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Africa - You Can See A Sunset And Believe You Have Witnessed The Hand Of God. You Watch The Slope Lope Of A Lioness And Forget To Breathe. You Marvel At The Tripod Of A Giraffe Bent To Water. In Africa, There Are Iridescent Blues On The Wings Of Birds That You Do Not See Anywhere Else In Nature. In Africa, In The Midday Heart, You Can See Blisters In The Atmosphere. When You Are In Africa, You Feel Primordial, Rocked In The Cradle Of The World.

-Jodi Picoult

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Africa - You Can

Jodi Picoult

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Africa - You Can See A Sunset And Believe You Have Witnessed The Hand Of God. You Watch The Slope Lope Of A Lioness And Forget To Breathe. You Marvel At The Tripod Of A Giraffe Bent To Water. In Africa, There Are Iridescent Blues On The Wings Of Birds That You Do Not See Anywhere Else In Nature. In Africa, In The Midday Heart, You Can See Blisters In The Atmosphere. When You Are In Africa, You Feel Primordial, Rocked In The Cradle Of The World.

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I Suddenly Remember Being Very Little And Being Embraced By My Father. I Would Try To Put My Arms Around My Father's Waist, Hug Him Back. I Could Never Reach The Whole Way Around The Equator Of His Body; He Was That Much Larger Than Life. Then One Day, I Could Do It. I Held Him, Instead Of Him Holding Me, And All I Wanted At That Moment Was To Have It Back The Other Way.

The Weapons An Author Has At Her Disposal Are Flawed. There Are Words That Feel Shapeless And Overused. Love, For Example. I Could Write The Word Love A Thousand Times And It Would Mean A Thousand Different Things To Different Readers.

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Risk Always Looks Different When You're Beating The System Than When You've Been Beaten.

These Days Her Entire Life Was About Making People Believe She Was Someone She Wasn't Anymore.

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You Okay In There?" "no, I'm Hanging From A Closet Rod.

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There Is No Cosmic Scale On Which You Can Weigh Your Actions; You Learn Too Late What Choices Ruin The Fragile Balance.

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I'd Like To Say That This Time I'd Kill Myself Too..but I've Never Had That Kind Of Courage.

And Sometimes, He Was Less Lucid. He'd Run Around His Cell Like A Caged Animal; He'd Rock Back And Forth; He'd Swing From Topic To Topic As If It Was The Only Way To Cross The Jungle Of His Thoughts.

Life Is Not A Plot; It's In The Details.

Perhaps He D Always Known That The Truth Of A Person Lies In The Heart.

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I Never Said I Do Not Remember, My Grandmother Corrects. I Said I Prefer To Forget.

I Realize Then That We Never Have Children, We Receive Them. And Sometimes It’s Not For Quite As Long As We Would Have Expected Or Hoped. But It Is Still Far Better Than Never Having Had Those Children At All.

I Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.

You Know How Hind-sight Is 20/20? Love Is When You Look Back And Wouldn't Change Anything.

Maybe There Is More To A Person Than A Body And A Mind. Maybe Something Else Figures Into The Mix— Not A Soul, Exactly, But A Spirit That Hints You Might One Day Be Greater, Stronger Than You Are Now. A Promise; A Potential.

Love Was That Way. You Could Not Render It In Black Or White. It Always Came Down To The Strange, Blended Shades Of Grey.

If Words Had Flavors, Hers Would Be Bitter Almonds And Coffee Grounds.

So I Do What I Do Best. I Move In The Opposite Direction.

An Item That Looks Perfectly Normal On The Surface Might Only Be Disguised.

Perfectly Normal

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Good People Are Good People; Religion Has Nothing To Do With It.

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I Don't Want To Make The Same Mistake Twice. I Don't Want To Tell Myself It's Over When It's Not.

You May Be Real, But You're Still Stuck In A Book.

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After All, Once You Know That Part Of Something Exists, It Stands To Reason That The Rest Of It Is Somewhere Out There, Too.

Somewhere Out There

Part Of Growing Up Was Learning Not To Be Quite That Honest - Learning When It Was Better To Lie, Rather Than To Hurt Someone With The Truth.

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Dylan Jerome," The Lawyer Admits, "wanted To Sue God For Not Caring Enough About Him.

You Can't Look Back - You Just Have To Put The Past Behind You, And Find Something Better In Your Future.

When I Think About Writers Who Use Fiction As Social Commentary And To Raise Social Awareness But Who Are Also Very Popular, I Think Of Dickens.

That's Because You've Never Been One. You Haven't Spent Years Wearing Someone Else's Clothes, Taking Someone Else's Name, Living In Someone Else's Houses, And Working Someone Else's Job To Fit In. And If You Don't Sell Out, Then You Run Away... Proving You're The Gypsy They Said You Were All Along.

Gay Teenagers Are Four Times As Likely To Attempt Suicide As Straight Ones. I Wish They Knew That There's Nothing Wrong With Them; That They Are Just A Different Shade Of Normal.

Do You Fix A Wheel That Isn't Broken, Or Do You Wait Until The Cart Collapses?

Imagine If You Were The Positive Pole Of A Magnet, And You Were Told That Under No Circumstances Were You Allowed To Touch That Negative Pole That Was Sucking You In Like A Black Hole. Or If You Crawled Out Of The Desert And Found A Woman Standing With A Pitcher Of Ice Water, But She Held It Out Of Your Reach. Imagine Jumping Off A Building, And Then Being Told Not To Fall. That's What It Feels Like To Want A Drink.

Many Trees Have Died So That The Catholic Church Can Preach Against Homosexuality.

The Problem Was , You Never Heard Anyone Say,"wow, Check Out The Brain On That Babe.

Listen, I Would Say, This Is Not How I Thought Our Lives Would Go; And May Be We Cannot Find Our Way Out Of This Alley. But There Is No One I'd Rather Be Lost With.

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Once, I Asked My Mom Why Stars Shine. She Said They Were Night-lights, So The Angels Could Find Their Way Around In Heaven. But When I Asked My Dad, He Started Talking About Gas, And Somehow I Put It All Together And Figured That The Food God Served Caused Multiple Trips To The Bathroom In The Middle Of The Night.

Maybe You Expected Marriage To Be Perfect - I Guess That's Where You And I Are Different. See, I Thought It Would Be All About Making Mistakes, But Doing It With Someone Who's There To Remind You What You Learned Along The Way.

You Can't Pay A Landlord In Dogma.

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Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

The World Is A Place Where The Extraordinary Can Sit Just Beside The Ordinary With The Thinnest Of Boundaries; That Even In Environments Inhospitable To Man, All Sort Of Entities Might Thrive.

Justification Is A Remarkable Thing-takes All Those Solid Lines And Blurs Them, So That Honor Becomes As Supple As A Willow, And Ethics Burst Like Soap Bubbles.

It's Because Of Libraries That Books Like Mine Get Recommended To Book Clubs And Avid Readers, Who In Turn Pass Them Onto Others Looking To Be Whisked Away From The World For A Little While...and Perhaps To Learn A Bit About Themselves In The Process.

The Optimist In Me Wants To Believe Sexuality Will Eventually Become Like Handwriting: There’s No Right Way And Wrong Way To Do It. We’re All Just Wired Differently. It's Also Worth Noting That When You Meet Someone, You Never Bother To Ask If He’s Right Or Left-handed. After All: Does It Really Matter To Anyone Other Than The Person Holding The Pen?

But There Is A Different Between Mending Someone Who's Broken And Finding Someone Who Makes You Complete.

Finding Someone

I Wondered About The Explorers Who'd Sailed Their Ships To The End Of The World. How Terrified They Must Have Been When They Risked Falling Over The Edge; How Amazed To Discover, Instead, Places They Had Seen Only In Their Dreams.

Words Are Like Eggs Dropped From Great Heights; You Can No More Call Them Back Than Ignore The Mess They Leave When They Fall.

The First Question She Was Asked Was What Do You Do? As If That Were Enough To Define You. Nobody Ever Asked You Who You Really Were, Because That Changed. You Might Be A Judge Or A Mother Or A Dreamer. You Might Be A Loner Or A Visionary Or A Pessimist. You Might Be The Victim, And You Might Be The Bully. You Could Be The Parent, And Also The Child. You Might Wond One Day And Heal The Next.

But What If Your Obsession Has Nothing To Do With Drugs Or Thrills Or Money? What If What You Want Most In The World Is To Recapture The Way Life Was A Week, A Month, A Year Ago-and You Are Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

It Makes Faith Think Of A Hammock In Their Yard, A Web Of Rope That She Thought Would Unravel The First Time She Leaned Back On It, But That Managed To Support Her All The Same.

All Any Of Us Wanted, Really, Was To Know That We Counted. That Someone Else's Life Would Not Have Been As Rich Without Us Here.

I Think That Different Things Sell In Different Countries.

You’ll Tell Yourself Anything You Have To, To Pretend That You’re Still The One In Control.

But Will You Miss Me? More Importantly - Will I Miss You? Does Either One Of Us Really Want To Hear The Answer To That Question?

He Insisted That Stars Were People So Well Loved, They Were Traced In Constellations, To Live Forever

Maybe The Reason I've Never Died In This Story Is That I've Never Had Something Worth Dying For Before.

Gay Rights Is Not Something Most Of Us Think About - Because Most Of Us Happen To Have Been Born Straight.

That,” She Says, “was Never Here Before.

But Rules Only Work When Everyone Plays By Them. What Happens When Someone Doesn't, And The Fallout Bleeds Right Into His Life? Whats Stronger- The Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?

Did You Ever Wonder If The Person In The Picture Is The Same One You See When You Look In The Mirror?" - "that's The Eternal Question, Isn't It? Are We Born Who We Are, Or Do We Make Ourselves That Way?

Sometimes We Don't Know We're Dreaming; We Can't Even Fathom That We're Asleep.

Isn’t That What True Romance Is Supposed To Be About? Finding The Person Who’s Your Soul Mate. Someone You Dream About At Night.someone Whose Name Is On Your Lips When You Wake Up In The Morning.

How Do You Walk Into Someone's Life Again After Twenty-eight Years? How Do You Pick Up, When You Were Too Young To Know Where You Left Off.

Once You Had Put The Pieces Back Together, Even Though You May Look Intact, You Were Never Quite The Same As You'd Been Before The Fall.

And Yet, You Never Knew Wwhat You Were Capable Of Until You Arrived At That Given Moment. Life Was Just A Whole String Of Spots Where You Continued To Surprise Yourself.

True Love Is Felonious… You Take Someone’s Breath Away… You Rob Them Of The Ability To Utter A Single Word… You Steal A Heart.

We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn’t Have Any.

Do You Know How Sometimes - When You Are Riding Your Bike And You Start Skidding Across Sand, Or When You Miss A Step And Start Tumbling Down The Stairs - You Have Those Long, Long Seconds To Know That You Are Going To Be Hurt, And Badly?

Riding Your Bike

Maybe Knowing Where You Belong Is Not Equal To Knowing Who You Are.

Knowing Who You Are

Where You Belong

I Once Heard Someone On A Bus Say That This Guy Had Gotten Under Her Skin. And It Struck Me As A Remarkable Thought - That Someone Would Affect You So Deeply They'd Always Be A Part Of You.

Think About It: Romeo And Juliet Bucked The System, And Look Where It Got Them. Superman Has The Hots For Lois Lane, When The Better Match, Of Course, Would Be With Wonder Woman.

Why Are Terms Of Endearment Always Food? Honey, Cookie, Sugar, Pumpkin. Its Not Like Caring About Someone Is Enough To Actually Sustain You.

Dead Isn’t Angels Or Ghosts. It’s A Physical State Of Breakdown, A Change In All Those Carbon Atoms That Create The Temporary House Of A Body So That They Can Return To Their Most Elemental Stage.

There Is Nothing Worse Than Silence, Strung Like Heavy Beads On Too Delicate A Conversation.

You Saved Me," I Said. Nathaniel Put His Hands On Either Side Of My Face. "i Had To," He Said. "so You Could Save Me Back.

The Person May Have A Scar, But It Also Means They Have A Story

She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.

My Mother Used To Tell Me That When Push Comes To Shove, You Always Know Who To Turn To. That Being A Family Isn't A Social Construct But An Instinct.

There's Always Going To Be Bad Stuff Out There. But Here's The Amazing Thing -- Light Trumps Darkness, Every Time. You Stick A Candle Into The Dark, But You Can't Stick The Dark Into The Light.

In Fairytales, When The Mask Came Off, The Handsome Prince Still Loved The Girl, No Matter What -and That Alone Would Turn Her Into A Princess.

Any Time You Put On The Mouthpiece Of Somebody That You're Not, There's A Professional Responsibility To Get It Right. I Did A Great Deal Of Research In Both Of Those Arenas.

The Apple . . . Came Before Adam And Eve In The Story Of Creation. It Had To Have Been There At Least Three Years Because That's How Long It Takes For A New Tree To Bear Fruit.

Or. I Hate That Word. It’s Two Letters Long And Stuffed To The Gills With Reasonable Doubt.

I Could Tell Her From Personal Experience That When People We Love Make Choices We Don't Always Understand Them. But We Can Go On Loving Them, Just The Same. It Isn't A Matter Of Comprehension. It's Forgiveness. But All This Took Me A Lifetime To Discover, And Where Has It Gotten Me?... Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

The Truth Was, History Repeated Itself On A Daily Basis; Mistakes Were Made Over And Over. People Were Haunted By What They Had Done, And By What They Hadn't Had Time To Do.

Some People Don't Know What To Do With An Act Of Kindness.

Memories Aren't Stored In The Heart Or The Head Or Even The Soul, If You Ask Me, But In The Spaces Between Any Given Two People.

You Can Love A Person And Still Hate The Decisions They've Made, Can't You?

[i] Don't Think I Was Trying To Kill Myself. I Just Wanted To Hurt, And Understand Exactly Whay I Was Hurting. This Made Sense: You Cut, You Felt Pain, Period.

A Man Should Live His Life A Certain Way Not Because Of Some Divine Authority, But Because Of A Personal Moral Obligation To Himself And Others.

Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

If You Don't Get Sick, You Won't Get Well.

When You Are A Kid You Have Your Own Language, And Unlike French Or Spanish Or Whatever You Start Learning In Fourth Grade, This One You Are Born With, And Eventually Lose...kids Think With Their Brains Cracked Wide Open; Becoming An Adult...is Only A Slow Sewing It Shut.

Prayer Is Like Water - Something You Can't Imagine Has The Strength Or Power To Do Any Good, And Yet Give It Time And It Can Change The Lay Of The Land.

Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole.

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