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For Me It's More Important That I Outline All The Facets Of A Controversial Issue And Let The Reader Make Up His Or Her Mind. I Don't Care If Readers Change Their Minds, But I Would Like Readers To Ask Themselves Why Their Opinion Is What It Is.

-Jodi Picoult

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For Me It's More

Jodi Picoult

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For Me It's More Important That I Outline All The Facets Of A Controversial Issue And Let The Reader Make Up His Or Her Mind. I Don't Care If Readers Change Their Minds, But I Would Like Readers To Ask Themselves Why Their Opinion Is What It Is.

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More From Jodi Picoult

I Wondered What Happened When You Offered Yourself To Someone, And They Opened You, Only To Discover You Were Not The Gift They Expected And They Had To Smile And Nod And Say Thank You All The Same.

Saying Thank You

How Could You Go About Choosing Something That Would Hold The Half Of Your Heart You Had To Bury?

Many Of My Books Come From What If Questions That I Can't Answer, Things That I'm Worried About As Either A Woman, A Wife, A Mom, An American.

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.

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

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.

I Don't Know What He Means By That, But I Nod And Smile At Him. You'd Be Surprised At How Far That Response Can Get You In A Conversation Where You Are Completely Confused.

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.

There Are All Sorts Of Experiences We Can't Really Put A Name To...the Birth Of A Child, For One. Or The Death Of A Parent. Falling In Love. Words Are Like Nets--we Hope They'll Cover What We Mean, But We Know They Can't Possibly Hold That Much Joy, Grief, Or Wonder. Finding God Is Like That, Too. If It's Happened To You, You Know What It Feels Like. But Try To Describe It To Someone Else--and Language Only Takes You So Far.

Falling In Love

I Believe In Love. I Think It Just Hits You And Pulls The Rug Out From Underneath You And, Like A Baby, Demands Your Attention Every Minute Of The Day.

Write A Living Will. And Become An Organ Donor!

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

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

I Learned A Lot That Night. For Example, That Part Of Being The Magician's Assistant Means Coming Face-to-face With Illusion. That Invisibility Is Really Just Knotting Your Body In A Certain Way And Letting The Black Curtain Fall Over You. That People Don't Vanish Into Thin Air; That When You Can't Find Someone, It's Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

I Knew That Somewhere God Was Laughing. He Had Taken The Other Half Of My Heart, The One Person Who Knew Me Better Than I Knew Myself, And He Had Done What Nothing Else Could Do. By Bringing Us Together, He Had Set Into Motion The One Thing That Could Tear Us Apart.

When You Look Into Your Baby’s Eyes,” Lacy Said Softly, “you See Everything You Hope They Can Be…not Everything You Wish They Won’t Become.

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.

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

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.

In The Custom Of Mourning, The Fabric Of The Night Had Been Ripped, Revealing A Star At Each Tiny Tear.

The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face.

Into The Silence Rips A Sound That Makes Me Let Go Of Max's Hand And Cover My Ears. It Is Like The Strafe Of A Bullet, Nails On A Chalkboard, Promises Being Broken. It's A Note I Have Never Heard - This Chord Of Pure Pain - And It Takes A Moment To Realize It Is Coming From Me.

The Answer Is That There Is No Good Answer. So As Parents, As Doctors, As Judges, And As A Society, We Fumble Through And Make Decisions That Allow Us To Sleep At Night--because Morals Are More Important Than Ethics, And Love Is More Important Than Law.

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

Sometimes We Find Ourselves Walking Through Life Blindfolded, And We Try To Deny That We're The Ones Who Securely Tied The Knot.

Walking Through Life

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

This Isn't A Lie, Actually. I Don't Care Why Edward Left. All I Really Want To Know Is Why I Wasn't Enough To Make Him Stay.

When You Want Something Bad, You'll Tell Yourself A Thousand Lies.

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

I Realized It Was Like Looking Into The Sun—you Shouldn't Do It, Because You'd Turn Your Face Away And Be Blind To Everything Else.

I ...understand How A Parent Might Hit A Child- It's Because You Can Look Into Their Eyes And See A Reflection Of Yourself That You Wish You Hadn't.

Let Me Tell You What Happens When You Cook Down The Syrup Of Loss Over The Open Fire Of Sorrow: It Solidfies Into Something Wlaw. Not Grief, Like You'd Expect, Or Even Regret. No, It Gets Thick As Paste, Black As Ash; Yet It Isn't Until You Dip A Finger In And Feel That Sharp Taste Dissolving On Your Tounge That You Realize This Is Angel In Its Purest Form, Unrefined; A Substance To Be Weighed And Measyred And Spread.

Religion Was Supposed To Be A Blanket Drawn Up To Your Chin To Keep You Warm, A Promise That When It Came To The End, You Wouldn't Die Alone - But It Could Just As Easily Leave You Shivering Out In The Cold, If What You Believed Became More Important Than The Fact That You Believed.

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.

Somewhere Along The Line, Organized Religion Stopped Being About Faith, And Started Being About Who Had The Power To Keep The Faith. You Said That The Purpose Of Religion Was To Bring People Together. But Does It, Really? Or Does It-knowingly, Purposefully, And Intentionally--break Them Apart?

Can You Hate Someone For What They Have Done, But Still Love Them For Whom They Had Been?

It Never Failed To Amaze Me How The Most Ordinary Day Could Be Catapulted Into The Extraordinary In The Blink Of An Eye.

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?)

There Was No Black Or White. Someone Who Had Been Good Her Entire Life Could, In Fact, Do Something Evil. People Were Just As Capable Of Committing Murder, Under The Right Circumstances, As Any Monster.

You Can't Be Real," Delilah Murmurs. "says Who?" I Ask. "did You Really Think That A Story Exists Only When You're Reading It?

To Be Truly Popular, It Has To Look Like Something You Are, When In Reality, It's What You Make Yourself.

I Think My Writing Has Become "cleaner."

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

They Say That There Are Moments That Open Up Your Life Like A Walnut Cracked, That Change Your Point Of View So That You Never Look At Things The Same Way Again.

Dr. Keller Begins Pacing. "i Don't Think We've Been Hearing Faith Just Right. Her Guard...the Words..they Sound Alike." What Do You Mean?" Your Daughter," Dr. Keller Says Flatly. "i Think She's Seeing God.

A Lot Of The Moms Of Autistic Kids I Met Are So Consumed With Being Their Child's Advocate That There's No Room For Anything Else - Least Of All Themselves. It's Why So Many Marriages End In Divorce, When A Child Is Diagnosed On The Spectrum.

Nowadays, I Dont Have Expectations, And This Way She Beats Them All.

In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

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.

To Me Gay Rights Is The Last Civil Right That We Have Not Granted In America And I Think It's An Enormous Embarrassment.

I Know That Books I Have Written Will Still Resonate In 50 Years - Particularly 'my Sister's Keeper.' It Has Sold Three Million Copies In The States Alone. I Strongly Feel That, As A Novelist, You Have A Platform And The Ability To Change People's Minds.

See, As Much As You Want To Hold On To The Bitter Sore Memory That Someone Has Left This World, You Are Still In It

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.

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.

How Foolish It Is To Run Away With A Man Who's Already Run Away With Someone Else.

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.

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

My Chest Feels Full Of Glitter And Helium, The Way It Used To When I Was Little And Riding My Father's Shoulders At Twilight, When I Knew That If I Held Up My Hands And Spread My Fingers Like A Net, I Could Catch The Coming Stars.

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

I Can't Do This To You,' He Said, Drawing Back. Emily Put Her Hand On His And Pulled The Gun To Her Temple. 'then Do It For Me,' She Said.

A Lie Took Two Parties - The Weaver Of The Tale And The Sucker Who So Badly Wanted To Believe It.

I Think There Are Crossroads In Our Lives When We Make Grand, Sweeping Decisions Without Even Realizing It.

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

Bad Is Not An Absolute, But A Relative Term. Ask The Robber Who Used The Cash He Stole To Feed His Infant; The Rapist Who Was Sexually Abused As A Child; The Kidnapper Who Truly Believed He Was Saving A Life. And Just Because You Break The Law Doesn't Mean You Have Intentionally Crossed The Line Into Evil. Sometimes The Line Creeps Up On You, And Before You Know It, You're Standing On The Other Side.

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.

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

Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't Stand The Thought Of Them Changing? Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't See Clearly?

When You Love Someone

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

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 Used To Think I'd Be Just Like Them When I Grew Up, But I Am Not. And The Thing Is, Somewhere Along The Way, I Stopped Wanting To Be Like Them, Anyway.

What You Didn't Tell Someone Was Just As Debilitating As What You Did.

When You Love Someone, You Don't See Parts Of Him You Don't Like.

When You Love Someone

I Would Rather Be In Minority And Be Right, Than In The Majority And Wrong.

I Have Several Writer Friends, But I Don't Involve Them In My Work Process. I'm More Likely To Talk About The Business Of Publishing With Them.

Fiction Is Like That, Once It Is Released Into The World: Contagious, Persistent. Like The Contents Of Pandora's Box, A Story That's Freely Given Can't Be Contained Anymore. It Becomes Infectious, Spreading From The Person Who Created It To The Person Who Listens, And Passes It On.

Once Upon A Time There Was A Girl Who Wanted To Put Her Fist Through A Mirror. She Would Tell Everyone It Was So That She Could See What Was On The Other Side, But Really, It Was So That She Wouldn't Have To Look At Herself. That, And Because She Thought She Might Be Able To Steal A Piece Of Glass When No One Was Looking, And Use It To Carve Her Heart Out Of Her Chest.

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

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.

At Home I Was Raped By A Guy I Thought I Loved' Trixie Said, Because Thats What It Was To Her And Always Would Be.

When You Want Something So Desperately, You Shake With The Need For It. You Tell Yourself That You Don't Need More Than One Sip, Because It's Just The Taste You Crave, And Once It's On Your Tongue You Will Be Able To Make It Last Alifetime. You Dream Of It At Night. You See A Thousand Mile-high Obstacles Between Where You Stand And What You Want, And You Convince Yourself You Have The Power To Hurdle Them. You Tell Yourself This Even When, Leaping The First Block, You Wind Up Bruised And Bloodied And Flattened.

On The Surface, We're Polar Opposites. Under The Skin, Though, We're The Same: People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

You Know It's Never Fifty-fifty In A Marriage. It's Always Seventy-thirty, Or Sixty-forty. Someone Falls In Love First. Someone Puts Someone Else Up On A Pedestal. Someone Works Very Hard To Keep Things Rolling Smoothly; Someone Else Sails Along For The Ride.

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.

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

When You Begin A Journey Of Revenge, Start By Digging Two Graves: One For Your Enemy, And One For Yourself.

Writing Is Grunt Work - You Need To Have Self-motivation, Perseverance, And Faith... Talent Is The Smallest Part Of It.

What Makes You Walk Past Thirty-thousand People Without A Second Glance, And Then You Look At The Thirty-thousandth-and-first Person And Know You'll Never Take Your Eyes Off Her Again?

When You Are Attracted To People, It's Because Of The Details. Their Kindness. Their Eyes. The Fact That They Can Get You To Laugh When You Need It The Most.

It Is A Remarkable Question- Do All The Wonderful Things Happen When We Are Not Aware Of Them?

Like A Missing Tooth, Sometimes An Absence Is More Noticeable Than A Presence.

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 Love Meeting My Readers - So The More I Can Talk To At One Event The Better!

I Didn't Think I Could Possibly Love Another Baby As Much As I Loved The One I'd Already Had," I Continue. "but The Strangest Thing Happened When I Held You For The First Time. It Was Like My Heart Suddenly Unfolded. Like There Was This Secret Space I Didn't Even Know Existed, And There Was Room For Both Of You." I Stare At Her. "once My Feelings Were Stretched Like That, There Was No Going Back. Without You, It Just Would Have Felt Empty.

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.

Like The Teens I Worked With, I Understood The Need For Miracles--they Kept Reality From Paralyzing You

What If Love Wasn't The Act Of Finding What You Were Missing But The Give-and-take That Made You Both Match?

When I'm With You, Bells Go Off In My Head Like A Moving Truck That's Backing Up.

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

All I Know Is That I Carried You For Nine Months. I Fed You, I Clothed You, I Paid For Your College Education. Friending Me On Facebook Seems Like A Small Thing To Ask In Return.

Mother Daughter

Mother And Daughter

Mom And Daughter

I’m Gonna Miss You,” Brianna Says. “i’m Gonna Miss You Too, Baby,” Angelo Murmurs. For Pete’s Sake. It’s Not Like She’s Leaving On A Trip Around The World. She’s Only Headed To Homeroom.

Once The World Was Pulled Out From Beneath Your Feet, Did You Ever Get To Stand On Firm Ground Again?

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 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.

The Only Way Someone Can Leave You Is If You Let Them.

It Was Possible That A Miracle Was Not Something That Happened To You, But Rather Something That Didn’t.

We Are All, I Suppose, Beholden To Our Parents - The Question Is, How Much?

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.

There Was No Easy Switch That She Could Flip To Stem The Flow Of Feelings, No Way To Drain The Memories That Pooled Like Acid In Her Stomach Because Her Heart No Longer Knew What To Do With Them.

There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Friend And A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumph, And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside.

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

I Think A Persons Life Is Supposed To Be Like A Dvd. You Can See The Version Everyone Else Sees, Or You Can Choose The Directors Cut-the Way He Wanted You To See It, Before Everything Else Got In The Way. There Are Menus, Probably, So That You Can Start At The Good Spots And Not Have To Relive The Bad Ones. You Can Measure Your Life By The Number Of Scenes You’ve Survived, Or The Minutes You’ve Been Stuck There. Probably, Though, Life Is More Like One Of Those Dumb Video Surveillance Tapes. Grainy, No Matter How Hard You Stare At It. And Looped: The Same Thing, Over And Over.

I Would Tell Them That When You Look At A Person, You Never Know What The're Hiding.

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.

Tutoring A Four Year Old To Get Into An Exclusive Preschool Made As Much Sense As Hiring A Swim Coach For A Guppy.

I Have No Idea What Andrew Might Have Done, And I Do Not Ask. She Believes That I Can Fix This, And Like Always, That's Enough To Make Me Think That I Can. "i'll Take Care Of It,: I Say, When What I Really Mean Is: I'll Take Care Of You.

I Am Alice In Wonderland', Josie Thought. 'watch Me Fall.

There's A Lot Of Things You Can't See If You Aren't' Looking.

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

No Matter How Much You Consumed, You Would Not Have Your Fill.

History Tells Us That Six Million Jews Disappeared During That War. If There Was No Holocaust, Where Did They Go?' She Shakes Her Head. 'all Of That, And The World Didn't Learn Anything. Look Around. There's Still Ethnic Cleansing. There's Discrimination.

You Can Stay Up All Night And Still Not Count All The Ways To Lose The People You Love.

Ask A Kid Who's Struggling In Math If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He Feels Like A Moron. Ask The Math Genius If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He's Sick Of Doing All The Work During Group Projects. Sometimes, It's Better To Sort Like With Like.

That's The Paradox Of Loss: How Can Something That's Gone Weigh Us Down So Much?

You Want To Write Something As Good As What You've Read.

We Make Messes Of Our Lives, But Every Now And Then, We Manage To Do Something That's Exactly Right. The Challenge Is Figuring Out Which Is Which.

There Is A Fine Line Between Seeing Something That's Lost As Missing, And Seeing It As Something That Might Be Found.

What Could You Give Me," I Ask, My Voice Shaking, "to Make Me Forget ... That You Forgot About Me?

When This Is Over...we Will Got To The Rainforest, Or A Beach As White As Bone. We Will Eat Grapes From The Vine, We Will Swim With Sea Turtles, We Will Walk Miles On Cobblestone Streets. We Will Laugh And Talk And Confess. We Will.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

As It Turned Out, Though, It Was A Lot Easier To Say That Someone Deserved To Die For What They Did Than It Was To Take The Responsibility To Make That Happen.

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

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.

My Whole Life Was About Her, What If Her Whole Life Wasn’t All About Me?

What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?

Remember That Every Fire Will Burn Itself Out, Even Without Your Help.

It's Hard To Be The One Always Waiting. I Mean, There's Something To Be Said For The Hero Who Charges Off To Battle, But When You Get Right Down To It There's A Whole Story In Who's Left Behind.

There Are Legions Of Us, I Realized. The Mothers Who Have Broken Babies, And Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Wondering If We Should Have Spared Them. And The Mothers Who Have Let Their Broken Babies Go, Who Look At Our Children And See Instead The Faces Of The Ones They Never Met.

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.

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.

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

When We're Awake, We See What We Need To See. When We're Asleep, We See What Is Really There.

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

They Ask, How Could This Happen Here? Well. How Could It Not Happen Here?

I Remember For That One Moment, I Believe I Was Hitch Hiking On One Of Those Comets, Falling So Fast That I'd Surely Burn Away Before I Ever Hit The Ground.

Knowledge Was Power, But A Good Librarian Did Not Hoard The Gift. She Taught Others How To Find, Where To Look, How To See.

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

I Try Really Hard To Ask People To Take A Look At Their Bookshelves. Are There Female Writers On It? Gay Writers? Writers Of Color? There Should Be.

He Rises Over Me, A Second Sun, And Fills Me With Light And Heat.

Sometimes Chris Wished He Could Sneak A Peek At The Back Of The Book, So To Speak, And See How It Was All Going To Turn Out, So That He Wouldn't Have To Bother Going Through The Motions.

What I Mean Is That Those Thoughts, They're Human. And Just Because You Turn Out Differently Than Everyone's Imagined You Would Doesn't Mean That You've Failed In Some Way. A Kid Who Gets Teased In One School Might Move To A Different One, And Be The Most Popular Girl There, Just Because No One Has Any Other Expectations Of Her. Or A Person Who Goes To Med School Because His Entire Family Is Full Of Doctors Might Find Out That What He Really Wants To Be Is An Artist Instead.

It Was Like Trying To Bail Out An Ocean Of Water With A Teaspoon.

Do You Remember The Summer We Signed You Up For Camp? And The Night Before You Left, You Said You've Changed Your Mind And Wanted To Stay Home? I Told You To To Get A Seat On The Left Side Of The Bus, So When You Pulled Away, You'd Be Able To Look Back And See Me There Waiting For You." I Press Her Hand Against My Cheek, Hard Enough To Leave A Mark. "you Get That Same Seat In Heaven. One Where You Can Watch Me, Watching You.

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

Here's My Question: What Age Are You When You're In Heaven?

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

The Cost Of Growth Is Always A Small Act Of Violence.

After A Certain Point, A Heart With So Many Stress Fractures Can Never Be Anything But Broken.

My Dad Used To Say That Living With Regrets Was Like Driving A Car That Only Moved In Reverse.

She Became Whoever She Needed To Be To Survive,but She Never Let Anyone Else Define Her.

I May Not Have A Degree, But I Certainly Got An Education.

Someone Real," I Hear Myself Saying. "someone Who Never Has To Pretend, And Who I Never Have To Pretend Around. Someone Who's Smart, But Knows How To Laugh At Himself. Someone Who Would Listen To A Symphony And Start To Cry, Because He Understands Music Can Be Too Big For Words. Someone Who Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself. Someone I Want To Talk To First Thing In The Morning And Last Thing At Night. Someone I Feel Like I've Known My Whole Life, Even If I Haven't.

Just So You Know, When They Say "once Upon A Time” . . . They’re Lying

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

And I Think, Not For The First Time, That What Is Immoral Is Not Always Wrong.

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

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

I Think There Are Two Different Oceans - The One That Plays With You In The Summer, And The One That Gets So Mad In The Winter.

But As He Grew Older, He Learned That A Word Was A Powerful Thing. An Insult Didn't Have To Be Shouted To Bleed; A Vow Didn't Have To Be Whispered To Make You Believe. Hold A Thought In Your Head, And That Was Enough To Change The Actions Of Anyone And Anything That Crossed Your Path.

People Had Figured Out All Sorts Of Ways To Make Things Seem Different Than They Truly Were.

When You Don't Know Where You're Headed, You Find Places No One Else Would Ever Explore.

My Sisters Keeper

There Are Some Nights When You Just Want To Know There's Someone Else Besides You In This Wide World.

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.

Fiction Allows For Moral Questioning, But Through The Back Door. Personally, I Like Books That Make You Think - Books You're Still Wondering About Three Days After You Finish Them; Books You Hand To A Friend And Say "read This, So We Can Talk About It."

How Far Can A Person Go... And Still Live With Himself.

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.

Why Do Some Memories Bleed Out Of Nowhere And Others Stay Locked Behind Doors?

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

I Can Give Or Take Elephants; I Never Can Find The Cheetah-but The Zebras Captivate Me. They'd Be One Of The Few Things That Would Fit If We Were Lucky Enough To Live In A World That's Black Or White.

The Thinnest Slice Would Be Teeming With Memories Of A Love So Strong It Turned You Inside Out And Left You Gasping, And Would Be An Identical Match To A Slice Stored In The Heart Of A Soul Mate.

Parenting Is Really Just A Matter Of Tracking, Of Hoping Your Kids Do Not Get So Far Ahead You Can No Longer See Their Next Moves.

An Apology With A Defense Built In Isn't Much Of An Apology

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.

You Give Her All Your French Fries, Even When She Won't Give You Back Onion Rings,' Sophie Says. 'and When You Say Her Name It Sounds Different.' How?' Sophie Thinks. 'like It's Covered With Blankets.

If You Focus On Sandbagging The Beachhead, You Can Ignore The Tsunami That's Approaching. Try It Any Other Way And You'll Go Crazy.

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

Just So You Know, When They Say "once Upon A Time"....they're Lying. It's Not Once Upon A Time. Its Not Even Twice Upon A Time. It's Hundreds Of Times, Over And Over, Every Time Someone Opens Up The Pages Of This Dusty Old Book.

Once Upon A Time

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

Finding Someone

There's Something Nice About Knowing That I'm Not The Only One Who Doesn't Quite Fit The Part.

Maybe Honesty Is Overvalued. What's Truly Priceless Is Picking Out From A Stream Of Falsehoods The Ones You Most Need To Hear.

You Figured That The Only Way I'd Be Happy Is If I Did The Things You Thought Would Be Best For Me.

This Is What It Always Comes Down To, I Realized. There Are The Ones Who Believe, And The Ones Who Don't, And Caught In The Space Between Them Are Guns.

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

Tip Of The Iceberg

There Are Two Reasons Not To Tell The Truth--becuase Lying Will Get You What You Want, And Because Lying Will Keep Someone From Getting Hurt.

I Want To Live," He Said, "so I Have To Die.

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

You Know, Michael, I Used To Sit Around Looking For A Way To Make Sense Of What Happened, Like There Was Some Kind Of Answer I Could Find If I Just Looked Hard Enough. Then One Day I Realized That If There Had Been One, Dave Would Still Be Here. And I Wondered If This...this Feeling That I Couldn't Figure It All Out...was What Dave Had Been Feeling, Too.

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.

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

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

History Could Hover, Like A Faint Perfume Or A Memory Stamped On The Back Of One's Eyelids.

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