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

-Jodi Picoult

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I Suddenly Remember Being

Jodi Picoult

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

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

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

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I Don't Understand Why It's A Sin If You Love Something And Want To Keep It From Having To Suffer.

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

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If You Loved Someone, Really Loved Them, Would You Let Them Go?

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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.

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

When You Love Someone

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Somewhere Out There

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I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

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Falling In Love

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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.

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

Listen,” She Said. “i May Not Be What You Want Right Now, But I’m All You’ve Got.

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.

I Have Never Understood Why It Is Called Losing A Child. No Parent Is That Careless. We All Know Exactly Where Our Sons And Daughters Are; We Just Don't Necessarily Want Them To Be There

But If You Seek Forgiveness, Doesn't That Automatically Mean You Cannot Be A Monster? By Definition, Doesn't That Desperation Make You Human Again?

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

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

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Losing Chloe Had Been Like Reading A Wonderfulook Only To Realize That All The Pages Past A Certain Point Were Blank.

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

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.

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

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

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.

If God Wanted Us To Act On Instinct, We Wouldn't Have The Power Of Reason.

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

The Inuit Say That The Stars Are Holes In Heaven. And Every Time We See The People We Loved Shining Through, We Know They're Happy.

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)

The Way I See It, Love Is Just A Bigger, Stickier Form Of Trust.

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.

It Felt Like I'd Been Living Underground, And For A Moment, I'd Been Given This Glimpse Of The Sky. Once You've Seen That, How Can You Go Back Where You Came From?

I Haven't Run Out Of Ideas Yet. Usually While I'm Working On A Book, I'm Doing Research For The Next One!

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.

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

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

My Mother Moves So Fast I Do Not Even See It Coming. But She Slaps My Face Hard Enough To Make My Head Snap Backward. She Leaves A Print That Stains Me Long After It’s Faded. Just So You Know: Shame Is Five-fingered.

That's What Love Is. It's Some Power Greater Than You And Me, That Draws Us To One Special Person

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

Dark Matter Has A Gravitation Effect On Other Objects. You Can't See It, You Can't Feel It, But You Can Watch Something Being Pulled In Its Direction.

If You Didn't Remember Something Happening, Was It Because It Never Had Happened? Or Because You Wished It Hadn't?

Remember Something

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.

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

She Understood What It Was Like To Stand Right In Front Of People You Loved, Even Though They Could Not See You.

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