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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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I Consider Myself Spiritual

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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As Lacy Waited For Her Turn To Speak On Peter's Behalf, She Thought Back To The First Time She Realized She Could Hate Her Own Child.

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Leather Jackets

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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.

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Falling In Love

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

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

The Music We Listen To May Not Define Who We Are. But It’s A Damn Good Start.

The Problem With You Is That You Always See A Glass Of Milk Half Empty Instead Of Half Filled.

The Thing That Most People Didn't Understand, If They Weren't In His Line If Work, Was That A Rape Victim And A Victim Of A Fatal Accident Were Both Gone Forever. The Difference Was That The Rape Victim Still Had To Go Through The Motions Of Being Alive.

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?

Joseph Obomsawin, The Elder I Lived With There, Says That Those Who Turn To Animals Do So Because Humans Have Let Them Down.

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

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

You Know How The Tightrope Guy At The Circus Wants Everyone To Believe His Act Is An Art, But Deep Down You Can See That He's Really Just Hoping He Makes It All The Way Across?

Real Mothers Don't Just Listen With Humble Embarrassment To The Elderly Lady Who Offers Unsolicited Advice In The Checkout Line When A Child Is Throwing A Tantrum. We Take The Child, Dump Him In The Lady's Cart, And Say, "great. Maybe You Can Do A Better Job." Real Mothers Know That It's Okay To Eat Cold Pizza For Breakfast. Real Mothers Admit It Is Easier To Fail At This Job Than To Succeed.

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?

Iknew That All The Attributes He Was Teased For, At Age Five, Were Going To Work In His Favor By Thetime He Was Thirty-five...but I Couldn't Get Him There Overnight. You Can't Fast-forward Your Child'slife, No Matter How Much You Want To.

Mistakes Are Something That Happen By Accident. You Didn't Walk Out The Door One Morning And Fall Into Some Guy's Bed. You Thought About It, For A While. You Made That Choice.

Where Did You Go?" "to The End Of The Driveway," My Mother Says. "i Was Nine Months Pregnant; That Was The Maximum Distance I Could Waddle Without Feeling As If My Uterus Was Falling Out." I Wince. "do You Have To Be Quite So Graphic?" "what Would You Like Me To Call It, Zoe? A Fetal Living Room?

If She Spoke, She Would Tell Him The Truth: She Was Not Okay At All, But Horribly Empty, Now That She Knew What It Was Like To Be Filled.

Torn Between Fear And Something That Resembled Love, She Wrestled With Questions She Never Dreamed She Would Face: How Could She Leave? Then Again, How Could She Stay?

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

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 Know What It's Like To Wake Up Thinking You Will Be Able To Cast The People Who Play The Starring Roles In Your Life, Only To Realize That You Have To Watch It From The Audience.

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)

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Language Of Love

I Don't Believe In God. But Sitting There, In A Room Full Of Those Who Feel Otherwise, I Realize That I Do Believe In People. In Their Strength To Help Each Other, And To Thrive In Spite Of The Odds, I Believe That The Extraordinary Trumps The Ordinary, Any Day. I Believe That Having Something To Hope For -- Even If It's Just A Better Tomorrow -- Is The Most Powerful Drug On This Planet.

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The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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

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.

There Had Been So Many Easy Words Between Them That Daniel Was Guilty Of Nodding Every Now And Then And Tuning Out The Excess. He Hadn't Known, At The Time, That He Should Have Been Hoarding These, Like Bits Of Sea Glass Hidden In The Pocket Of A Winter Coat To Remind Him That Once It Had Been Summer.

When You Can Not Find Someone, It Is Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere

Besides The Obvious Difference, There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Best Friend And Losing A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumphs And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside. One Moment, You'd Start To Call Her To Tell Her A Snippet Of News Or To Vent About Your Awful Day Before Realizing You Did Not Have That Right Anymore; The Next, You Could Not Remember The Digits Of Her Phone Number.

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

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

Reason Number 106 Why Dogs Are Smarter Than Humans: Once You Leave The Litter, You Server Contact With Your Mothers.

But I Didn't Frame It; I Put Into An Envelope And Sealed It And Stuffed It Far Back Into A Corner Drawer Of A Filing Cabinet. It's There, Just In Case One Of These Days I Start To Lose Her. There Might Be A Morning When I Wake Up And Her Face Isn't The First Thing I See. Or A Lazy August Afternoon When I Can't Quite Recall Anymore Where The Freckles Were On Her Right Shoulders. Maybe One Of These Days, I Will Not Be Able To Listen To The Sound Of Snow Falling And Hear Her Footsteps.

I Used To Pretend That I Was Just Passing Through This Family On My Way To My Real One.

And If Your Parents Have You For A Reason, Then That Reason Better Exist. Because Once It's Gone, So Are You.

We Sit For A Few More Moments, Although There's Really Nothing Left To Say. This Is New To Me, Too, An Entire Conversation That Takes Place In Silence, Because The Heart Has Its Own Language. I Will Remember What Eric Says Even Though He Doesn't Say A Word. I Will Tell It To Her.

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

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

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Think About It - When You Were Blocked In College And Had To Write A Paper, Didn't It Always Manage To Fix Itself The Night Before The Paper Was Due? Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands.

This Was The Reason There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Didn't Have Words Big Enough To Describe Them.

I Thought Lightning Wasn't Supposed To Strike In The Same Place Twice....sure It Does...but Only If You're Too Dumb To Move.

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.

Just So You Know: If This Ever Happens To You, You Will Not Be Ready.

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.

I Think I Have Sort Of Gravitated Toward Issues That I Don't Know The Answers To, Because That's What's More Interesting For Me To Write.

We Have Been Naive Enough To Believe That We Were Invincible; That We Could Run Blind Through The Hairpin Turns Of Life At Treacherous Speeds And Never Crash.

Add Love, And All The Lines Between Right And Wrong Were Bound To Disappear.

His Hand Is Cool On My Cheek As He Paints A Tear Beneath My Left Eye, Dark Blue And Swollen With Sorrow.

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

She Was Forced To Consider The Startling Fact That The Love Of Her Life Might Not Actually Be Someone With Whom She Could Spend A Lifetime.

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.

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

Ross Held Her Face Between His Hands And Kissed Her. He Tasted Doubt On Her Tongue And Pain On The Roof Of Her Mouth. He Swallowed These, And Drank Again. Consumed, She Had No Choice But To See How Empty He Was Inside, And How, Sip By Sip, She Filled Him.

Mistakes Are Like The Memories You Hide In An Attic: Old Love Letters From Relationships That Tanked, Photos Of Dead Relatives, Toys From A Childhood You Miss. Out Of Sight Is Out Of Mind, But Somewhere Deep Inside You Know They Still Exist. And You Also Know That You're Avoiding Them.

Things Break All The Time. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Promises Break. Hearts Break.

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

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.

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.

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