Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

"I understand that you are under a lot of pressure and that it's hard being a bride. That is all well and good. But it does not, ever, entitle you to be rude, selfish, uncaring, and generally obnoxious to me or Haven or anyone else. We've been very patient with you because we're your family and we love you, but it stops here. I don't care if the wedding is two weeks or two hours away, you were never raised to behave this way."

"In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”“How do you win?” he asked.“That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”“What, girls don’t like to win?” He snorted. “Please. You’re the one who got all rule driven on me claiming Instant Breakfast isn’t a food.”“It’s not,” I told him. “It’s a beverage.” He rolled his eyes. I can’t believe this, I thought. A week or two ago putting a full sentence together in front of Wes was a challenge. Now we were arguing about liquids.“Okay,” he said, “back to Truth. You were saying?”I took in a breath. “To win, one person has to refuse to answer a question,” I said. “So, for example, let’s say I ask you a question and you don’t answer it. Then you get to ask me a question, and if I answer it, I win.”“But that’s too simple,” he said. “What if I ask you something easy?”“You wouldn’t,” I told him. “It has to be a really hard question, because you don’t want me to win.”“Ahhh,” he said, nodding. Then, after mulling it for a second he said, “Man. This is diabolical.” “It’s a girl’s game,” I explained, tilting my head back and looking at the stars. “Always good for a little drama at the slumber party. I told you, you don’t want to play.”“No. I do,” he squared his shoulders. “I can handle it."

"I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential."

"If this was my forever, I didn't want to spend another second of it here."

"Like maybe it's forever, maybe it's not"

"Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening."

"the truth about forever is that it is happening right now"

"Explain it to me."But I couldn't. I'd had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood., If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right."

"The first step is always the hardest"

"Isn't it weird the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"

"It's hard to do," I said. Wes looked at me. "What is" I swallowed, not sure why I'd said this out loud. "Get it right."

"It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering."

"Why does she have wings'So she can fly."

"The girl in the tight black dress was passing by us now, eyeing Wes and walking entirely too slowly. "Hi," she said, and he nodded at her but didn't reply. Knew it, I thought. Honestly," I said. What"Come on. You have to admit, it's sort of ridiculous."What is"Now that I had to define it, I found myself struggling for the right words. "You know," I said, then figured Kristy had really summed it up best. "The sa-woon."The what?"

"I said, somewhat confused, “What’s the problem?”[Kristy] rolled her eyes. Beside her, Monica said, “Donneven.”“Kristy.” Delia shook her head. “This isn’t the time or the place, okay?”“The time or the place for what?” Caroline asked.“There is never,” Kristy said adamantly, “a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”“Throbbing?” my mother said, leaning forward and looking at me. “Who’s throbbing?”“Macy and Wes,” Kristy told her.“We are not,” I said indignantly. “Kristy,” Delia said helplessly. “Please God I’m begging you, not now.”“Wait a second, wait a second.” Caroline held her hands up. “Kristy. Explain.”“Yes, Kristy,” my mother said, but she was looking at me. Not really mad as much as confused. Join the club, I thought. “Explain.”Bert said, “This ought to be good.”Kristy ignored him, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Wes wants to be with Macy. And Macy, whether she’ll admit it or not, wants to be with Wes. And yet they’re not together, which is not only unjust, but really, when you think about it, tragical.”“That’s not a word,” Bert pointed out.“It is now,” she said. “How else can you explain a situation where Wes, a truly extraordinary boy, would be sent packing in favor of some brainiac loser…”“Why,” I said, feeling embarrassed, “do we have to keep talking about this?”“Because it’s tragical!” Kristy said….”I’ll tell you what it is. It’s wrong. You should be with Wes, Macy. The whole time you guys were hanging out, talking about how you were both with other people, it was so obvious to everyone. It was even obvious to Wes. You were the only one who couldn’t see it, just like you can’t see it now.”“Mmm-hmm,” Monica said aloud."

"If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me."

"The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though; it wasn't empty so much as chosen. There's an entirely different feel to quiet when you're with someone else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending."

"But I knew what it said. That I could be imperfect, but only so much. Human, but only within limits. And honest, to her or to myself, never."

"... Everything he feels, he feels strongly. Too strongly, sometimes. I think he freaks people out."

"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."