Sara Zarr Quotes

. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

Forgetting isn't enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound.

That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.

When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.

The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal note every day.

Try a little tenderness.

It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows after his miracle. You don't spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.

I remember being in high school and listening to Vivaldi's 'Winter' and being so overwhelmed with emotion.

I get a message from my dad. In the mood I'm in, I tear up to see his name in my inbox, and imagine him down the hall in bed, propped on pillows, emailing me. "Hon,Enjoyed our gelato date the other night. I just want to say I'm proud of you for a lot of reasons. Also, I've attached a picture of my foot."He's such a weirdo goofball. I love him.

I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude.

Life was mostly made up of things you couldn’t control, full of surprises, and they weren’t always good. Life wasn’t what you made it. You were what life made you.

That's how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I'm still waiting.

Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

he's a story i want to know from page one

When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.

Life needed a fast forward button. Because there were days you just don't want to live through, not again, but they kept coming around and you were powerless to stop time or speed it up or do anything to keep from having to face it.

I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.

Because love, love never finishes.

Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.

we had each other. I never needed anyone else. That’s the difference between you and me. You need all these people around you. Your friends, your boyfriend, everyone. Every single person has to like you. I only ever needed one person. Only ever needed you.

don’t mistake a new place for a new you.

And he left. I watched him walk out – he didn’t say good-bye, he didn’t even look back. It scared me, how easy it was for him to do that.

I know I shouldn't say this—I know it as surely as I know the earth is round and beats are evil—and yet here it comes: “It's not too late to change your mind.

I'm still going to love you, always. And in the rock-paper-scissors of life, love is rock. fear, anger, everthing else...no contest.

You were never what I wanted to forget.

Everyone has an identity crisis when they are 16 or 17 years old.

The Lord doesn't give a person more than he knows they can bear.

It's just so out of control. Life, I mean. The way it flies off in all these different directions without your permission.

Sometimes rescue comes to you. It just shows up, and you do nothing. Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don't. But be ready, when it comes, to decide if you will take the outstretched hand and let it pull you ashore.

My whole life has been one big broken promise.

and i don't just mean that they change you. a lot of people can change you - the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you best friend. it's the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people......i'm talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you has your own soul. their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business.

What brings two people together anyway?

I don’t want these memories to become slippery, to just disappear into the thin air of life the way most things seem to. I want them to stick – even the bad ones – so I repeat them often.

We'd need a miracle," he says. "A real one. Do you think those happen anymore?

the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love. That's the unfinished business between us. because love, love is never finished.

Some people come into your life and leave a mark.

It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I’m sorry, to say it’s okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then… and then. Who knew?

My books usually end where they began. I try to bring characters back to a point that is familiar but different because of the growth that they have gone through.

It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.

It's a jagged thing in my throat, how much I miss her.

I never had a connection like that to anyone, where every day you think about what you’ll tell them and you wonder what they’re doing, and you know they’re wondering what you’re doing.

He felt it too, the air between us, the invisible lines that something or someone had drawn to connect us. That's the way I remember it.

Don't ask me how I am,' I blurt. 'Please.' I want to keep feeling good. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean I have to look.

Can it really be love if we don't talk that much, don't see each other? Isn't love something that happens between people who spend time together and know each other's faults and take care of each other?...In the end, I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love.

There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.

One of my favorite authors is Robert Cormier. He was a devout Catholic and a very nice man, which might not be the impression you get from reading his books.

My parents met in music school and my father was a music professor and conductor. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing. There was a lot of Mozart and the Beatles.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.

It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.