Background Image

...

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.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Grief Is A Curious

Jodi Picoult

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

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

He’s Not Your Typical Prince, More Like A Square Peg In A Round Hole, Kind Of Like Me. He’s The Sort Of Guy Who Wouldn’t Mind Reading Side By Side On A Date.

Maybe You Had To Leave In Order To Really Miss A Place; Maybe You Had To Travel To Figure Out How Beloved Your Starting Point Was... ...parents Aren't The People You Come From. They're The People You Want To Be, When You Grow Up. I Sat Between My Mother And My Father, Watching Strangers On Tv Carry In Shaker Rockers And Dusty Paintings And Ancient Beer Tankards And Cranberry Glass Dishes; People And Their Hidden Treasures, Who Had To Be Told By Experts That They'd Taken Something Incredibly Precious For Granted.

You Have Everything. A Family, A Great Job, A Lot Of People Who Look Up To You. You've Got A Place To Go Home To. So Go.

There Are Some Things, I Think, You're Btter Off Not Remembering.

I Think You're The Only Person Who Gets Me. When I'm With You, The World Doesn't Feel Like A Problem I Can't Figure Out. Please Come To The Dance, Because You're My Music.

I Personally Subscribe To The Belief That Normal Is Just A Setting On The Dryer.

You Know What The Difference Is Between A Dream And A Goal?... A Plan.

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.

There Are Some Dreams That Get Stuck Between Your Teeth When You Sleep, So That When You Open Your Mouth To Yawn Awake They Fly Right Out Of You.

Just Because Fate Had Thrown Another Obstacle In My Way Didn't Mean I Had To Give Up My Dreams.

This Is When I Realize That Anna Has Already Left The Table, And More Importantly, That Nobody Noticed.

My Sisters Keeper

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

What Was Wrong With Me? I Had A Decent Life. I Was Healthy. I Wasn't Starving Or Maimed By A Land Mine Or Orphaned. Yet Somehow, It Wasn't Enough. I Had A Hole In Me, And Everything I Took For Granted Slipped Through It Like Sand. I Felt Like I Had Swallowed Yeast, Like Whatever Evil Was Festering Inside Me Had Doubled In Size.

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

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.

People Believed What They Wanted To Believe, No Matter What Was Right In Front Of Their Eyes.

Yes, She Is." He Looks At Me, His Face Carved In Pain. "she Is Dying, Sara. She Will Die, Either Tonight Or Tomorrow Or Maybe A Year From Now If We're Really Lucky. You Heard What Dr. Chance Said. Arsenic's Not A Cure. It Just Postpones What's Coming." My Eyes Fill Up With Tears. "but I Love Her," I Say, Because That Is Reason Enough.

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.

If You Want To Know Someone's Story, They Have To Tell It Aloud. But Every Time, The Telling Is A Little But Different. It's New, Even To Me.

Betrayal Was A Stone Beneath A Mattress Of Thr Bed You Shared, Something You Felt Digging Into You No Matter How You Shifted Position. What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?

Read A Ton. Take A Workshop Course So You Learn To Give And Get Criticism.

Writing Workshop

Every Year I Tell Myself That I’m Not Going To Read Any Reviews And Then I Do. We’re All Human And When I Read Something Negative It Hurts. I Think When You Write It’s Part Of The Game, You’re Going To Get Some Good Reviews And Some Bad Reviews And That’s How It Goes. I Don’t Write For The Reviews.

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

I Think There Are Readers Out There And I Don't Think The Book Is Dead. And More Importantly I Don't Think Readers Have To Choose Between Literary And Commercial Fiction.

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

Optical Illusions

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.

Something Still Exists As Long As There's Someone Around To Remember It.

To Say There Had Been A Loss Was Ludicrous; One Lost A Shoe Or A Set Of Keys. You Did Not Suffer The Death Of A Child And Say There Was A Loss. There Was A Catastrophe. A Devastation. A Hell.

Coop Kissed Me Deeply, Drawing My Breath From Me In A Long, Sweet Ribbon. "perhaps I Haven't Mentioned It, But I'm An Expert When It Comes To First Steps." Are You," I Said. "then Tell Me How." You Close Your Eyes," Coop Answered, "and Jump.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fresh And Honest. When You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation. Those Three Words Were What Everyone Used; Simple Syllables Couldn't Contain Something As Rare As What I Felt For Sean. 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.

Is Fate Getting What You Deserve, Or Deserving What You Get?

What You Deserve

If You Gave Someone Your Heart And They Died, Did They Take It With Them? Did You Spend The Rest Of Forever With A Hole Inside You That Couldn't Be Filled?

You Don't Love Someone Because They're Perfect," She Says. "you Love Them In Spite Of The Fact That They're Not." I Don't Know How To Respond To That; It's Like Being Told After Thirty-five Years That The Sky, Which I've Seen As A Brilliant Blue, Is In Fact Rather Green.

I Don't Base My Books On My Life (thank Goodness) And I Don't Pick The Topic First. In Fact, The Topic Picks Me - Via A Question I Can't Answer As A Mom, A Wife, A Woman, An American. I Find Myself Wondering "what If..." And It Blossoms Into A Whole Novel.

Her Mouth Is Always On The Verge Of A Smile. It Makes Her Look Like There's Always Something Amazing She Needs To Tell Me, Even When It's Just Hello.

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

When Feeling Came Back, In A Storm Of Color And Force And Sensation, The Most You Could Do Was Hold On To The Person Beside You And Hope You Could Weather It. Alex Closed Her Eyes And Expected The Worst-but It Wasn't A Bad Thing; It Was Just A Different Thing. A Messier One, More Complicated One. She Hesitated, And Then She Kissed Patrick Back, Willing To Concede That You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find What You'd Been Missing.

Although You Hadn't Asked Why, It Had Less To Do With You Not Noticing Than With You Not Wanting To Hear The Answer.

You Can Blame Your Ugliness For Keeping People At Bay, When In Reality You're Crippled By The Thought Of Letting Another Person Close Enough To Popentially Scar You Even More Deeply. You Can Tell Yourself That It's Safer To Love Someone Who Will Never Really Love You Back, Because You Can't Lose Someone You Never Had.

If You Read The First Page Of One Of My Novels, I Can Guarantee That You Will Read The Last One. This Isn't Just Social Commentary. This Is Also About Writing Good Page-turners. I Want People To Keep Reading.

Guarantees That

After All, How Many Of Us Had Tried To Forget Something Traumatic...only To Find It Printed On The Back Of Our Eyelids, Tattooed On Our Tongues?

Objection!" Metz Shouts. Grounds?" The Judge Asks. Well...he's My Witness!

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.

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

"stupid English." "english Isn't Stupid," I Say. "well, My English Teacher Is." He Makes A Face. "mr. Franklin Assigned An Essay About Our Favorite Subject, And I Wanted To Write About Lunch, But He Won't Let Me." "why Not?" "he Says Lunch Isn't A Subject." I Glance At Him. "it Isn't." "well," Jacob Says, "it's Not A Predicate, Either. Shouldn't He Know That?"

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

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

Someone Once Told Me That When You Give Birth To A Daughter, You've Just Met The Person Whose Hand You'll Be Holding The Day You Die.

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

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.

There Are Stars In The Night Sky That Look Brighter Than The Others, And When You Look At Them Through A Telescope You Realize You Are Looking At Twins. The Two Stars Rotate Around Each Other, Sometimes Taking Nearly A Hundred Years To Do It. They Create So Much Gravitational Pull There's No Room Around For Anything Else. You Might See A Blue Star, For Example, And Realize Only Later That It Has A White Dwarf As A Companion - That First One Shines So Bright, By The Time You Notice The Second One, It's Too Late.

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.

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

I Write Adult Fiction, But A Good 40 To 50 Per Cent Of My Readers Are Teenagers. I Love That If They Have To Grow Up And Move Past Jk Rowling They Can Move To Me. From Jo To Jodi!

Maybe Fate Isn't The Pond You Swim In But The Fisherman Floating On Top Of It, Letting You Run The Line Wild Until You Are Weary Enough To Be Reeled Back In.

It Seems To Me That No Matter What Religion You Subscribe To, Acts Of Kindness Are The Stepping-stones To Making The World A Better Place--because We Become Better People In It.

Princes Don't Come Around Everyday, And Happy Endings Don't Grow On Trees

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.

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

If You Had To Pack Your Whole Life Into A Suitcase-not Just The Practical Things, Like Clothing, But The Memories Of The People You Had Lost And The Girl You Had Once Been-what Would You Take?

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

Life Could Take On Any Number Of Shapes While You Were Busy Fighting Your Own Demons. But If You Were Changing At The Same Rate As The Person Beside You, Nothing Else Really Mattered. You Became Each Other's Constant.

But Sometimes, In Order To Win, You Have To Make Sacrifices.

He Is Dark And Quiet And Completely Different From Me, Which Is Exactly Why I Should Put Distance Between Us. But It Is Also The Reason I Find Him So Fascinating.

There Are Some Weapons You Can't Protect Yourself Against.

Protect Yourself

There Is A Place In You That You Don't Even Know Exists, Where You Can Simply Stand Back And Watch Without Feeling Any Pain.

In My Family, We Seem To Have A Tortured History Of Not Saying What We Ought To And Not Meaning What We Do.

My Sisters Keeper

There Is A Reason The Word Belonging Has A Synonym For Want At Its Center; It Is The Human Condition.

Human Condition

We're [parents]) Always Bluffing, Pretending We Know Best, When Most Of The Time We're Just Praying We Won't Screw Up Too Badly.

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?

Sometimes All You Need To Live One More Day Is A Good Reason To Stick Around.

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

There's An Honesty To The Wolf World That Is Liberating. There's No Diplomacy, No Decorum. You Tell Your Enemy You Hate Him; You Show Your Admiration By Confessing The Truth. That Directness Doesn't Work With Humans, Who Are Masters Of Subterfuge. Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat? Do You Really Love Me? Did You Miss Me? When A Person Asks This, She Doesn't Want To Know The Real Answer. She Wants You To Lie To Her. After Two Years Of Living With Wolves, I Had Forgotten How Many Lies It Takes To Build A Relationship.

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.

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.

You Don't Love Someone Because They're Perfect, You Love Them In Spite Of The Fact That They're Not.

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?

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

What's Stronger-the Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?

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

Knowing Who You Are

Where You Belong

You Can Be Strapped To The Most Stable Chair And Still Feel The World Give Way Beneath You.

Sometimes, Mothers Say And Do Things That Seem Like They Don't Want Their Kids... But When You Look More Closely, You Realize That They're Doing Those Kids A Favor. They're Just Trying To Give Them A Better Life.

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

I Love Getting Fan Mail. Often, As A Writer, You Never Know What Your Readers Think Of A Book... You Get Critical Reviews And Sales Figures, But None Of That Is The Same As Knowing You've Made A Person Stay Up All Night Reading, Or Helped Them Have A Good Cry, Or Really Touched Their Life.

I Wondered Why The Head Could Move So Swiftly While The Heart Dragged Its Feet.

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

In Nineteen Minutes You Can Norder A Pizza And Have It Delivered. You Can Read A Story To A Child Or Have Your Oil Changed. You Can Walk A Mile. You Can Sew A Hem. In Nineteen Minutes You Can Get Revenge.

I Think Many Of My Books, Including "handle With Care," Including "my Sister's Keeper" Circle Back To How Far Are We Willing To Go For The People We Love? I Think Love Changes The Way We Think. It's The Thing That Takes You Out Of What Your Normal Set Of Beliefs Would Be.

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

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.

When The News You Don't Want To Hear Is Looming Before You Like Everest, Two Things Can Happen. Tragedy Can Run You Through Like A Sword, Or It Can Become Your Backbone. Either You Fall Apart And Sob, Or You Say, 'right. What's Next?

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

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

Things Had A Way Of Working Out For The Best When You Let Them Run Their Course.

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

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.

Being A Good Mother, It Seemed To Me, Meant You Ran The Risk Of Losing Your Child.

When You're Different, Sometimes You Don't See The Millions Of People Who Accept You For What You Are. All You Notice Is The Person Who Doesn't.

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

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.

I Don't Write The Same Book Over And Over - I Think If I Did That, I Would Stop Writing. I Couldn't Write A Series With The Same Character, And I Couldn't Write A Romance Novel Over And Over Again That Takes Place At A Different Beach Every Year. That's Not Who I Am.

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

When Your Mother Is Made Out Of Your Dreams, Anything Real Is Bound To Disappoint You.

She Shrugged. "you Can Be Happy For Someone Else's Good Fortune, But That Doesn't Mean You Forget Your Own Bad Luck.

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

Life Was What Happened When All The What-if’s Didn’t, When What You Dreamed Or Hoped Or – In This Case – Feared Might Come To Pass Passed By Instead.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World, While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together. And Then There Are Those Of Us Who Simply Don't Want To Be In It, Because We Know No Matter How Much We Struggle, We Can't Comfortably Fit.

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

Have A Conversation With Your Family About Your End-of-life Wishes While You Are Healthy. No One Wants To Have That Discussion... But If You Do, You'll Be Giving Your Loved Ones A Tremendous Gift, Since They Won't Have To Guess What Your Wishes Would Have Been, And It Takes The Onus Of Responsibility Off Of Them.

The Question I Hate The Most Is "how Did You Do It - Write Novels And Raise Your Children Simultaneously!" I Mean, Do Male Authors Get Asked That??

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.

Life Can Change In An Instant; Don't Be So Worried About The Future That You Forget To Celebrate What You Have Right Now.

Your Hand Fits Mine Like The Last Piece Of A Jigsaw Puzzle

What I Really Want To Tell Him Is To Pick Up That Baby Of His And Hold Her Tight, To Set The Moon On The Edge Of Her Crib And To Hang Her Name Up In The Stars.

I Felt A Splinter Of Guilt Wedge Into My Heart. Charlotte Had Hurt Me; In Return, I'd Hurt Rob. Maybe That's What We Do To The People We Love: Take Shots In The Dark And Realize Too Late We've Wounded The People We're Trying To Protect.

Kid Says To Me, "you Play Baseball? What Position? Left Out?" And Gets A Big Laugh From The Rest Of The Class. Kid Is Only One Person Out Of 6.792 Billion Humans On This Planet. This Planet Is Only One-eighth Of The Solar System, Whose Sun Is One Of Two Billion Stars In The Milky Way Galaxy. Put It That Way, The Comment Loses It's Importance.

Once You Call Something A Story, It's Set In Stone. It Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End That Can't Be Transformed, Because By Definition, If You Do That, It's Not The Same Story Anymore

We All Have Things That Come Back To Haunt Us. Some Of Us Just See Them More Clearly Than Others.

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.

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.

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

If You Think Of A Relationship As A Living Entity, I Guess It's One Thing If The Missing Two Percent Is, Like, A Fingernail. But When It's The Heart, That's A Whole Different Ball Of Wax.

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.

You Know How I Get Angry Sometimes? That's Because It's The Only Way I Can Still Feel. And I Need To Test Myself, To Make Sure I'm Really Here.

[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.

You Know What I Noticed When I Was With Jacob? In Your World, People Can Reach Each Other In An Instant. There's The Telephone, And The Fax - And On The Computer You Can Talk To Someone All The Way Around The World. You've Got People Telling Their Secrets On Tv Talk Shows, And Magazines That Publish Pictures Of Movie Stars Trying To Hide Their Homes. All Those Connections, But Everyone There Seems So Lonely.

Crazy Girls Did This, Girls Who Walked Like Zombies Through Ya Novels. But. Trixie Felt The Sting Of The Skin As It Split, The Sweet Welling Rise Of Blood. It Hurt, Though Not As Much As Everything Else Idd.

I Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That Before I Was A Writer, I Was A Teacher. I Still Am. My Classroom's Just Gotten A Little Bigger.

When You're A Parent You Find Yourself Looking At The Unknown That Is Your Child, Trying To Find A Piece Of Yourself Inside Her, Because Sometimes That Is What It Takes To Claim.

Finding Yourself

Writing Is Total Grunt Work. A Lot Of People Think It's All About Sitting And Waiting For The Muse. I Don't Buy That. It's A Job. There Are Days When I Really Want To Write, Days When I Don't. Every Day I Sit Down And Write.

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

Sometimes Knowing What's Right Isn't A Rational Decision, Or Even What Works On Paper. Sometimes Leaving Is The Best Course Of Action After All.

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.

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

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

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

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

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

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.

If You're Afraid Of Everyone Leaving You, What Do You Do?" Make Them Stay." And If You Can't Do That, Or Don't Know How To?" Ellie Shrugged. "i Don't Know." Yes, You Do. In Fact, You've Done It. You Leave First," Coop Said, "so You Don't Have To Watch Them Walk Away.

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

Logical Thinking Keeps You From Wasting Time Worrying, Or Hoping. It Prevents Disappointment. Imagination, On The Other Hand, Only Gets You Hyped Up Over Things That Will Never Realistically Happen.

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

When She Smiles, It Feels Like The First Warm Day Of March-- After An Eternity Of Snow, When You Suddenly Remember How Summer Feels On The Backs Of Your Bare Calves & In The Part Of Your Hair.

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

I Would Have Given Anything To Keep Her Little. They Outgrow Us So Much Faster Than We Outgrow Them. Brian Fitzgerald, Talking About His Children.

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.

Take It From Me: Love Has All The Lasting Permanence Of A Rainbow- Beautiful While It's There, And Just As Likely To Have Disappeared By The Time You Blink.

People Don’t Just Disappear. There’s Always A Reason, Or An Enemy With A Grudge. There’s Always A Loose Thread That Starts To Unravel.

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

Or In Other Words, It's The Substance You've Got When You Start That Determines The Outcome.

It Doesn't Matter What It Is That Leaves A Hole Inside You. It Just Matters That It’s 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.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

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

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.

Men. You Can't Live With Them...and You Can't Legally Shoot Them. I Tossed Out My Husband Eight Years Ago And Got A Llama Instead. Best Decision I Ever Made.

By Now You've Already Formed Your Own Impression. You Believe That An Act Committed A Lifetime Ago Defines A Man, Or You Believe That A Person's Past Has Nothing To Do With His Future. You Think I Am Either A Hero, Or A Monster. Maybe Knowning More About Circumstances Will Make You Think Differently About Me, But It Won't Change What Happened Twenty-eight Years Ago.

Marina Sighs. "love's A Tidal Wave," She Says. "because It Sweeps You Off Your Feet?" I Ask. "no. Because It Sucks You Under And You Drown.

When Someone Loves You Up One Side And Down The Other Like That, You Make Every Effort To Stick Around.

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.

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.

There's That Unwritten Schism That Literary Writers Get All The Awards And Commericals Writers Get All The Success.

It Turns Out That Sharing The Past With Someone Is Different From Reliving It When You’re Alone. It Feels Less Like A Wound, More Like A Poultice.

I'm The Kind Of Person You Want To Kill. I Had An Incredibly Happy Childhood. I Married A Terrific Guy When I Was 23. I Have Great, Well-adjusted Kids. Sometimes My Husband And I Look At Each Other And Do A Little Jig In The Kitchen. This Is The Best Life.

Just When You Think You've Got Your Life By The Reins, That's When It's Most Likely To Run Away With You.

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

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

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.

There Are Some Things We Do Because We Convince Ourselves It Would Be Better For Everyone Involved. We Tell Ourselves That It's The Right Thing To Do, The Altruistic Thing To Do. It's Far Easier Than Telling Ourselves The Truth.

My Sisters Keeper

There Is No One Truth. There’s Only What Happened, Based On How You Perceive It.

People Ask All The Time How I'm Doing, But The Truth Is, They Don't Really Want To Know.

When Heaven Breaks, Who Fixes It?

Was There A Language Of Loss? Did Everyone Who Suffered Speak A Different Dialect?

What If What You Know Isn’t What People Want To Hear?

Believe Me, Being Gay Is Not A Choice. Noone Would Choose To Make Life Harder Than It Has To Be.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes The Key To Happiness Is Just Expecting A Little Bit Less

The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Alway All That Hate, Is You.

She's Not Classically Beautiful, But Somehow That Only Makes Her More Interesting.

Campbell" Julia Says "don't Do This To Me" "do What?" "push Me Off The Same Cliff Twice

If His Voice Hasn't Been The Melody Of My Life, It's Been The Bass Line, So Subtle You Don't Notice It Until It's Missing.

My Teacher In First Grade Said That Long Ago People Used To Believe All Kinds Of Things, Because They Didn't Know Any Better. Like You Shouldn't Take A Bath, Because It Could Make You Sick. And Then Someone Saw Germs Under A Microscope And Started To Think Differently. You Can Believe Something Really Hard, And Still Be Wrong. (faith White)

A Heroin-thin Boy With Enough Rings In His Eyebrows To Resemble A Shower Curtain Rod.

Anna Is The Only Proof I Have That I Was Born Into This Family. Instead Of Dropped Off On The Doorstep By Some Bonnie And Clyde Couple That Ran Off Into The Night. 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. (jesse)

As An American I Wanted To Explore... Why Are We The Only First World Country That Still Has Capital Punishment? Is It Because We're Too Afraid To Really Examine The System, Or Is It Because We Really Truly Believe That This Is The Best Way To Deter Future Crime?

She Stares At Me For A Moment, And Then She Bursts Out Laughing. “you Haven’t Seen His Perfect Little Wife And His Perfect Little Girls. Believe Me, Oliver, I’m Not The Great Love Of His Life, The One He’ll Never Forget.” “you Are To Me,” I Say.

Doing The Right Thing For Someone Else Occasionally Means Doing Something That Feels Wrong To You.

And In General, The Residents Of The Town Wondered Why They All Felt Hollow Just Beneath The Throat, The Result Of Missing Something They Had Never Been Able To Name In The First Place.

Trending Author

Category