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Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have You Ever Been In Love?' Peter Looked At Josie, And Thought Of How They Had Once Tied A Note With Their Addresses To A Helium Balloon And Let It Go In Her Backyard, Certain It Would Reach Mars. Instead, They Had Received A Letter From A Widow Who Lived Two Blocks Away. 'yeah,' He Said. 'i Think So.

-Jodi Picoult

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Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have

Jodi Picoult

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Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have You Ever Been In Love?' Peter Looked At Josie, And Thought Of How They Had Once Tied A Note With Their Addresses To A Helium Balloon And Let It Go In Her Backyard, Certain It Would Reach Mars. Instead, They Had Received A Letter From A Widow Who Lived Two Blocks Away. 'yeah,' He Said. 'i Think So.

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It's Just Like Nurses In A Hospital Tend To Know More Than The Doctors Most Of The Time; If You Really Want To Get The Answers To A Question About Court, You Should Spend More Time Buttering Up The Clerks Than The Judges.

The Saddest Day In The World Will Be The One When She Stops Pretending.

I Am Always Consulted About Covers, And Give Feedback, But I Am Also Aware That What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up Off A Shelf In The Uk Is Very Different From What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up In The Us.

Missed Opportunities Were Never Superficial Wounds; They Cut Straight To The Bone.

What’s The Difference Between Spending Your Life Trying To Be Invisible, Or Pretending To Be The Person You Think Everyone Wants You To Be? Either Way, You’re Faking.

Forgiveness Is Spiritual. Punishment Is Legal," Leo Says. "they're Not Mutually Exclusive.

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

Things That Look Impossible Suddenly Seem A Lot Better, Once You Get God On Board.

A Duck Walks Into A Bar And The Bartender Asks, What'll It Be? The Duck Doesn't Answer Because It's A Duck.

Did You Ever Walk Through A Room That's Packed With People, And Feel So Lonely You Can Hardly Take The Next Step?

It's The Child Who's Supposed To Cry, And The Mom Who Makes It All Better, Not The Other Way Around, Which Is Why Mothers Will Move Heaven And Earth To Hold It Together In Front Of Their Own Kids.

She Told Me She'd Be A Phoenix." The Image Of The Mythical Creature Rising From The Ashes Glitters In My Mind. "they Don't Really Exist." "she Said That Depends On Whether Or Not There's Someone Who Can See Them.

And, After All, What Is A Lie? 'tis But The Truth In Masquerade.

I Became A Firefighter Because I Wanted To Save People. But I Should Have Been More Specific. I Should Have Named Names.

If You Read A Book That's Fiction And You Get Caught In The Characters And The Plot, And Swept Away, Really, By The Fiction Of It - By The Non-reality - You Sometimes Wind Up Changing Your Reality As Well. Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.

Maybe Mothers - Consciously Or Subconsciously - Repelled Their Daughters In Different Ways.

With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

You Can Argue That It's A Different World Now Than The One When Matthew Shepard Was Killed, But There Is A Subtle Difference Between Tolerance And Acceptance. It's The Distance Between Moving Into The Cul-de-sac And Having Your Next Door Neighbor Trust You To Keep An Eye On Her Preschool Daughter For A Few Minutes While She Runs Out To The Post Office. It's The Chasm Between Being Invited To A Colleague's Wedding With Your Same-sex Partner And Being Able To Slow-dance Without The Other Guests Whispering.

Life Was What Happened When All The What-ifs Didn't.

I Believed The Reason There Was A God Was To Prevent Such Atrocities From Happening To The Same Person Twice. But Nothing Prepared Me For This: I Have Done What I've Sworn I Could Never Do; I Have Become My Own Nightmare... I Have Lost Control.

I'm Telling You, If Aliens Landed On Earth Today And Took A Good Hard Look At Why Babies Get Born, They'd Conclude That Most People Had Children By Accident, Or Because They Drink Too Much On A Certain Night, Or Because Birth Control Isn't One Hundred Percent, Or For A Thousand Other Reasons That Really Aren't Very Flattering.

But It Was Like Wearing A Size Five Sneakers When Your Foot Is A Seven- You Can Get By For A Few Steps, And Then You Set Down And Pull Off The Shoes Because It Just Plain Much

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

All Teenagers Knew This Was True. The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face. For Years, Parents Tell You That You Can Be Anything, Have Anything, Do Anything. That Was Why She'd Been So Eager To Grow Up-until She Got To Adolescence And Hit A Big Fat Wall Ofreality. As It Turned Out, She Couldn't Have Anything She Wanted. You Didn't Get To Be Pretty Or Smart Or Popular Just Because You Wanted It. You Didn't Control Your Own Destiny, You Were Too Busy Trying To Fit In.

I Wondered How Long It Took For A Baby To Become Yours, For Familiarity To Set In. Maybe As Long As It Took A New Car To Lose That Scent, Or A Brand-new House To Gather Dust. Maybe That Was The Process More Commonly Described As Bonding: The Act Of Learning Your Child As Well As You Know Yourself.

There's No Way To Explain To A Child That The Line Between Good And Evil Isn't Nearly As Black And White As A Fairy Tale Would Lead You To Believe. That An Ordinary Person Can Turn Into A Villain, Under The Right Circumstances. That Sometimes We Dragon Slayers Do Things We Aren't Proud Of.

I Wanted Him To Feel What I Felt When I Was With Him: That Incredible Combination Of Comfort, Decadence, And Wonder; The Knowledge That, With Just A Single Taste Of Him, I Was Addicted.

I Don't Understand Why People Never Say What They Mean. It's Like The Immigrants Who Come To A Country And Learn The Language But Are Completely Baffled By Idioms. (seriously, How Could Anyone Who Isn't A Native English Speaker 'get The Picture,' So To Speak, And Not Assume It Has Something To Do With A Photo Or A Painting?)

The First Person You Fell In Love With Stole Your Heart. The First Person You Made Love With Stole Your Soul. And If These Were One And The Same, You Were Doomed.

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

When Was The Last Time Someone Read Aloud To You? Probably When You Were A Child, And If You Think Back, You'll Remember How Safe You Felt, Tucked Under The Covers, Or Curled In Someone's Arms, As A Story Was Spun Around You Like A Web.

You Can Fool Yourself, You Know. You'd Think It's Impossible, But It Turns Out It's The Easiest Thing Of All.

Teachers Deserve Respect," I Explain. "why Do They Get It For Free, When Everyone Else Has To Earn It?

He Gently Touched His Mother's Cheek, Felt Her Sorrow Slip Over His Fingertips.

How Do You Know That You Are Not Part Of A Book? That Someone's Not Reading Your Story Right Now?

From That Point Of View, I Realized That My Hole Was Not Miles Deep After All. My Father, In Fact, Could Stand On The Bottom And It Only Reached Up To His Chest. Darkness, You Know, Is Relative.

Here I Am, Wasting Away Inside A Book I Wish I Could Escape, And All She Wants To Do Is Stay In The Story. If I Could Talk To This Girl Delilah, I’d Ask Her Why On Earth She Would Ever Trade A Single Second Of The World She’s In For The One In Which I’m Stuck

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

She Wanted Him To Tell Her That When You Love Someone So Hard And So Fierce, It Was All Right To Do Things That You Knew Were Wrong.

When You Love Someone

I Have Loved Before, But It Didn’t Feel Like This. I Have Kissed Before, But It Didn’t Burn Me Alive. Maybe It Lasts A Minute, And Maybe It’s An Hour. All I Know Is That Kiss, And How Soft Her Skin Is When It Brushes Against Mine, And That, Even If I Did Not Know It Until Now, I Have Been Waiting For This Person Forever.

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.

They Don't Really Pay Attention To Me, Except When They Need My Blood Or Something. I Wouldn't Even Be Alive, If It Wasn't For Kate Being Sick.

It Was Nice Not Having To Be The One In Control, For A Little While. It Was Nice To Be The One Who Was Protected, Instead Of The One Who'd Been Protecting Eveyone Else.

We Could All Be Lucky. We Could All Be What We Want To Be, Instead Of Who Someone Else Told Us To Be.

Isn't It Amazing How, When You Strip Away Everything, People Are So Much Alike?

All It Takes Is A Second And Your Whole Life Can Get Turned Upside Down.

There's A Cliff At The End Point Of A Person's Life; Most Us Of Peer Over The Edge Of It, Hanging On. That's Why, When Someone Chooses To Let Go, It's So Dramatically Visible. The Body Will Seem Almost Transparent. The Eys Will Be Looking At Something The Rest Of Us Can't See.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

People Always Say That, When You Love Someone, Nothing In The World Matters. But That's Not True, Is It? You Know, And I Know, That When You Love Someone, Everything In The World Matters A Little Bit More.

The Best Thing About Endings Is Knowing That Just Ahead Is The Daunting Task To Start Over.

I Don't Want To Tell People What To Think. I'm The Least Qualified Person In The World For That. If I'd Go Around Pretending To Be The Expert On Everything, I'd Become Dan Brown, And I Don't Understand That. We All Do Our Research If We're Good Writers, And We All Work Hard To Get It Right, But That Doesn't Mean We're Experts In The Field. The Best We Can Do Is Challenge People To Learn The Facts Themselves.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

When You Love Someone More Than He Loves You, You'll Do Anything To Switch The Scales. You Dress The Way You Think He'd Like You To Dress. You Pick Up His Favorite Figures Of Expression. You Tell Yourself That If You Re-create Yourself In His Image, Then He'll Crave You In The Same Way You Crave Him.

You Can't Hate Someone Until You Know What It Might Be Like To Love Them.

Oh,that's Right. You're A...what Did You Call It? Ah, A Ghost Hunter. You Don't Have To See Things To Believe Them." Adam's Gaze Locked Onto The Persecutor's. "maybe You've Got That Backward," He Said. "maybe It's Just That I Believe Things You Cant See.

When I Was Little I Bragged About My Firefighting Father: My Father Would Go To Heaven, Because If He Went To Hell He Would Put Out All The Fires.

The Ability To Find Sparks May Be Buried So Deep In You That You Stop Believing There's A God. Until Someone Comes Along, With So Much Light In Her That You Can't Help But See Your Own, And When You're Together,that Light Grows Even Brighter.

You Always Knew After Shitty Things Happened, Who Your Friends Really Were.

Behind Your Back

But Katie Knew It Was A Sin, Had Known From The Moment She Made The Decision To Lie With Adam. However, The Transgression Wasn't Making Love Without The Sanction Of Marriage. It Was That For The First Time In Her Life, Katie Had Put Herself First. Put Her Own Wants And Needs Above Everything And Everyone Else.

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You Can’t Undo Something That’s Happened; You Can’t Take Back A Word That’s Already Been Said Out Loud.

You'd Think Someone Who'd Been To Medical School Would Be Able To Hear Through A Stethoscope That Somebody Was Empty Inside.

The Best Way To Prevent A Heartache Was To Cushion The Coming Blow.

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?

Three Months Ago, If You Asked Me, I Would Have Told You That If You Really Loved Someone, You’d Let Them Go. But Now I Look At You, And I Dreamed About Maggie, And I See That I’ve Been Wrong. If You Really Love Someone, Allie, I Think You Have To Take Them Back.

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Falling In Love

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

Suddenly, I Don't Want To Be This Person Anymore. I Don't Want To Pretend I'm Fooling The World When I'm Not. I Want Someone Else To Have A Plan For Me, Because I'm Not Doing A Very Good Job Myself.

He Knew That There Was A Difference Between Something That Makes You Happy And Something That Doesn’t Make You Unhappy. The Trick Was Convincing Yourself These Were One And The Same.

Convincing Yourself

Once Upon A Time There Were Two Sisters. One Of Them Was Really, Really Strong, And One Of Them Wasn't.' You Looked At Me. 'your Turn.' I Rolled My Eyes. 'the Strong Sister Went Outside Into The Rain And Realized The Reason She Was Strong Was Because She Was Made Out Of Iron, But It Was Raining And She Rusted. The End.' No, Because The Sister Who Wasn't Strong Went Outside Into The Rain When It Was Raining, And Hugged Her Really Tight Until The Sun Came Out Again.

I'm Not Saying You Did The Wrong Thing. I'm Not Even Saying It Wasn't Something I'd Thought Of Doing, Myself. But Even If It Was The Just Thing To Do, Or The Fitting Thing, It Still Wasn't The Right Thing.

Tradionally, Parents Made Decisions For A Child, Because Presumably They Are Looking Out For His Or Her Best Interests. But If They Are Blinded, Instead, By The Best Interests Of Another One Of Their Children, The System Breaks Down.

It's Certainly My Honor To Be Able To, Hopefully, Change The World A Tiny Bit, One Mind At A Time.

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.

I Know How Difficult It Can Be When The Image You've Had Of Something Doesn't Match Its Reality; When The Friend Beside You Turns Into A Monster.

On A Really Dark Night, You Can See Between 1,000 And 1,500 Stars, And There Are Millions More That Haven't Been Discovered. It Is So Easy To Think That The World Revolves Around You, But All You Have To Do Is Stare Up At The Sky To Realize It Isn't That Way At All. -brian Fitzgerald

If We Don't Change The Direction We Are Headed, We Will End Up Where We Are Going.

You Need To Learn To Write On Demand, And To Get Critiqued Without Flinching. When Someone Can Rip Your Work To Shreds Without It Feeling As Though Your Arm Has Been Hacked Off, You're Ready To Send Your Novel Off To An Agent.

A Woman Isn't All That Different From A Bonfire. A Fire's A Beautiful Thing, Right? Something You Can't Take Your Eyes Off, When It's Burning. If You Can Keep It Contained, It'll Throw Light And Heat For You. It's Only When It Gets Out Of Control That You Have To Go On The Offensive.

What You Had Could Never Make Up For What You'd Lost.

I Believe That Having Something To Hope For - Even If It's Just A Better Tomorrow- Is The Most Powerful Drug On This Planet.

I Sometimes Wonder If It Is Just Me, Or If There Are Other Women Who Figure Out Where They Are Supposed To Be By Going Nowhere.

My Sisters Keeper

That's The Strange Thing About Being A Mother: Until You Have A Baby, You Don't Even Realize How Much You Were Missing One

Jacob's Room Is The Place Entropy Goes To Die.

I Used To Believe Everything My Brother Told Me, Because He Was Older And I Figured He Knew More About The World. But As It Turns Out, Being A Grown-up Doesn’t Mean You’re Fearless. It Just Means You Fear Different Things.

Envy, After All, Comes From Wanting Something That Isn't Yours. But Grief Comes From Losing Something You've Already Had.

You Can Tell Yourself That You Would Be Willing To Lose Everything You Have In Order To Get Something You Want. But It's A Catch-22: All Of Those Things You're Willing To Lose Are What Make You Recognizable. Lose Them, And You've Lost Yourself.

When You're Pregnant, You Can Think Of Nothing But Having Your Own Body To Yourself Again; Yet After Giving Birth You Realize That The Biggest Part Of You Is Now Somehow External, Subject To All Sorts Of Dangers And Disappearance, So You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Trying To Figure Out How To Keep Her Close Enough For Comfort. That's The Strange Thing About Being A Mother: Until You Have A Baby, You Don't Even Realize How Much You Were Missing One.

Instead Of Doing The Best Thing, We Sometimes Have To Settle For The Rightest Thing.

Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

You Know Why I Think We Still Execute People? Because, Even If We Don't Want To Say It Out Loud-for The Really Heinous Crimes, We Want To Know That There's A Really Heinous Punishment. Simple As That. We Want To Bring Society Closer Together-huddle And Circle Our Wagons-and That Means Getting Rid Of People We Think Are Incapable Of Learning A Moral Lesson. I Guess The Question Is: Who Gets To Identify Those People? And What If, God Forbid, They Got It Wrong?

If It's Us", She Whispered, "how Come You Get To Decide?" When He Didn't Answer - Couldn't Answer - She Turned And Stared Out The Front Window. As It Turned Out, They Were Still In The Parking Lot. They Hadn't Gotten Anywhere At All.

Clearly God Was In Some Kind Of Mood On My Birthday.

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

For Someone Who Can’t Remember Very Much, There Seems To Be A Lot I Can’t Forget.

Let Me Tell You This: If You Meet A Loner, No Matter What They Tell You, It's Not Because They Enjoy Solitude. It's Because They Have Tried To Blend Into The World Before, And People Continue To Disappoint Them.

I Think That's Probably The Most Devastating Thing - When Someone Who Is Larger Than Life Winds Up A Shadow Of Themselves In A Hospital Bed.

Grief Is A Curious Thing, When It Happens Unexpectedly. It Is A Band-aid Being Ripped Away, Taking The Top Layer Off A Family. And The Underbelly Of A Household Is Never Pretty, Ours No Exception. There Were Times I Stayed In My Room For Days On End With Headphones On, If Only So That I Would Not Have To Listen To My Mother Cry. There Were The Weeks That My Father Worked Round-the-clock Shifts, So That He Wouldn't Have To Come Home To A House That Felt Too Big For Us.

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

Love Meant Jumping Off A Cliff And Trusting That A Certain Person Would Be There To Catch You At The Bottom.

It Was One Thing To Sacrifice Your Own Life For Someone Else's. It Was Another Thing Entirely To Bring Into The Mix A Third Party - A Third Party Who Knew You, Who Trusted You Implicitly.

Lies Were Only As Strong As The Suckers That Believed Them.

And Just Like That, Something Inside Shifted Very Subtly, So That All The Empty Spaces In Him Suddenly Disappeared, So That His Breath Timed To Hers, So That His Blood Sang. This Is Why There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Just Didn’t Have Words Big Enough To Describe Them.

Turn Around, And The People You Thought You Knew Might Change. Your Little Boy Might Now Live Half A World Away. Your Beautiful Daughter Might Be Sneaking Out At Night. Your Ex-husband Might By Dying By Degrees. This Is The Reason That Dancers Learn, Early On, How To Spot While Doing Pirouettes: We All Want To Be Able To Find The Place Where We Started.

Was It The Act Of Giving Birth That Made You A Mother? Did You Lose That Label When You Relinquished Your Child? If People Were Measured By Their Deeds, On The One Hand, I Had A Woman Who Had Chosen To Give Me Up; On The Other, I Had A Woman Who'd Sat Up With Me At Night When I Was Sick As A Child, Who'd Cried With Me Over Boyfriends, Who'd Clapped Fiercely At My Law School Graduation. Which Acts Made You More Of A Mother? Both, I Realized. Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

I Have The Most Devoted And Loyal Following. I Could Probably Type Up My Grocery List And They'd All Want To Read It. I Love That They're Willing To Let Me Go Wherever I Need To Go As An Author, And They're Happy To Come Along For The Ride As The Reader.

Until This Moment, I Had Not Realized That Someone Could Break Your Heart Twice, Along The Very Same Fault Lines.

When It's All Over, You're Remembered For What You Did, Not What You Said You Were Going To Do.

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

Being A Teenager Isn't All That Different From Being Part Of Someone Else's Story. There's Always Someone Who Thinks They Know Better Than You Do

There's A Problem With Wounded Birds, Cassie," Connor Said. "either They Fly Away From You One Day, Or Else They Never Get Better. They Stay Hurt No Matter What You Do.

It's About A Girl Who Is On The Cusp Of Becoming Someone.. A Girl Who May Not Know What She Wants Right Now, And She May Not Know Who She Is Right Now, But Who Deserves The Chance To Find Out.

I Think...she Said Finally, "that All Of Us Have Got Our Ghosts.

On My License, It Says I'm An Organ Donor, But The Truth Is I'd Consider Being An Organ Martyr. I'm Sure I'm Worth A Lot More Dead Than Alive - The Sum Of The Parts Equal More Than The Whole. I Wonder Who Might Wind Up Walking Around With My Liver, My Lungs, Even My Eyeballs. I Wonder What Poor Asshole Would Get Stuck With Whatever It Is In Me That Passes For A Heart.

Time Is An Optical Illusion- Never Quite As Soild Or Strong As We Think It Is

Optical Illusions

A Public Persona That Might Be Different From What We Truly Feel Inside... Everyone Wonders If They Are Good Enough, Smart Enough, Pretty Enough, No Matter How Old They Are. It Is An Archetypical Moral Dilemma - Do You Act Like Yourself And Risk Becoming An Outcast?

Is It Because They Are So Comfortable, They Already Know What The Other Is Thinking? Or Is It Because After A Certain Point, There Is Simply Nothing Left To Say?

I Don't Know What You Think Of Me. And You Certainly Would Never Picture Us Together. But Probably Peanut Butter Was Just Peanut Butter For A Long Time, Before Someone Ever Thought Of Pairing It With Jelly. And There Was Salt, But It Started To Taste Better When There Was Pepper. And What's The Point Of Butter Without Bread? (why Are All These Examples Of Foods?!!?!?!?!?!?!) Anyway By Myself I'm Nothing Special. But With You I Could Be.

Researching 'lone Wolf,' I Was Amazed At How Thoughtful And Intelligent These Animals Are. There Has Never Been A Documented Attack Against A Human By A Wolf That Wasn't Provoked By The Human.

I Imagine How Cool It Would Be If All Small Talk Wasn't Lies.

It's Like Picking Up An Unfamiliar Piece Of Sheet Music & Starting To Stumble Through It, Only To Realize It Is A Melody You'd Once Learned By Heart, One You Can Play Without Even Trying.

I Don't Have To Live The Lives Of My Characters To Write About Them. It's About Really Putting Yourself In Their Shoes.

I Always Hated When My Scars Started To Fade, Because As Long As I Could Still See Them, I Knew Why I Was Hurting.

Life Isn't Nearly As Stable As We Want It To Be.

My Sisters Keeper

Families Were Never What You Wanted Them To Be. We All Wanted What We Couldn't Have: The Perfect Child, The Doting Husband, The Mother Who Wouldn't Let Go. We Live In Our Grown-up Dollhouses Completely Unaware That, At Any Moment, A Hand Might Come In And Change Around Everything We'd Become Accustomed To.

Could You Really Love Someone Who Was Capable Of Falling In Love With Somebody Else?

Falling In Love

When You Don't Fit In, You Become Superhuman. You Can Feel Everyone Else's Eyes On You, Stuck Like Velcro. You Can Hear A Whisper About You From A Mile Away. You Can Disappear, Even When It Looks Like You're Still Standing Right There. You Can Scream, And Nobody Hears A Sound. You Become The Mutant Who Fell Into The Vat Of Acid, The Joker Who Can't Remove His Mask, The Bionic Man Who's Missing All His Limbs And None Of His Heart. You Are The Thing That Used To Be Normal, But That Was So Long Ago, You Can't Even Remember What It Was Like.

Frankly, I Wonder Who Frank Was, And Why He Has An Adverb All To Himself.

Here Are The Things I Know For Sure: When You Think You're Right, You Are Most Likely Wrong. Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole. And, In Spite Of What I Said, You Can Miss A Person You've Never Known. I Learn This Over And Over Again.

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

Parenting Isn't A Noun But A Verb--an Ongoing Process Instead Of An Accomplishment. And That No Matter How Many Years You Put Into The Job, The Learning Curve Is, Well, Fairly Flat.

By Definition, Love Made You Better Than Good Enough; It Redefined Perfection To Include Your Traits, Instead Of Excluding Them.

For 100,000 (dollars), You [can] Flatten A House With A Wrecking Ball. Imagine How Much Less It [takes] To Destroy Something Than It [does] To Build It In The First Place.

So Much Of The Language Of Love Was Like That: You Devoured Someone With Your Eyes, You Drank In The Sight Of Him, You Swallowed Him Whole. Love Was Substance, Broken Down And Beating Through Your Bloodstream.

The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Got Was From A Labor Nurse Who Told Me The Following: 1. After Your Baby Gets Here, The Dog Will Just Be A Dog. 2. The Terrible Twos Last Through Age Three. 3. Never Ask Your Child An Open-ended Question, Such As "do You Want To Go To Bed Now?" You Won't Want To Hear The Answer, Believe Me. "do You Want Me To Carry You Upstairs, Or Do You Want To Walk Upstairs To Go To Bed?" That Way, You Get The Outcome You Want And They Feel Empowered.

He Smiles At Me, And I Am Suddenly Seventeen Again - The Year I Realize That Love Doesn't Follow The Rules, The Year I Understood That Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable

Whether Or Not You Believe In Fate Comes Down To One Thing: Who Do You Blame When Something Goes Wrong.

I Understand Better Than She'd Imagine That History Is Indelible. You Can Mask It; You Can Patch It Smooth And Clear; But You Always Know What's Hidden Underneath.

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.

The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

You Couldn't Have Strength Without Weakness, You Couldn't Have Light Without Dark, You Couldn't Have Love Without Loss

[there's A] Point Where You Have To Leave The Dough Alone. It's Silly To Anthropomorphize Bread, But I Love The Fact That It Needs To Sit Quietly, To Retreat From Touch And Noise And Drama, In Order To Evolve. I Have To Admit, I Often Feel That Way Myself.

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together.

Changing The World

She Stared At Peter, And She Realized That In That One Moment, When She Hadn't Been Thinking, She Knew Exactly What He'd Felt As He Moved Through The School With His Backpack And His Guns. Every Kid In This School Played A Role: Jock, Brain, Beauty, Freak. All Peter Had Done Was What They All Secretly Dreamed Of: Be Someone, Even For Just Nineteen Minutes, Who Nobody Else Was Allowed To Judge.

Superheroes Were Born In The Minds Of People Desperate To Be Rescued.

In This New Place We've Found, Sometimes There Aren't Words, Because The Truth Can Be Even More Difficult Than The Lies.

Dante Believed God Punished Suicides By Trapping The Person's Spirit In A Tree Trunk. On Judgment Day, They Were The Only Sinners Who Didn't Get Their Souls Back, Because They Tried To Get Rid Of Them Once Before.

Remember When You Were A Little Kid And You'd Fall Asleep In The Car? And Someone Would Carry You Out And Put You Into Bed, So That When You Woke Up In The Morning, You Knew Automatically You Were Home Again? That's What I Think It's Like To Die.

I Look For Places Like Me: Big, Hollow, Forgotten By Most Everyone.

When You Love Someone You Let Them Take Care Of You.

When You Love Someone

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

Sometimes There Aren't Words. The Silence Between Us Is Flung Wide As An Ocean. But I Manage To Reach Across It, To Wrap My Arms Around Him.

A Dutiful Mother Is Someone Who Follows Every Step Her Child Makes...and A Good Mother Is Someone Whose Child Wants To Follow Her.

Maybe If You Spend Your Life Pretending You're On A Movie Set, You Don't Ever Have To Admit That The Walls Are Made Out Of Paper And The Food Is Plastic And The Words In Your Mouth Aren't Really Yours.

You Know Someone's Right For You When The Things They Don't Have To Say Are Even More Important Than The Things They Do.

I'm Not Going To Tell A Person How To Think, Don't Believe In That. What I Want To Do, When I Write These Books, Is Just To Say Don't Be So Sure Of Yourself. Let Me Pull The Carpet Out From Underneath You, And Let's See If You Can Still Find The Footing.

I Consider Myself Spiritual And I'm Married To A Man Who Is Both An Atheist And A Humanist, And My Kids Have Been Raised With The Traditions Of Different Religions, But They Do Not Go To Church Or Temple. My Feeling Is That Everyone Should Be Able To Believe What They Want Or Need To Believe.

Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have You Ever Been In Love?' Peter Looked At Josie, And Thought Of How They Had Once Tied A Note With Their Addresses To A Helium Balloon And Let It Go In Her Backyard, Certain It Would Reach Mars. Instead, They Had Received A Letter From A Widow Who Lived Two Blocks Away. 'yeah,' He Said. 'i Think So.

I Imagined What It Would Be Like To Hold A Butterfly In Your Hands Something Bejeweled And Treasured And To Know That Despite Your Devotion It Was Dying By Degrees.

Shooting Stars Are Not Stars At All. They Re Just Rocks That Enter The Atmosphere And Catch Fire Under Friction. What We Wish On When We See One Is Only A Trail Of Debris.

Nathaniel Closes His Eyes And Jumps, His Arms Glued To His Sides Like That Fly's. He Doesn't Try To Break His Fall, Just Hits Hard, Because It Hurts Less Than Everything Else.

There Are So Many Ways A Family Can Unravel. All It Takes Is A Tiny Slash Of Selfishness, A Rip Of Greed, A Puncture Of Bad Luck. And Yet, Woven Tightly, Family Can Be The Strongest Bond Imaginable.

May I Ask You Something?" I Say. "why Do You Read Books, When You Could Be Outside, Living A Million Different Adventures Every Day?" "because You Can Always Count On A Book To Stay The Same. Everything Else Changes When You Least Expect It," She Replies, Bitter. "families Split Apart, And Nothing's Forever. In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

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.

Inside Each Of Us Is A Monster; Inside Each Of Us Is A Saint. The Real Question Is Which One We Nurture The Most, Which One Will Smite The Other.

When You Care More If Someone Else Lives Than You Do About Yourself- Is That What [love Is]?

You Came Back Fighting And Furious At Me. You Told Me You'd Been Looking For Mermaids, And I Interrupted You. [...] I Said That Next Time, You Had To Take Me With You." "was There A Next Time?" "well, You Tell Me, You Don't Need Water To Feel Like You're Drowning, Do You?

Everyone Has A Book Inside Of Them - But It Doesn't Do Any Good Until You Pry It Out.

What Makes A Treasure A Treasure." Marine Replied, "is How Rare A Find It Is, When You Need It The Most.

Talking Out Loud To Fictional Characters Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg.

Tip Of The Iceberg

Any Highway . . . They All Take You To The Same Place, Don't They?

There's No Way To Convince Her That Just Because You Put Half. Planet Between You And Someone Else, You Can't Drive That Person Out Of Your Thoughts. Believe Me. I've Tried.

When You Have Been With Your Partner For So Many Years, They Become The Glove Compartment Map That You've Worn Dog-eared And White-creased, The Trail You Recogonize So Well You Could Draw It By Heart And For This Very Reason Keep It With You On Journeys At All Times. And Yet, When You Least Expect It, One Day You Open Your Eyes And There Is An Unfamiliar Turnoff, A Vantage Point Taht Wasn't There Before, And You Have To Stop And Wonder If Maybe This Landmark Isn't New At All, But Rather Something You Have Missed All Along.

She Had Loved Him. He Knew This; He Had Never Doubted It. But She Had Also Asked Him To Kill Her. If You Love Someone That Much, You Did Not Lay That Sort Of Burden On Him For The Rest Of His Life.

If You Love Someone

As Anyone Who's Ever Contracted It Knows, Lies Are An Infectious Disease. They Slip Under The Almond Slivers Of Your Fingernails And Into Your Bloodstream.

I Told Myself That If I Didn't Care, This Wouldn't Have Hurt So Much - Surely That Proved I Was Alive And Human And All Those Touchy-feely Things, For Once And For All. But That Wasn't A Relief, Not When I Felt Like A Skyscraper With Dynamite On Every Floor.

Most People Who Offer Their Help Do It To Make Themselves Feel Better, Not Us. To Be Honest, I Don't Blame Them. It's Superstition: If You Give Assistance To The Family In Need... If You Throw Salt Over Your Shoulder... If You Don't Step On The Cracks, Then Maybe You'll Be Immune. Maybe You'll Be Able To Convince Yourself That This Could Never Happen To You.

Does Fate Ever Play By The Rules?

If You Live In Each Other's Pockets Long Enough, You're Related.

Hunger, She Often Tells Me, Has Nothing To Do With The Belly And Everything To Do With The Mind. What Mary Really Runs Isn't A Bakery, But A Community.

The Truth Doesn't Always Set You Free; People Prefer To Believe Prettier, Neatley Wrapped Lies

It's Crazy, Right? To Love Someone Who's Hurt You? It's Even Crazier To Think That Someone Who Hurts You Loves You.

I Don't Know What I Was Thinking, Coming Out Here. There Are No Silver Bullets In Life, There's Just The Long, Messy Climb Out Of The Pit You've Dug Youself.

Love Doesn't Follow The Rules... Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable.

Ross Was A Firm Believer That You Could Not Force Circumstance. You Could Buckle Your Seat Belt, But Still Crash The Car. You Could Throw Yourself In Front Of An Oncoming Train, But Somehow Survive. You Could Wait For Years To Find A Ghost, And Then Have One Sneak Up On You When You Were Too Busy Falling In Love With A Woman To Pay Attention. To That End, He Made The Conscious Decision To Stop Waiting For Lia. When He Least Expected Her, That Was When She Would Show Up.

Falling In Love

Memories Are Like A Still Life Painted By Ten Different Student Artists: Some Will Be Blue-based; Others Red; Some Will Be As Stark As Picasso And Others As Rich As Rembrandt; Some Will Be Foreshortened And Others Distant. Recollections Are In The Eye Of The Beholder; No Two Held Up Side By Side Will Ever Quite Match.

The World Just Feels Different For Those Of Us Who Come Alive After Dark. It's More Fragile And Unreal, A Replica Of The One Everyone Else Inhabits.

Technically I've Improved - I Might Turn A Metaphor In Five Words Now, Where Years Ago, It Would Have Taken Me A Paragraph. I Can't Say It Was Intentional - But You Know What They Say About Practice Making Perfect...!

Life Was All About Being In A Certain Place, At A Certain Time.

I Smiled At Him As Best I Could And Pushed The Paper Across The Table Before He Could Change His Mind. Because Henry Deville Was Correct - There Was An Ingredient In My Baking More Concenctrated Than Any Extract, More Pungent Than Any Spice; An Ingredient That Everyone Would Recognize And No One Was Able To Name: It Was Regret, And It Rose When One Least Expected.

I Know Mark,' I Reply. 'and I Don't Like Him.' 'but I Do. And Part Of Being Social Means Being Civil To Someone You Don't Like.' 'that's Stupid. It's A Huge World. Why Not Just Get Up And Walk Away?' 'because That's Rude,' Jess Explains. 'i Think It's Rude To Stick A Smile On Your Face And Pretend You Like Talking To Someone When In Reality You'd Rather Be Sticking Bamboo Slivers Under Your Fingernails.

Just Because You Had Every Right To Feel Sorry For Yourself Didn't Mean You Ever Took The Opportunity To Do So.

If There Isn’t A Them, There Can’t Be An Us.

Close A Door, And You'd Still Feel A Breeze Through The Window.

Scars Are Just A Treasure Map For Pain You've Buried Too Deep To Remember.

It Takes Two People To Make A Lie Work: The Person Who Tells It, And The One Who Believes It.

And The Very Act Of Living Is A Tide; At First It Seems To Make No Difference At All, And Then One Day You Look Down And See How Much Pain Has Eroded

My High School Guidance Counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, Once Had Me Take An Aptitude Test To Figure Out My Future. The Number One Job Recommendation For My Set Of Skills Was An Air Traffic Accident Investigator, Of Which There Are Fewer Than Fifty In The World. The Number Two Job Was A Museum Curator For Chinese-american Studies. The Number Three Job Was A Circus Clown.

Here's A News Flash For The Ladies: For Every One Of You Who Thinks We All Want A Girl Like Angelina Jolie, All Skinny Elbows And Angles, The Truth Is, We'd Rather Curl Up With Someone Like Charlotte - A Woman Who's Soft When A Guy Wraps His Arms Around Her; A Woman Who Might Have A Smear Of Flour On Her Shirt The Whole Day And Not Notice Or Care, Not Even When She Goes Out To Meet With The Pta; A Woman Who Doesn't Feel Like An Exotic Vacation But Is The Home We Can't Wait To Come Back To.

In The Space Between Yes And No, There's A Lifetime. It's The Difference Between The Path You Walk And The One You Leave Behind; It's The Gap Between Who You Thought You Could Be And Who You Really Are; Its The Legroom For The Lies You'll Tell Yourself In The Future.

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