Sarah Dessen Quotes

I don't really write for catharsis; I get that kind of work done in therapy.

Most things I go through I have to write about.

I had a lot of songs and words and scenes stuck inside of me. So Jacknife encouraged me to bring them all out. So, in essence, 'You and Others' is my diary.

If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out.

Writing helps me process things that are happening to me.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.

Man, you don't know how I felt that afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I'm always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

It's very special that I can go through things - and write them down and record them - and so many people can relate. Not everybody can get out who they are and really feel better after they write.

Through the process of specifically writing this memoir, there was so much reckoning that I had to do. It was very difficult. It doesn't erase anything that happened, but I think that it was healthy for me to do it. The teenage self-loathing that I suffered from all of a sudden found itself turned into rapids with my grief after my brother died. I turned it inwards. In the same way that my mom processes her grief and her problems. This project, as a memoir, has helped me funnel it outwards.

What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?

It's taken me a long time to realize that my own life is far more interesting than any part I'll ever play.

I have been blessed with roles that allow me to express something very personal at a specific time in my life. I seek them out; acting is my therapy.

I look for characters that speak to something in me.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Over and over again, I'm trying to express or communicate these big and small struggles to the world, and really to myself.

What we try to do in TSAW, which is Tasha Smith Actors Workshop, is to help the actor get to the core of who they really are and how they really feel. So, we may have them do a dump, where you just basically express everything that you feel that you have not been able to express, whether it's good, bad, or ugly.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

I've always used poetry to explain myself to myself. These things just sat in my psyche and then came out.

I'm shy, and I can hide behind my acting and discover the truth about myself because it's cathartic in that way. But I tend not to read reviews.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

I love writing and directing because it's great therapy. Every project I've done, there's been a personal connection.

I can't say that I fully relate to things that I play. Sometimes it's nice to spend half the day crying; then you don't have to do it in real life.