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I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?

-Jodi Picoult

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I Thought Of All

Jodi Picoult

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I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?

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

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.

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

Human Condition

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

Safety Is Relative. You Can Be So Close To Shore That You Can Practically Feel It Under Your Feet, When You Suddenly Find Yourself Breaking Apart On The Rocks.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

Maybe You Expected Marriage To Be Perfect - I Guess That's Where You And I Are Different. See, I Thought It Would Be All About Making Mistakes, But Doing It With Someone Who's There To Remind You What You Learned Along The Way.

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

I Grew Up In A Household Where We Didn't Really Talk About Our Feelings, And Where The Only Reason You Went To A Doctor Was Because You'd Accidentally Cut Off A Limb With A Chain Saw.

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

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

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.

People Changed. Even The People You Thought You Knew As Well As You Knew Yourself.

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

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

When Was The Last Time Someone Read Aloud To You? Probably When You Were A Child, And If You Think Back, You'll Remember How Safe You Felt, Tucked Under The Covers, Or Curled In Someone's Arms, As A Story Was Spun Around You Like A Web.

A Public Persona That Might Be Different From What We Truly Feel Inside... Everyone Wonders If They Are Good Enough, Smart Enough, Pretty Enough, No Matter How Old They Are. It Is An Archetypical Moral Dilemma - Do You Act Like Yourself And Risk Becoming An Outcast?

The More You Get Past Pain, The More It Goes From Coal To Diamond.

But I Think Half The Battle Is Figuring Out What Works For You, And I Am Much Better At Being A Mother Than I Ever Would Have Been As A Lawyer. 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 Sister's Keeper

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

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.

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.

Extraordinary Things Are Always Hiding In Places People Never Think To Look.

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

My Sisters Keeper

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

As Anyone Who's Ever Contracted It Knows, Lies Are An Infectious Disease. They Slip Under The Almond Slivers Of Your Fingernails And Into Your Bloodstream.

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.

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

This Is What I Like About Photographs. They're Proof That Once, Even If Just For A Heartbeat, Everything Was Perfect.

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

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

As For His Name, Well, What Attorney Wouldn't Want To Be Able Put A Judge In A Crate Every Now And Then?

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 Would Figure Out, Later, How To Explain To My Boss That, For Me, Delia Will Never Be A Story, But A Happy Ending.

I Don't Have To Live The Lives Of My Characters To Write About Them. It's About Really Putting Yourself In Their Shoes.

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

When You Don't Fit In, You Become Superhuman. You Can Feel Everyone Else's Eyes On You, Stuck Like Velcro. You Can Hear A Whisper About You From A Mile Away. You Can Disappear, Even When It Looks Like You're Still Standing Right There. You Can Scream, And Nobody Hears A Sound. You Become The Mutant Who Fell Into The Vat Of Acid, The Joker Who Can't Remove His Mask, The Bionic Man Who's Missing All His Limbs And None Of His Heart. You Are The Thing That Used To Be Normal, But That Was So Long Ago, You Can't Even Remember What It Was Like.

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

Once You Had Put The Pieces Back Together, Even Though You May Look Intact, You Were Never Quite The Same As You'd Been Before The Fall.

The First Question She Was Asked Was What Do You Do? As If That Were Enough To Define You. Nobody Ever Asked You Who You Really Were, Because That Changed. You Might Be A Judge Or A Mother Or A Dreamer. You Might Be A Loner Or A Visionary Or A Pessimist. You Might Be The Victim, And You Might Be The Bully. You Could Be The Parent, And Also The Child. You Might Wond One Day And Heal The Next.

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 Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.

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

You’ll Tell Yourself Anything You Have To, To Pretend That You’re Still The One In Control.

I Adore The Way He Looks At Me Sometimes, As If Love Is A Quantity He Cannot Measure Scientifically, Because It Multiplies Too Quickly.

Love Is Not An Equation, It Is Not A Contract, And It Is Not A Happy Ending. Love Is The Slate Under The Chalk, The Ground That Buildings Rise, And The Oxygen In The Air. It Is The Place You Come Back To, No Matter Where Your Headed

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.

You Need To Learn To Write On Demand, And To Get Critiqued Without Flinching. When Someone Can Rip Your Work To Shreds Without It Feeling As Though Your Arm Has Been Hacked Off, You're Ready To Send Your Novel Off To An Agent.

I Have Never Fit Into This Town, This Marriage, This Skin. I Am The Child Who Was Picked Last To Play Tag; I Am The Girl Who Laughed Although She Did Not Get The Joke; I Am The Piecemeal Part Of You That You Pretend Doesn't Exist, Except It Is All I Am, All The Time.

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

Writing Workshop

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.

Fiction Comes In All Shapes And Sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We All Tell Them. Sometimes,because We Hope To Entertain. Sometimes,because We Need To Distract. And Sometimes, Because We Have To.

Most People In America Want An Easy Read. I Call It Mcfiction - Books Which Pass Right Through You Without You Even Digesting Them. I Don't Mean A Book That Has Two-syllable Words. I Mean Chapters You Can Read In A Toilet Break. Happy Endings. We Are More Of A Tv Culture.

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

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.

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

The Doctors May Be Mapping Out The War Games, But It Is The Nurses Who Make The Conflict Bearable.

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

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

But Still, It Looked Completely Natural, As If We Had Been Kissing At The Ends Of Sentences For Ages, While The Rest Of The World Was Still Hung Up On Punctuation.

But Will You Miss Me? More Importantly - Will I Miss You? Does Either One Of Us Really Want To Hear The Answer To That Question?

Sometimes Words Are Not Big Enough To Contain All The Feelings You Are Trying To Pour Into Them.

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

I Don’t Think Anyone Who Falls In Love Has A Choice. You’re Just Pulled To That Person Like True North, Whether It’s Good For You Or Bound To Break Your Heart.

Falling In Love

It Was One Thing To Make A Mistake; It Was Another Thing To Keep Making It. I Knew What Happened When You Let Yourself Get Close To Someone, When You Started To Believe They Loved You: You'd Be Disappointed. Depend On Someone, And You Might As Well Admit You're Going To Be Crushed, Because When You Really Needed Them, They Wouldn't Be There. Either That, Or You'd Confide In Them And You Added To Their Problems. All You Ever Really Had Was Yourself, And That Sort Of Sucked If You Were Less Than Reliable.

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.

You Can't Look Back - You Just Have To Put The Past Behind You, And Find Something Better In Your Future.

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

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.

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.

Instead Of Plotting The Demise Of The Traditional Family, As Some Politicians And Religious Leaders Would Have You Believe, Gay People Mow Their Lawns And Watch 'american Idol' And Video Their Children's Concerts And Have The Same Hopes And Dreams That Their Straight Counterparts Do.

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

Sometimes We Don't Know We're Dreaming; We Can't Even Fathom That We're Asleep.

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?

It Just Goes To Show You: You Can Put Nine Insane Miles Between You And Another Person. You Can Make A Vow To Never Speak His Name. You Can Surgically Remove Someone From Your Life. And Still, He'll Haunt You.

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

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.

When You Are A Kid You Have Your Own Language, And Unlike French Or Spanish Or Whatever You Start Learning In Fourth Grade, This One You Are Born With, And Eventually Lose...kids Think With Their Brains Cracked Wide Open; Becoming An Adult...is Only A Slow Sewing It Shut.

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.

Infatuation's Just Another Word For Not Seeing Clearly. When You Start To Love A Person- That's When They Become Real

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.

It Was The First Time She'd Discovered Something She Really Didn't Want To Find, And She Didn't Know What To Do Once She'd Found It.

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.

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

I Have The Most Devoted And Loyal Following. I Could Probably Type Up My Grocery List And They'd All Want To Read It. I Love That They're Willing To Let Me Go Wherever I Need To Go As An Author, And They're Happy To Come Along For The Ride As The Reader.

Everyone Thinks You Make Mistakes When You're Young. But I Don't Think We Make Any Fewer When We're Grown Up

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.

I Truly Believed That The Cost Of Success For Us Shouldn't Be The Cost Of Failure For A Good Friend.

I've Been An Idiot To Think That Real Life Could Have A Happy Ending

Then They Scrambled Through The Window And Into The Darkness, Determined To Turn Themselves Into What They Were Not.

I Know Better Than Most People That A Criminal Isn't Always A Thug In A Black Leather Jacket With A Big Brand On His Forehead To Warn Us Away. Criminals Sit Next To Us On The Bus. They Pack Our Groceries And Cash Our Paychecks For Us And Teach Our Children. They Look No Different From You Or Me. And That's Why They Get Away With It.

Leather Jackets

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.

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

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?

You Are Only As Invincible As Your Smallest Weakness, And Those Are Tiny Indeed - The Length Of A Sleeping Baby's Eyelash, The Span Of A Child's Hand. Life Turns On A Dime, And - It Turns Out - So Does One's Conscience.

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 Look For Places Like Me: Big, Hollow, Forgotten By Most Everyone.

They're Fake Bullets, So Why Do I Feel Like Im Bleeding Out?

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.

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.

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

I Shouldn't Have Eavesdropped, But Sometimes, That's The Only Way To Find Out The Truth.

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

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.

The Way I Challenge Myself Is By Writing Something That Really Engages Me, That Doesn't Have An Easy Answer, And Isn't Always An Easy Book To Write.

...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.

When It Comes To Memories, The Good And The Bad Never Balance.

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

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

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)

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

She Wondered If This Was True Of Every Parent: If, Prior To Having Children, They All Used To Be Someone Else.

I Wonder If What Makes A Family A Family Isn't Doing Everything Right All The Time But, Instead, Giving A Second Chance To The People You Love Who Do Things Wrong.

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.

Frankly, I Wonder Who Frank Was, And Why He Has An Adverb All To Himself.

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.

What You Notice Is The Loneliness. Daniel Started To Isolate Himself, Because It Hurt Less Than Being Pushed Away.

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

It's Just Like Nurses In A Hospital Tend To Know More Than The Doctors Most Of The Time; If You Really Want To Get The Answers To A Question About Court, You Should Spend More Time Buttering Up The Clerks Than The Judges.

In Fairytales, When The Mask Came Off, The Handsome Prince Still Loved The Girl, No Matter What -and That Alone Would Turn Her Into A Princess.

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

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

How Could You Not Want To Draw Breath One More Day? How Could Your Own Life Be Such A Cheap Commodity? But Then I Started To Understand: When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

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

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

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.

She Was All The Things I Wasn't. And I Was All The Things She Wasn't. She Could Paint Circles Around Anyone; I Couldn't Even Draw A Straight Line. She Was Never Into Sports; I've Always Been. Her Hand, It Fit Mine.

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

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

How Could You Beat An Enemy You Couldn't See?

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

May I Ask You Something?" I Say. "why Do You Read Books, When You Could Be Outside, Living A Million Different Adventures Every Day?" "because You Can Always Count On A Book To Stay The Same. Everything Else Changes When You Least Expect It," She Replies, Bitter. "families Split Apart, And Nothing's Forever. In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

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.

There Was, Really, Nothing You Could Use As A Blueprint For Your Life, Except Your Past. There Was No Starting Over. There Was Only Picking Up The Pieces Someone Had Left Behind.

There Are Millions Of People In The World, And The Spirits Will See That Most Of Them You Never Have To Meet. But There Are One Or Two You Are Tied To, And The Spirits Will Cross You Back And Forth, Threading So Many Knots Until They Catch And You Finally Get It Right.

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

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.

Sometimes When You Pick Up Your Child You Can Feel The Map Of Your Own Bones Beneath Your Hands, Or Smell The Scent Of Your Skin In The Nape Of His Neck. This Is The Most Extraordinary Thing About Motherhood - Finding A Piece Of Yourself Separate And Apart That All The Same You Could Not Live Without.

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.

It Took Me A Lifetime To Realizethings Don't Get Lost If They Don't Have Value- You Don't Miss What You Don't Care About.

I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?

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

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

Your Problem Is That You Have Been Too Honest For Too Long. Once You Start Doing It, Lying Is Simpler Than Breathing.

I Wonder If Other Mothers Feel A Tug At Their Insides, Watching Their Children Grow Up Into The People They Themselves Wanted So Badly To Be.

You Know How Sometimes, Your Life Is So Perfect You’re Afraid For The Next Moment, Because It Couldn’t Possibly Be Quite As Good? That’s What It Felt Like.

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

Any Time You Put On The Mouthpiece Of Somebody That You're Not, There's A Professional Responsibility To Get It Right. I Did A Great Deal Of Research In Both Of Those Arenas.

Many People Have A Novel Inside Them, But Most Don't Bother To Get It Out.

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.

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

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

Did You Ever Walk Through A Room That's Packed With People, And Feel So Lonely You Can Hardly Take The Next Step?

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

Stem Cell Research Has Become Such A Polarizing Issue In America... And I Wanted To Bring It Down To The Personal Level, Instead Of The Political.

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

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

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

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.

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.

With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

Peter Was, Simply, What A Person Would Look Like If You Boiled Down The Most Raw Emotions And Filtered Them Of Any Social Contract. If You Hurt, Cry. If You Rage, Strike Out. If You Hope, Get Ready For A Disappointment.

It Is So Strange, To Encounter An Ex. It's As If You're In A Foreign Film, And What You're Saying Face-to-face Has Nothing To Do With The Subtitles Flowing Beneath You. We Are So Careful Not To Touch, Although Once Upon A Time, I Slept Plastered To Him In Our Bed, Like Lichen On A Rock. We Are Two Strangers Who Knows Every Shameful Secret, Every Hidden Freckle, Every Fatal Flaw In Each Other.

Once Upon A Time

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?

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

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

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

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

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

The Joke's On Them. One Little Hypodermic Wont' Be Enough. Split A Piece Of Wood, And They'll Find Me. Lift Up A Stone, And They'll Find Me. Look In The Mirror, And They'll Find Me...if You Really Want To Know What Makes Someone A Killer, Ask Yourself What Would Make You Do It.

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

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

You Have To Understand What You’re Missing Before You Can Really Feel A Loss.

Africa - You Can See A Sunset And Believe You Have Witnessed The Hand Of God. You Watch The Slope Lope Of A Lioness And Forget To Breathe. You Marvel At The Tripod Of A Giraffe Bent To Water. In Africa, There Are Iridescent Blues On The Wings Of Birds That You Do Not See Anywhere Else In Nature. In Africa, In The Midday Heart, You Can See Blisters In The Atmosphere. When You Are In Africa, You Feel Primordial, Rocked In The Cradle Of The World.

No Child Really Chooses His Religion; It Is Just The Luck Of The Draw Which Blanket Of Beliefs You Are Wrapped In.

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

Be Kind To Others Before You Take Care Of Yourself; Make Whoever You're With Feel Like They Matter.

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.

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

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

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.

Peter Curled His Hands Into Fists At His Sides. 'kiss Me,' He Said. She Leaned Towards Him Slowly, Until Her Face Was Too Close To Be In Focus. Her Hair Fell Over Peter's Shoulder Like A Curtain And Her Eyes Closed. She Smelled Like Autumn-like Apple Cider And Slanting Sun And The Snap Of The Coming Cold. He Felt His Heart Scrambling, Caught Inside The Confines Of His Own Body. Josie's Lips Landed Just On The Edge Of His, Almost His Cheek And Not Quite His Mouth. 'i'm Glad I Wasn't Stuck In Here Alone,' She Said Shyly, And He Tasted The Words, Sweet As Mint On Her Breath.

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

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.

Change Is A Funny Thing. We Never Are Quite Sure What We Are Becoming Or Even Why. Then One Day We Look At Ourselves And Wonder Who We Are And How We Got That Way. Only One Thing About Change Remains Constant...it Is Always Painful

Motherhood Is A Sisyphean Task. You Finish Sewing One Seam Shut, And Another Rips Open. I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

Why Are You Doing This To Yourself? When Something Bad Happens, Why Do You Have To Pick At It Until It Bleeds All Over Again?

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

She's Not Like Anyone I've Ever Seen Before. When I'm Not With Her, I Want To Be. And When She Opens The Book And I See Her Face, I Can Barely Remember What I'm Supposed To Say, Much Less How To Speak At All." I Test The Words On My Tongue. "i Think I Might Be In Love With Her. But How Can I Really Know, Since The Only Love I've Ever Experienced Was Written For Me?

I Wonder If You've Got A Minute." I Have Many Minutes, All Of Them Used Toward A Common Purpose.

Imagine A World That Seemed So Much Bigger Than You. Imagine Waking Up One Morning And Finding A Piece Of Yourself You Didn't Even Know Existed.

My Mother Walks Forward. She's Crying, But There's A Smile On Her Face. For God's Sake, Is It Any Wonder I Can't Ever Understand What You People Are Feeling?

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.

I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.

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