. It's just awesome. I think I was put here to be a mom.

I am a good and interested mother - which has surprised me.

I went to college because my father thought that I should learn engineering, because he wanted to go into the heating business with me. There, I realized I wanted to be a physicist. I had to tell him, which was a somewhat traumatic experience.

Being a mom kind of grounded me in a way. Your body takes on a whole new meaning.

I always imagined that magically, at some point, I would settle into this very easy and refined sophistication, but it turns out that who you are at eleven is pretty much who you are at 27, so I don't know how much I've learned over the years.

People say, When you have children, everything changes. But maybe things are awakened that were already there.

I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.

I felt that with 'In A Perfect World' I was still kind of finding myself - not just as a musician, but also in love and in life.