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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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I Think A Persons

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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Power Isn't About Doing Something Terrible To Someone Who's Weaker Than You, Reiner. It's Having The Strength To Do Something Terrible, And Choosing Not To.

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

Perhaps He D Always Known That The Truth Of A Person Lies In The Heart.

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?

This Must Be What An Addict Feels Like, I Think, Trying To Fight The Pull Of One Last, Quick Read. My Fingers Itch Toward The Binding, And Finally, With A Sigh Of Regret, I Just Grab The Book And Open It, Hungrily Reading The Story.

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.

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

Remember Something

I Could Not Remember My First Kiss, But I Could Have Told You Charlotte Would Be My Last.

When You Love Someone - When You Create A Child With Him - You Don't Just Suddenly Lose That Bond. Like Any Other Energy, It Can't Be Destroyed, Just Channeled Into Something Else.

When You Love Someone

Traveling Is All Very Well And Good As Long As You Knew There Is A Place Or Person You Can Call Home

How Do You Tell An Adult That Maybe Everything Wrong In The World Stems From The Fact That She's Stopped Believing The Impossible Can Happen?

I Had The Heart Of The Relationship, And No Body To Grow It In... It Broke.

You Know, Sage, Jesus Didn't Tell Us To Forgive Everyone. He Said Turn The Other Cheek, But Only If You The One Who Was Hit. Even The Lord's Prayer Says It Loud And Clear: Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us. Not Others. What Jesus Challenges Us To Do Is To Let Go Of The Wrong Done To You Personally, Not The Wrong Done To Someone Else. But Most Christians Incorrectly Assume That This Means That Being A Good Christian Means Forgiving All Sins, And The Sinners.

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

I Loved Alex So Much That It Was Easier To Let Him Hurt Me Than To Watch Him Hurt Himself.

And He Suddenly Knew That If She Killed Herself, He Would Die. Maybe Not Immediately, Maybe Not With The Same Blinding Rush Of Pain, But It Would Happen. You Couldn't Live For Very Long Without A Heart.

You Get Through It, You Just Never Get Over It

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

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 Think People Do Things All The Time In The Name Of Love That They Shouldn't Be Doing - Such Is The Nature Of Us.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Things Don't Always Look As They Seem.

The Act Of Writing... Is The Act Of Trying To Understand Why My Opinion Is What It Is. And Ultimately, I Think That's The Same Experience The Reader Has When They Pick Up One Of My Books.

That,” She Says, “was Never Here Before.

My Mother Used To Tell Me That When Push Comes To Shove, You Always Know Who To Turn To. That Being A Family Isn't A Social Construct But An Instinct.

People Are Always Afraid Of The Unknown - And Banding Together Against The Thing That Is Different From Us Is A Time-honoured Tradition For Rallying The Masses.

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

I Think Her Flaws Make Me Love Her Even More. She's Not Perfect, But She's Perfect To Me

It Is Strange To Think That We Might Have Crossed Paths, And Still Not Have Known What We Were Missing.

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

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.

Annie Turned Away, Her Eyes Glittering. 'here's What No One Tells You,' She Said. 'when You Deliver A Fetus, You Get A Death Certificate, But Not A Birth Certificate. And Afterward, Your Milk Comes In, And There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.' She Looked Up At Me. 'you Can't Win. Either You Have The Baby And Wear Your Pain On The Outside, Or You Don't Have The Baby, And You Keep That Ache In You Forever. I Know I Didn't Do The Wrong Thing. But I Don't Feel Like I Did The Right Thing, Either.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are So Many Things I Can't Believe. That People Deserve What They Get, Both Bad And Good. That One Day I'll Live In A World Where People Are Judged By What They Do Instead Of Who They Are. That Happy Endings Don't Have Contingencies And Conditions.

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 Know What It's Like When The Things You Believe Make You Feel Like You're On The Outside Looking In.

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.

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.

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.

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

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.

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.

Ross Believed In Past Lives. Moreover, He Believed That The Person You Fell In Love With In Each Life Was The Same Person You Fell In Love With In The Life Before, And The One Before That. Sometimes, You Might Miss Her - She'd Be Reborn In Post-world War I Generation, And You Wouldn't Come Back Until The Fifties. Sometimes, Your Paths Would Cross And You Wouldn't Recognize Each Other. Get It Right - That Is: Fall Madly, Truly, Deeply - And Perhaps There'd Be An Eternity Carved Out Solely For The Two Of You.

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

It's Choice That Makes Us Human.

If You Choose To Be Looking For Something, You'd Better Be Ready For Whatever It Is You Are Find. Because It May Not Be What You've Been Expecting.

Anyone Can Understand Anything. You Just Have To Know How To Present Your Information.

The Bottom Line In Both Cases Is That People Don't Change; That No Matter How Charming You Are And How Fiercely You Love, You Cannot Turn A Person Into Something She's Not.

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.

The First Time She Kissed Me, I Truly Thought I'd Had An Aneurysm - My Pulse Was Thundering So Loud And My Senses Were Exploding. This, I Remember Thinking, The Only Word I Could Hold On To In A Sea Of Feelings.

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

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."

People Work Too Hard To Figure Out The Meaning Of Their Lives. Why Me, Why Now. The Truth Is, Sometimes Things Don't Happen To You For A Reason. Sometimes It's Just About Being In The Right Place At The Right Time For Someone Else.

Unlike Elise, Who Could Discover Parts Of A Person They Didn't Even Know Were Absent, You Specialized In Tangible, But That, I Feared, Was Only A Matter Of Time.

A Photo Says, You Were Happy, And I Wanted To Catch That. A Photo Says, You Were So Important To Me That I Put Down Everything Else To Come Watch.

My Sisters Keeper

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

The Only Difference Between A Wish And A Prayer Is That You're At The Mercy Of The Universe For The First, And You've Got Some Help With The Second.

The Problem Isn’t With Rock Lyrics, It’s With The Fabric Of This Society Itself.

I Love Feeling Loved. I Don't Love Knowing That I Will Always Come In Second Place. I Love The Fact That At Least Sometimes When I Am In My Home, I'm Not Alone. I Don't Love The Fact That It's Not Always. I Love Not Having To Answer To Him. I Don't Love That He Doesn't Answer To Me. I Love The Way I Feel When I Am With Him. I Don't Love The Way I Feel When I'm Not.

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

The Act Of Reading Is A Partnership. The Author Builds A House, But The Reader Makes It A Home.

My Favorite Part Of Any Event Is A Q&a. I Do Get Asked A Lot Of The Same Questions But Every Now And Then Someone Surprises Me - And I Love That.

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

You Don't Make A Friend," Jacob Said With A Scowl. "it's Not Like They Come With Directions Like You'd Find On A Box Of Macaroni And Cheese.

The Bottom Line Is That We Never Fall For The People We're Supposed To.

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

What Could It Be Like To Find Out, In A Matter Of Minutes, That The Person You Believed The Sun Rose And Set On Was Not The Person You'd Thought?

If You End Your Story, It's A Static Work Of Art, A Finite Circle. But If You Don't, It Belongs To Anyone's Imagination. It Stays Alive Forever.

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.

Summertime, I Think, Is A Collective Unconscious. We All Remember The Notes That Made Up The Song Of The Ice Cream Man; We All Know What It Feels Like To Brand Our Thighs On A Playground Slide That's Heated Up Like A Knife In A Fire; We All Have Lain On Our Backs With Our Eyes Closed And Our Hearts Beating Across The Surface Of Our Lids, Hoping That This Day Will Stretch Just A Little Longer Than The Last One, When In Fact It's All Going In The Other Direction.

What We All Want, Really, Is To Be Loved. That Craving Drives Our Worst Behavior.

At 17, The Smallest Crises Took On Tremendous Proportions; Someone Else's Thoughts Could Take Root In The Loam Of Your Own Mind; Having Someone Accept You Was As Vital As Oxygen. Adults, Light Years Away From This, Rolled Their Eyes And Smirked And Said, 'this Too Shall Pass' - As If Adolescence Was A Disease Like Chicken Pox, Something Everyone Recalled As A Milk Nuisance, Completely Forgetting How Painful It Had Been At The Time.

Love Is Not A Because, It's A No Matter What.

Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It. There Is Always Another Appointment To Be Met, Another Bill To Pay, Another Symptom Presenting, Another Uneventful Day To Be Notched Onto The Wooden Wall. We Have Synchronized Our Watches, Studied Our Calendars, Existed In Minutes, And Completely Forgotten To Step Back And See What We've Accomplished.

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

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.

Many Trees Have Died So That The Catholic Church Can Preach Against Homosexuality.

Imagine If You Were The Positive Pole Of A Magnet, And You Were Told That Under No Circumstances Were You Allowed To Touch That Negative Pole That Was Sucking You In Like A Black Hole. Or If You Crawled Out Of The Desert And Found A Woman Standing With A Pitcher Of Ice Water, But She Held It Out Of Your Reach. Imagine Jumping Off A Building, And Then Being Told Not To Fall. That's What It Feels Like To Want A Drink.

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

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.

The Right Idea Is The One You Can't Stop Thinking About; The One That's In Your Head First Thing In The Morning.

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.

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

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

Human Condition

That's What Happens To Dreams, Life Gets In The Way.

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.

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.

It It Strange, Suddenly Having A Memory Come Back Out Of Nowhere. You Think You're Going Crazy; You Wonder Where This Recollection Has Been Hiding All Your Life. You Try To Push It Away, Because You Think You've Hammered Out The Whole Timeline Of Your Life, But Then You See That One Extra Moment, And Suddendly You Are Breaking Apart What You Though Was A Solid Segment, And Seeing It For What It Is: Just A String Of Events, Shoulder To Shoulder, And A Gap Where There Is Room For One More.

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.

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

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.

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.

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

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

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.

What If It Turns Out That A Life Isn’t Defined By Who You Belong To Or Where You Came From, By What You Wished For Or Whom You’ve Lost, But Instead By The Moments You Spend Getting From Each Of These Places To The Next?

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

Did You Ever Wonder If The Person In The Picture Is The Same One You See When You Look In The Mirror?" - "that's The Eternal Question, Isn't It? Are We Born Who We Are, Or Do We Make Ourselves That Way?

I'm Grateful For My Children, Who Are Slowly Emerging To Become Their Own Wonderful, Interesting, Compassionate Young Adults - Which Makes Me Believe That Along The Way I Must Have Done Something Right.

In My Previous Life I Was A Civil Attorney. At One Point I Truly Believed That Was What I Wanted To Be- But That Was Before I'd Been Handed A Fistful Of Crushed Violets From A Toddler. Before I Understood That The Smile Of A Child Is A Tattoo: Indelible Art.

Forgiving Isn't Something You Do For Someone Else. It's Something You Do For Yourself. It's Saying, 'you're Not Important Enough To Have A Stranglehold On Me.' It's Saying, 'you Don't Get To Trap Me In The Past. I Am Worthy Of A Future.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Sometimes When You Find Something You Didn't Really Realize You Were Looking For, You Just Don't Know How To React.

I Know That There Will Be Other Women, But They Couldn't Compare. Maybe I'll Change, Maybe Love Will Change, But I Think We Were A Once-in-a-lifetime. You Could Never Leave Me; That's Why I Am Not More Upset. You Can't Possibly Break These Feelings. They Stretch, And They Last.

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.

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Most Of Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands. My Mantra Is That You Can Always Edit A Bad Page; You Can't Edit A Blank Page.

I Start By Mulling A Question And Before I Know It, A Whole Drama Is Unfolding In My Head. Often, An Idea Sticks Before I Know What I'm Going To Do With It.

If You Had Grown Up With Me, This Is One Of The Things I Would Have Tried To Teach You: Marry A Man Who Loves You More Than You Love Him. Because I Have Both Now, And When It Is The Other Way Around, There Is No Spell In The World That Can Even Out The Balance.

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

Protect Yourself

I Imagine Having That Sixth Sense, The Certainty That What I'm Looking For Is Within Reach, Even If It's Still Hidden.

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

I Was Starting To See That What Looks Like Garbage From One Angle Might Be Art From Another. Maybe It Did Take A Crisis To Get To Know Yourself; Maybe You Needed To Get Whacked Hard By Life Before You Understood What You Wanted Out Of It.

You Can't Exist In This World Without Leaving A Piece Of Yourself Behind.

Everyone Still Deserves To Have Their Say.

On The Other Hand, I Think Cats Have Asperger's. Like Me, They're Very Smart. And Like Me, Sometimes They Simply Need To Be Left Alone.

The Truth Was, History Repeated Itself On A Daily Basis; Mistakes Were Made Over And Over. People Were Haunted By What They Had Done, And By What They Hadn't Had Time To Do.

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.

Words Are Like Eggs Dropped From Great Heights; You Can No More Call Them Back Than Ignore The Mess They Leave When They Fall.

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

If You Spent Your Life Concentrating On What Everyone Else Thought Of You, Would You Forget Who You Really Were? What If The Face You Showed The World Turned Out To Be A Mask... With Nothing Beneath It?

When A Freedom Is Taken Away From You, I Suppose, You Recognize It As A Privilege, Not A Right.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

You Didn't Get Past Something Like That, You Go Through It -- And For That Reason Alone, I Understood More About Her Than She Ever Would Have Guessed.

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

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.

I Learned A Long Time Ago With You That Folks Who Were Trying To Be Kind Would Rather Do It With A Macaroni-and-cheese Bake Than Any Personal Involvement. You Hand Off A Serving Dish And You've Done Your Job - No Need To Get Personally Involved, And Your Conscience Is Clean. Food Is The Currency Of Aid.

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

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.

Houses Are Cellular Walls; They Keep Our Problems From Bleeding Into Everyone Else's.

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

Sometimes, All It Takes To Become Human Again Is Someone Who Can See You That Way, No Matter How You Present On The Surface.

Everyone Has A Story; Everyone Hides His Past As A Means Of Self-preservation. Some Just Do It Better, And More Thoroughly, Than Others.

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

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

I Tell You This As A Cautionary Tale: Beware Of Getting What You Want. It's Bound To Disappoint You.

Getting What You Want

Cautionary Tales

Newborns Reminded Her Of Tiny Buddhas

Polar North Can't Get Away From A Magnet; The Magnet Finds It, No Matter What.

Memory Is Like Plaster: Peel It Back And You Just Might Find A Completely Different Picture.

Just Because It's Fiction Doesn't Mean It's Any Less True.

You Can’t Keep Yourself From Falling In Love, But You Can Steer Yourself Away From The Wrong People.

Falling In Love

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.

Violence Up Close Has A Smell. Like Copper Blood And Charcoal Burning.

You Don't Make Peace Only With G-d. You Make It With People. Sin Isn't Global. It's Personal. If You Do Wrong To Someone, The Only Way To Fix That Is To Go To That Same Person And Do Right By Him.

Just 'cause You Can't See Me Don't Mean I Gone Away.

Bleeding Heart, He’d Called Her. Well. He Should Know. He’d Been The First To Rip It To Pieces.

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

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

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

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

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.

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.

Where You Come From Does Matter -- But Not Nearly As Much As Where You Are Headed.

If You Want To Love A Parent You Have To Understand The Incredible Investment He Or She Has In You. If You Are A Parent, And You Want To Be Loved, You Have To Deserve It.

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

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.

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

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

It Was A Catch-22: If You Didn’t Put The Trauma Behind You, You Couldn’t Move On. But If You Did Put The Trauma Behind You, You Willingly Gave Up Your Claim To The Person You Were Before It Happened.

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.

One Person's Trauma Is Another's Loss Of Innocence.

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.

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.

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.

Gay Teenagers Are Four Times As Likely To Attempt Suicide As Straight Ones. I Wish They Knew That There's Nothing Wrong With Them; That They Are Just A Different Shade Of Normal.

Words Got In The Way. The Things We Felt The Hardest--like What It Was Like To Have A Boy Touch You As If You Were Made Of Light, Or What It Meant To Be The Only Person In The Room Who Wasn't Noticed--weren't Sentences; They Were Knots In The Wood Of Our Bodies, Places Where Our Blood Flowed Backward. If You Asked Me, Not That Anyone Ever Did, The Only Words Worth Saying Were I'm Sorry.

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.

I Wonder If The Conversations You've Never Had With Someone Count, If You've Been Over Them A Thousand Times In Your Mind.

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.

People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

My Sisters Keeper

Justification Is A Remarkable Thing-takes All Those Solid Lines And Blurs Them, So That Honor Becomes As Supple As A Willow, And Ethics Burst Like Soap Bubbles.

I Have Always Envied People Who Believe Strongly In Religion, People Who Could Face A Tragedy By Praying And Know That It Would Be All Right. As Unscientific As It Seems, Well, It Would Be Nice To Lay The Responsibilities And Pain On Someone Else's Larger Shoulders.

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.

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?

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

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.

We Believe What We Want To, What We Need To. The Corollary Is That We Choose Not To See What We'd Rather Pretend Doesn't Exist.

A Sacrament--like Marriage--means Living A Life Better Than Your Natural Instincts, So That You're Modeling God. And God Never Gives Up.

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