“I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome."Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him.”

American novelist, young adult fiction

Sarah Dessen is an American novelist known for young adult fiction. Her first book, That Summer, appeared in 1996. She has published more than a dozen other novels and novellas, and 221 quotes on this site are attributed to her. Her work centers on stories for young readers, and in 2017 she received the Margaret Edwards Award for part of that body of work. Two of her books were adapted into the 2003 film How to Deal.