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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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I Was Starting To

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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What Is The Point Of Trying To Put Down On Paper Emotions That Are Too Complex, Too Huge, Too Overwhelming To Be Confined By An Alphabet? Love Isn't The Only Word That Fails. Hate Does, Too.

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

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

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

You Signed No Contract To Become A Parent, But The Responsibilities Were Written In Invisible Ink. There Was A Point When You Had To Support Your Child, Even If No One Else Would. It Was Your Job To Rebuild The Bridge, Even If Your Child Was The One Who Burned It In The First Place.

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 Sisters Keeper

I Think You Can Love A Person Too Much. You Put Someone Up On A Pedestal, And All Of A Sudden, From That Perspective, You Notice What's Wrong - A Hair Out Of Place, A Run In A Stocking, A Broken Bone. You Spend All Your Time And Energy Making It Right, And All The While, You Are Falling Apart Yourself. You Don't Even Realize What You Look Like, How Far You've Deteriorated, Because You Only Have Eyes For Someone Else.

I Don't Think We Get A Choice In Who We Fall For," Ian Whispers. "i Think We Just Do.

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.

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.

And I Think, Not For The First Time, That What Is Immoral Is Not Always Wrong.

But Then Again, Maybe Bad Things Happen Because It’s The Only Way We Can Keep Remembering What Good Is Supposed To Look Like.

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

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.

How Many Times Would I Throw This Away Before I Realized It Was What I Had Been Looking For All Along?

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

What You Deserve

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.

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

It Feels Like A Punch. Tears Fill My Eyes, And I Wonder How I Could Be Upset Over Losing Something I Never Had.

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.

This Is Love, I Think. A Place Where People Who Have Been Alone May Lock Together Like Hawks And Spin In The Air, Dizzy With Surprise At The Connection. A Place You Go Willingly, And With Wonder

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.

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?

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.

She Told Me She'd Be A Phoenix." The Image Of The Mythical Creature Rising From The Ashes Glitters In My Mind. "they Don't Really Exist." "she Said That Depends On Whether Or Not There's Someone Who Can See Them.

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.

In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Mow The Front Lawn; Color Your Hair; Watch A Third Of A Hockey Game. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Bake Scones Or Get A Tooth Filled By A Dentist; You Can Fold Laundry For A Family Of Five. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Stop The World; Or You Can Just Jump Off It.

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 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.

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.

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.

I Think The 'new York Times' Reviews Overall Tend To Overlook Popular Fiction, Whether You're A Man, Woman, White, Black, Purple Or Pink. I Think There Are A Lot Of Readers Who Would Like To See Reviews That Belong In The Range Of Commercial Fiction Rather Than Making The Blanket Assumption That All Commercial Fiction Is Unworthy.

The Thinnest Slice Would Be Teeming With Memories Of A Love So Strong It Turned You Inside Out And Left You Gasping, And Would Be An Identical Match To A Slice Stored In The Heart Of A Soul Mate.

But You Could Only Remake Your Own Future, Not Anyone Else's, And For Some People That Just Wasn't Good Enough.

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

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.

Did You Ever Think That Maybe What You See Isn't Really What's True?

How Can You Be A Survivor, When You Can't Even Remember The War?

Relationships Always Sounded So Physically Painful: You Fell In Love, You Broke A Heart, You Lost Your Head. Was It Any Wonder That People Came Through The Experience With Battle Scars?

What You Had Could Never Make Up For What You'd Lost.

Lawyers Were Notorious For Finding Cases In The Most Unlikely Places, Especially Ones With Huge Potential Damagers Awards.

If We Don't Change The Direction We Are Headed, We Will End Up Where We Are Going.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

I Wish I Could Tell Him I Understand: The Higher You Raise Your Hopes, The Farther You Have To Fall.

There Were Lies We Told To Save Ourselves, And Then There Were Lies We Told To Rescue Others. What Counted More, The Mistruth, Or The Greater Good?

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.

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

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.

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

Would You Give Up Your Vengeance Against Someone You Hate If It Meant Saving Someone You Love? Would You Want Your Dreams To Come True If It Meant Granting Your Enemy's Dying Wish?

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

Doctors Put A Wall Up Between Themselves And Their Patients; Nurses Broke It Down.

The World Just Feels Different For Those Of Us Who Come Alive After Dark. It's More Fragile And Unreal, A Replica Of The One Everyone Else Inhabits.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

I Knew Her Well Enough To Understand That When Delia Pushed You Away, It Was Her Way Of Making Sure She Didn't Get Shoved First.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Clearly God Was In Some Kind Of Mood On My Birthday.

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

Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.

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Who Spit In Your Porridge?

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

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.

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

I Think...she Said Finally, "that All Of Us Have Got Our Ghosts.

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

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

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)

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.

Home Is Not A Place, But Rather, The People You Love

A Fire Can't Burn Forever. Eventually, It Consumes Itself.

My Sisters Keeper

You Can’t Undo Something That’s Happened; You Can’t Take Back A Word That’s Already Been Said Out Loud.

Whether Or Not Belive In Fate Comes Down To One Thing: Who You Blame When Something Goes Wrong. Do You Think It's Your Fault - That If You'd Tried Better, Worked Harder, It Wouldn't Have Happened? Or Do You Just Chalk It Up To Circumstance? I Know Poeple Who'll Hear About The People Who Died, And Will Say That It Was God's Will. I Know People Who'll Say It Was Bad Luck. And Then There's My Personal Favorite: They Were Just In The Wrong Place At Hte Wrong Time. Then Again, You Could Say The Same Thing About Me, Couldn't You?

That's Why We Read Fiction, Isn't It? To Remind Us That Whatever We Suffer, We're Not The Only Ones?

Words Are Like Nets - We Hope They'll Cover What We Mean, But We Know They Can't Possibly Hold That Much Joy, Or Grief, Or Wonder.

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.

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

All Writers Start With A Layer Of Truth, Don't They? If Not, Their Stories Would Be Nothing But Spools Of Cotton Candy, A Fleeting Taste Wrapped Around Nothing But Air.

History Could Hover, Like A Faint Perfume Or A Memory Stamped On The Back Of One's Eyelids.

When I Was Little, The Great Mystery To Me Was Not How Babies Were Made, But Why?

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.

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

Who I Am, And What I Am Capable Of Doing Has Always Managed To Surprise Me.

I Love Meeting My Readers - So The More I Can Talk To At One Event The Better!

What You Didn't Tell Someone Was Just As Debilitating As What You Did.

Maybe There Is More To A Person Than A Body And A Mind. Maybe Something Else Figures Into The Mix— Not A Soul, Exactly, But A Spirit That Hints You Might One Day Be Greater, Stronger Than You Are Now. A Promise; A Potential.

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?

When You Are Attracted To People, It's Because Of The Details. Their Kindness. Their Eyes. The Fact That They Can Get You To Laugh When You Need It The Most.

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

I Told Myself That If I Didn't Care, This Wouldn't Have Hurt So Much - Surely That Proved I Was Alive And Human And All Those Touchy-feely Things, For Once And For All. But That Wasn't A Relief, Not When I Felt Like A Skyscraper With Dynamite On Every Floor.

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

If I Have Gained Anything Over These Months, It Is The Knowledge There Is No Starting Over - Only Living With The Mistakes You've Made. But Then, Caleb Taught Me Long Ago You Can't Build Anything Without Some Sort Of Foundation. Maybe We Learn To Live Our Lives By Understanding, Firsthand, How Not To Live Them.

Like A Missing Tooth, Sometimes An Absence Is More Noticeable Than A Presence.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Used To Believe Everything My Brother Told Me, Because He Was Older And I Figured He Knew More About The World. But As It Turns Out, Being A Grown-up Doesn’t Mean You’re Fearless. It Just Means You Fear Different Things.

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.

There's A Problem With Wounded Birds, Cassie," Connor Said. "either They Fly Away From You One Day, Or Else They Never Get Better. They Stay Hurt No Matter What You Do.

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.

You Can Tell Yourself That You Would Be Willing To Lose Everything You Have In Order To Get Something You Want. But It's A Catch-22: All Of Those Things You're Willing To Lose Are What Make You Recognizable. Lose Them, And You've Lost Yourself.

I Only Just Found You, I Can't Lose You Now

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

No," He Said Calmly, Filled With Purpose. He Took Her Arms Lightly In His Hands And Shook Her. "i Am Not Giving You Up." Emily Looked At Him, And For Just A Moment He Could Read Her Thoughts. Melanie Use To Say They Were Like Twins, With Their Own Secret, Silent Language. In That Instant, Chris Felt Her Fear And Her Resignation, And The Knotty Pain Of Coming Up Against A Brick Wall Again And Again. She Glanced Away, And He Could Breathe Again. "the Thing Is, Chris" Emily Said, "it's Not Your Choice.

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.

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together.

Changing The World

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.

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

Love Meant Jumping Off A Cliff And Trusting That A Certain Person Would Be There To Catch You At The Bottom.

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?

Why Is It That Only In The Very Beginnings Of A Relationship Are You Aware Of The Heat Coming From Inside A Person, Of The Number Of Inches You Would Have To Move For Your Shoulders To Brush As If It Were An Accident?

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.

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

Falling In Love

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

There Are All Sorts Of Experiences We Can't Really Put A Name To...the Birth Of A Child, For One. Or The Death Of A Parent. Falling In Love. Words Are Like Nets--we Hope They'll Cover What We Mean, But We Know They Can't Possibly Hold That Much Joy, Grief, Or Wonder. Finding God Is Like That, Too. If It's Happened To You, You Know What It Feels Like. But Try To Describe It To Someone Else--and Language Only Takes You So Far.

Falling In Love

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.

Because Hate's Just The Flip Side Of Love. Like Heads And Tails On A Dime. If You Don't Know What It Feels Like To Love Someone, How Would You Know What Hate Is? One Can't Exist Without The Other.

I Learned A Lot That Night. For Example, That Part Of Being The Magician's Assistant Means Coming Face-to-face With Illusion. That Invisibility Is Really Just Knotting Your Body In A Certain Way And Letting The Black Curtain Fall Over You. That People Don't Vanish Into Thin Air; That When You Can't Find Someone, It's Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere.

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.

Things Don't Always Look As They Seem.

I Always Hated When My Scars Started To Fade, Because As Long As I Could Still See Them, I Knew Why I Was Hurting.

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

When You Finally Start To Write Something, Do Not Let Yourself Stop...even When You Are Convinced It's The Worst Garbage Ever. This Is The Biggest Caveat For Beginning Writers. Instead, Force Yourself To Finish What You Began, And Then Go Back And Edit It.

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

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

Dylan Jerome," The Lawyer Admits, "wanted To Sue God For Not Caring Enough About Him.

You Can't Pay A Landlord In Dogma.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Be Truly Popular, It Has To Look Like Something You Are, When In Reality, It's What You Make Yourself.

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.

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.

The Woman Who Opens The Door Has A Blue Stain On Her Shirt And Dark Hair Wound Into A Messy Knot And The Most Beautiful Eyes I Have Ever Seen. They're Pale, Like A Lioness's, Nearly Golden, But They Also Look Like They've Done Their Fair Share Of Crying, And We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn't Have Any.

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

Knowing Who You Are

Where You Belong

What If The One I Choose To Discount Is One Who Has Been Truly Hurt?

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.

Talking Out Loud To Fictional Characters Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg.

Tip Of The Iceberg

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

There Are Just As Many Stories To Be Told In The Dark Spots S There Are In The Bright Ones.

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

You Know Why I Think We Still Execute People? Because, Even If We Don't Want To Say It Out Loud-for The Really Heinous Crimes, We Want To Know That There's A Really Heinous Punishment. Simple As That. We Want To Bring Society Closer Together-huddle And Circle Our Wagons-and That Means Getting Rid Of People We Think Are Incapable Of Learning A Moral Lesson. I Guess The Question Is: Who Gets To Identify Those People? And What If, God Forbid, They Got It Wrong?

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

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?

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

If You Read A Book That's Fiction And You Get Caught In The Characters And The Plot, And Swept Away, Really, By The Fiction Of It - By The Non-reality - You Sometimes Wind Up Changing Your Reality As Well. Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.

It Was Possible That A Miracle Was Not Something That Happened To You, But Rather Something That Didn’t.

I Could Think Whatever I Wanted To, But Realized That Any Promises I Made Myself Were Destined To Be Broken.

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

In Half Hour My Mother Has Managed To Give Me What My Father Couldn't: My Past.

I Know You Love Me. The Question Is, How Much?

I Know You Love Me

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

I Don't Want To Make The Same Mistake Twice. I Don't Want To Tell Myself It's Over When It's Not.

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.

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.

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.

Envy, After All, Comes From Wanting Something That Isn't Yours. But Grief Comes From Losing Something You've Already Had.

No One Gets To Start Where They Left Off; It Just Doesn't Work That Way.

Hunger, She Often Tells Me, Has Nothing To Do With The Belly And Everything To Do With The Mind. What Mary Really Runs Isn't A Bakery, But A Community.

[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.

The Problem Was, You Couldn't Have One Without The Other. There Couldn't Be A Bad Guy Unless There Was A Good Guy To Create The Standard. And There Couldn't Be A Good Guy Until A Bad Guy Showed Just How Far Off The Path He Might Stray.

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

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

Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.

You Make Yourself Strong Because It's Expected Of You. You Become Confident Because Someone Beside You Is Unsure. You Turn Into The Person Others Need You To Be.

It Is So Easy To Presume That While Your Own World Has Ground To An Absolute Halt, So Has Everyone Else's.

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.

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 Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.

Falling In Love

They Ask, How Could This Happen Here? Well. How Could It Not Happen Here?

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

You Keep Distracting Me,” I Tell Her. “all I’m Doing Is Sitting Here Talking To You!” “exactly,” I Say, And I Smile At Her.j

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

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

The Lord Turned Water Into Wine. All I'm Suggesting Is A Trip To The Grocery Store.

You Can Believe Something Really Hard,' Faith Says, 'and Still Be Wrong.

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.

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

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