Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
I wasn't ready for this, but then I probably never would be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn't wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching and begin in earnest, alone. So I did.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
Sitting there, watching my sister, I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
If someone is really close with you, you getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don't change because of it. It's just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night - the shame, the fear - would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however, stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
All I'd ever wanted was to forget. But even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below. Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only one that can ever get you home.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
One weak, one strong. One scared, one bold. I was beginning to understand though, that there were no such things as absolutes, not in life, or in people. Like Owen said, it was day by day, if not moment by moment. All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough to shoulder the rest.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
If you could just be nice, then you wouldn't have to worry about arguments at all. But being nice wasn't as easy as it seemed, especially when the rest of the world could be so mean.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes - scared, lost, confused, staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.
Sarah Dessen
- Just Listen
There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.
Brandon Flowers - The Killers
Music is my job, as well as my love. I don't know how rock 'n' roll it is to stop drinking and smoking, but I do think that drinking and smoking simply because you've read it's rock 'n' roll is dumb and utterly cliched.
Brandon Flowers
It's not such a big thing to give up. Booze dehydrates you. I knew I would be better if I stopped, I feel like I have longevity now. We started becoming a much better live band so I knew it was the mature thing to do.
Brandon Flowers
- The Problem in America
In America it's about the kind of bag that a woman has, or that car you drive, even though you go home to a small apartment. To appear to have a certain lifestyle, that's the problem in America.
Brandon Flowers
I got a BB gun once; it's a gun that shoots little pellets. It was during the first Gulf War, and my dad brought back pictures of Saddam Hussein for me to shoot at. So I was shooting at one of them one time and I ran forward to it immediately after I'd fired to see how good a shot I was, but it ricocheted off the shed and came back at me square in the head. I learned my lesson. I almost lost my eye that Christmas.
Brandon Flowers - The Killers
I'd had a little bit too much to drink, and at one point I fell off the stage. And nobody caught me! It was sad. It was a sad thing. And the boys kept playing, and so, I just got up, and we finished the song. But I think it would have been a lot better if someone would have caught me.
Brandon Flowers
- A Personal Ad
What do you want me to do? A personal ad? Hmm. I guess it would be something like: Uncomfortable yet good-looking person, that's myself, looking for another uncomfortable and good-looking person, to share a room with.
Brandon Flowers - The Killers
- Ebay People
Ebay people. I almost came to blows with one today. We pulled up to the gig, and it's two in the afternoon, and there's these four guys standing outside, and they all have blue markers and brand-new CDs. And they're obviously not fans. So I said, Okay, I'll sign, but I won't take a picture. This guy got angry, so we started yelling at each other, and he told me to go buy some eyeliner and flipped me off, and I blew him a kiss and that was it. Other than that, fans are usually quite nice.
Brandon Flowers - The Killers
They listen to music better in Britain. People hum along to keyboard parts. That's something that never happened anywhere else. I think they're just more excited and less... there's a cool thing out here. There's a camaraderie about the English. When you see a bunch of dudes in a bar singing 'Don't Look Back In Anger...'.
