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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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If You Read The

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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More From Jodi Picoult

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

History Tells Us That Six Million Jews Disappeared During That War. If There Was No Holocaust, Where Did They Go?' She Shakes Her Head. 'all Of That, And The World Didn't Learn Anything. Look Around. There's Still Ethnic Cleansing. There's Discrimination.

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.

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

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.

The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face.

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?

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.

People Ask All The Time How I'm Doing, But The Truth Is, They Don't Really Want To Know.

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

Write A Living Will. And Become An Organ Donor!

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

Coop Kissed Me Deeply, Drawing My Breath From Me In A Long, Sweet Ribbon. "perhaps I Haven't Mentioned It, But I'm An Expert When It Comes To First Steps." Are You," I Said. "then Tell Me How." You Close Your Eyes," Coop Answered, "and Jump.

Just Because You Keep Something A Secret Doesn't Mean It Never Happened, No Matter How Much You Want That To Be True.

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

What Does It Feel Like?” He Asked. “what Does What Feel Like?” Peter Thought For A Moment. “being At The Top.” Josie Reached Across Him For Another Packet Of Material And Fed It Into The Stapler. She Did Three Of These, And Peter Was Certain That She Was Going To Ignore Him, But Then She Spoke. “like If You Take One Wrong Step,” She Said, “you’re Going To Fall.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

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

It Was Like Trying To Bail Out An Ocean Of Water With A Teaspoon.

You Want To Write Something As Good As What You've Read.

Why Are Terms Of Endearment Always Food? Honey, Cookie, Sugar, Pumpkin. Its Not Like Caring About Someone Is Enough To Actually Sustain You.

There Are So Many Ways To Betray Someone. You Can Whisper Behind His Back. You Can Deceive Him On Purpose. You Can Deliver Him Into The Hands Of His Enemy, When He Trusts You. You Can Break A Promise. The Question Is, If You Do Any Of Those Things, Are You Also Betraying Yourself?

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.

Don't Pay Back In Kind, Pay Back In Kindness. If Someone Does Wrong By You, Do Right By Them.

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.

There Is No Cosmic Scale On Which You Can Weigh Your Actions; You Learn Too Late What Choices Ruin The Fragile Balance.

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

My Sisters Keeper

He Knew That There Was A Difference Between Something That Makes You Happy And Something That Doesn’t Make You Unhappy. The Trick Was Convincing Yourself These Were One And The Same.

Convincing Yourself

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

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

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

Writing Workshop

There Were Some People Who Hit Your Life So Hard, They Left A Stain On Your Future.

I'm Not Going To Tell A Person How To Think, Don't Believe In That. What I Want To Do, When I Write These Books, Is Just To Say Don't Be So Sure Of Yourself. Let Me Pull The Carpet Out From Underneath You, And Let's See If You Can Still Find The Footing.

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.

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.

You Always Knew After Shitty Things Happened, Who Your Friends Really Were.

Behind Your Back

Men Don't Traipse. We... Swagger

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.

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.

When It's All Over, You're Remembered For What You Did, Not What You Said You Were Going To Do.

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

It Was Always Easier For Me To Show Love Than To Say It. The Word Reminded Me Of Pralines: Small, Precious, Almost Unbearable Sweet. I Would Light Up In His Presence; I Felt Like A Sun In The Constellation Of His Embrace. But Trying To Put What I Felt For Him Into Words Diminished It Somehow, Like Pinning A Butterfly Under Glass, Or Videotaping A Comet.

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

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.

Or. I Hate That Word. It’s Two Letters Long And Stuffed To The Gills With Reasonable Doubt.

For Someone Who Can’t Remember Very Much, There Seems To Be A Lot I Can’t Forget.

I Didn't Think I Could Possibly Love Another Baby As Much As I Loved The One I'd Already Had," I Continue. "but The Strangest Thing Happened When I Held You For The First Time. It Was Like My Heart Suddenly Unfolded. Like There Was This Secret Space I Didn't Even Know Existed, And There Was Room For Both Of You." I Stare At Her. "once My Feelings Were Stretched Like That, There Was No Going Back. Without You, It Just Would Have Felt Empty.

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.

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

What I Mean Is That Those Thoughts, They're Human. And Just Because You Turn Out Differently Than Everyone's Imagined You Would Doesn't Mean That You've Failed In Some Way. A Kid Who Gets Teased In One School Might Move To A Different One, And Be The Most Popular Girl There, Just Because No One Has Any Other Expectations Of Her. Or A Person Who Goes To Med School Because His Entire Family Is Full Of Doctors Might Find Out That What He Really Wants To Be Is An Artist Instead.

Hope And Reality Lie In Inverse Proportions.

When You Have Been Burned By Fire Once, You Don't Leap Into The Flames Again.

The First Person You Fell In Love With Stole Your Heart. The First Person You Made Love With Stole Your Soul. And If These Were One And The Same, You Were Doomed.

Then Henry Speaks Again. "did He Do It?" I Turn To Him Slowly. "does It Matter?

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.

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.

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.

On My License, It Says I'm An Organ Donor, But The Truth Is I'd Consider Being An Organ Martyr. I'm Sure I'm Worth A Lot More Dead Than Alive - The Sum Of The Parts Equal More Than The Whole. I Wonder Who Might Wind Up Walking Around With My Liver, My Lungs, Even My Eyeballs. I Wonder What Poor Asshole Would Get Stuck With Whatever It Is In Me That Passes For A Heart.

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

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

When You Love Someone

You May Be Real, But You're Still Stuck In A Book.

Me, I Was Already Jaded And Tarnished, Skeptical That A Fantasy World Could Keep Reality At Bay.

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.

Since It Had Gotten So Quiet In The Room That You Could Hear The Sound Of Your Own Doubts.

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

He Began To Trace A Pattern On The Table With The Nail Of His Thumb. "she Kept Saying She Wanted To Keep Things Exactly The Way They Were, And That She Wished She Could Stop Everything From Changing. She Got Really Nervous, Like, Talking About The Future. She Once Told Me That She Could See Herself Now, And She Could Also See The Kind Of Life She Wanted To Have - Kids, Husband, Suburbs, You Know - But She Couldn't Figure Out How To Get From Point A To Point B.

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

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

The World Is A Place Where The Extraordinary Can Sit Just Beside The Ordinary With The Thinnest Of Boundaries; That Even In Environments Inhospitable To Man, All Sort Of Entities Might Thrive.

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?

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

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

Every Year I Tell Myself That I’m Not Going To Read Any Reviews And Then I Do. We’re All Human And When I Read Something Negative It Hurts. I Think When You Write It’s Part Of The Game, You’re Going To Get Some Good Reviews And Some Bad Reviews And That’s How It Goes. I Don’t Write For The Reviews.

A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right, Like When You Pop A Piece Of Fancy Chocolate Into Your Mouth Expecting Toffee Filling And You Get Lemon Zest Instead.

I Would Tell Them That When You Look At A Person, You Never Know What The're Hiding.

I Think Grief Is Like A Really Ugly Couch. It Never Goes Away. You Can Decorate Around It; You Can Slap A Doily On Top Of It; You Can Push It To The Corner Of The Room-but Eventually, You Learn To Live With It.

I Realize How Quickly Lies Compound. They Cover Like A Coat Of Paint, One On Top Of The Other, Until You Cannot Remember What Color You Started With.

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

Ross Was A Firm Believer That You Could Not Force Circumstance. You Could Buckle Your Seat Belt, But Still Crash The Car. You Could Throw Yourself In Front Of An Oncoming Train, But Somehow Survive. You Could Wait For Years To Find A Ghost, And Then Have One Sneak Up On You When You Were Too Busy Falling In Love With A Woman To Pay Attention. To That End, He Made The Conscious Decision To Stop Waiting For Lia. When He Least Expected Her, That Was When She Would Show Up.

Falling In Love

Memories Aren't Stored In The Heart Or The Head Or Even The Soul, If You Ask Me, But In The Spaces Between Any Given Two People.

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

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.

Do You Know How Sometimes - When You Are Riding Your Bike And You Start Skidding Across Sand, Or When You Miss A Step And Start Tumbling Down The Stairs - You Have Those Long, Long Seconds To Know That You Are Going To Be Hurt, And Badly?

Riding Your Bike

Risk Always Looks Different When You're Beating The System Than When You've Been Beaten.

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.

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

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

It Is The Things You Cannot See Coming That Are Strong Enough To Kill You.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

Wheather It Is Conscious Or Not, You Eventually Make The Decision To Divide Your Life In Half - Before And After - With Loss Being That Tight Bubble In The Middle. You Can Move Around In Spite Of It; You Can Laugh And Smile And Carry On With Your Life, But All It Takes Is One Slow Range Of Motion, A Doubling Over, To Be Fully Aware Of The Empty Space At Your Center.

And Yet, You Never Knew Wwhat You Were Capable Of Until You Arrived At That Given Moment. Life Was Just A Whole String Of Spots Where You Continued To Surprise Yourself.

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

When The News You Don't Want To Hear Is Looming Before You Like Everest, Two Things Can Happen. Tragedy Can Run You Through Like A Sword, Or It Can Become Your Backbone. Either You Fall Apart And Sob, Or You Say, 'right. What's Next?

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

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

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

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

Sometimes All You Need To Live One More Day Is A Good Reason To Stick Around.

But This Is Inaccurate. A Runaway Train Is An Accident. Me, I'll Jump In Front Of The Tracks. I'll Even Tie Myself Down In Front Of The Speeding Engine. There's Some Illogical Part Of Me Hat Still Believes If You Want Superman To Show Up, First There's Got To Be Someone Worth Saving.

Maybe Mothers - Consciously Or Subconsciously - Repelled Their Daughters In Different Ways.

And Sometimes, He Was Less Lucid. He'd Run Around His Cell Like A Caged Animal; He'd Rock Back And Forth; He'd Swing From Topic To Topic As If It Was The Only Way To Cross The Jungle Of His Thoughts.

Life Was All About Being In A Certain Place, At A Certain Time.

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.

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

It Turns Out That Sharing The Past With Someone Is Different From Reliving It When You’re Alone. It Feels Less Like A Wound, More Like A Poultice.

When Feeling Came Back, In A Storm Of Color And Force And Sensation, The Most You Could Do Was Hold On To The Person Beside You And Hope You Could Weather It. Alex Closed Her Eyes And Expected The Worst-but It Wasn't A Bad Thing; It Was Just A Different Thing. A Messier One, More Complicated One. She Hesitated, And Then She Kissed Patrick Back, Willing To Concede That You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find What You'd Been Missing.

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

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

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.

Was It The Act Of Giving Birth That Made You A Mother? Did You Lose That Label When You Relinquished Your Child? If People Were Measured By Their Deeds, On The One Hand, I Had A Woman Who Had Chosen To Give Me Up; On The Other, I Had A Woman Who'd Sat Up With Me At Night When I Was Sick As A Child, Who'd Cried With Me Over Boyfriends, Who'd Clapped Fiercely At My Law School Graduation. Which Acts Made You More Of A Mother? Both, I Realized. Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

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.

What I Want, More Than Anything, Is To Turn Back Time A Little. To Become The Kid I Used To Be, Who Believed Whatever My Mother Said Was One Hundred Percent True And Right Without Looking Hard Enough To See The Hairline Crack.

And Another Claimed It Was Inherited Through A Parent Who Was A Carrier Of The Defective Gene. I Had Always Assumed The Latter Was The Case With Claire. After All, Surely A Child Who Grew Out Of Grief Would Be Born With A Heavy Heart.

What Made You Happy Once Might Not Make You Happy Now.

...when They Look At Me, I So Badly Want To Be Who They See.

There's A Cliff At The End Point Of A Person's Life; Most Us Of Peer Over The Edge Of It, Hanging On. That's Why, When Someone Chooses To Let Go, It's So Dramatically Visible. The Body Will Seem Almost Transparent. The Eys Will Be Looking At Something The Rest Of Us Can't See.

I Imagine How Cool It Would Be If All Small Talk Wasn't Lies.

I Don't Know What It Is About Death That Makes It So Hard. I Suppose It's The One-sided Communication; The Fact That We Never Get To Ask Our Loved One If She Suffered, If She Is Happy Wherever She Is Now...if She Is Somewhere. It's The Question Mark That Comes With Death That We Can't Face, Not The Period.

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.

If It's Us", She Whispered, "how Come You Get To Decide?" When He Didn't Answer - Couldn't Answer - She Turned And Stared Out The Front Window. As It Turned Out, They Were Still In The Parking Lot. They Hadn't Gotten Anywhere At All.

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.

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

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

I Remember For That One Moment, I Believe I Was Hitch Hiking On One Of Those Comets, Falling So Fast That I'd Surely Burn Away Before I Ever Hit The Ground.

See, As Much As You Want To Hold On To The Bitter Sore Memory That Someone Has Left This World, You Are Still In It

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.

Seeing Her Sitting There Unresponsive Makes Me Realize That Silence Has A Sound.

What If What You Know Isn’t What People Want To Hear?

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

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

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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

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

Someone Real," I Hear Myself Saying. "someone Who Never Has To Pretend, And Who I Never Have To Pretend Around. Someone Who's Smart, But Knows How To Laugh At Himself. Someone Who Would Listen To A Symphony And Start To Cry, Because He Understands Music Can Be Too Big For Words. Someone Who Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself. Someone I Want To Talk To First Thing In The Morning And Last Thing At Night. Someone I Feel Like I've Known My Whole Life, Even If I Haven't.

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.

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

But Love Wasn't About Sacrifice, And It Wasn't About Falling Short Of Someone's Expectations. By Definition, Love Made You Better Than Good Enough; It Redefined Perfection To Include Your Traits, Instead Of Excluding Them. All Any Of Us Wanted, Really, Was To Know That We Counted. That Someone Else's Life Would Not Have Been As Rich Without Us Here.

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.

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

History Isn't About Dates And Places And Wars. It's About The People Who Fill The Spaces Between Them.

I Don't Know The First Thing About Holding Together A Family, Especially One That Resembles An Heirloom Vase, Shattered But Glued Back Together For Its Beauty, And No One Mentions That You Can See The Cracks As Plain As Day.

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.

Marina Sighs. "love's A Tidal Wave," She Says. "because It Sweeps You Off Your Feet?" I Ask. "no. Because It Sucks You Under And You Drown.

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

We Could All Be Lucky. We Could All Be What We Want To Be, Instead Of Who Someone Else Told Us To Be.

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

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

I ...understand How A Parent Might Hit A Child- It's Because You Can Look Into Their Eyes And See A Reflection Of Yourself That You Wish You Hadn't.

What Being Home-schooled Has Taught Me, More Than Anything, Is What A Waste Of A Life High School Is.

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?

Somewhere Along The Line, Organized Religion Stopped Being About Faith, And Started Being About Who Had The Power To Keep The Faith. You Said That The Purpose Of Religion Was To Bring People Together. But Does It, Really? Or Does It-knowingly, Purposefully, And Intentionally--break Them Apart?

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.

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'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.

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

I Don't Know Whether You Can Look At Your Past And Find, Woven Like The Hidden Symbols On A Treasure Map, The Path That Will Point To Your Final Destination.

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

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.

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

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.

The Optimist In Me Wants To Believe Sexuality Will Eventually Become Like Handwriting: There’s No Right Way And Wrong Way To Do It. We’re All Just Wired Differently. It's Also Worth Noting That When You Meet Someone, You Never Bother To Ask If He’s Right Or Left-handed. After All: Does It Really Matter To Anyone Other Than The Person Holding The Pen?

In The English Language There Are Orphans And Widows, But There Is No Word For The Parents Who Loses A Child.

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.

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

When You Love Someone, You Say Their Name Different. Like It's Safe Inside Your Mouth.

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

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.

I Am Alice In Wonderland', Josie Thought. 'watch Me Fall.

I Watch Her Do The Simplest Things: Brushing Her Hair Into A Ponytail, Feeding The Dog, Tying Sophie's Shoelaces, And I Want To Tell Her What She Means To Me, But I Never Actually Say The Words. After All, To Acknowledge Delia As A Drug, I'd Have To Face The Fact That One Day I Might Have To Go Without Her And This I Can't Do.

So Much Of Marriage Was Implicit And Nonverbal. Had I Gotten So Complacent I'd Forgotten To Communicate?

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

Heroes Didn't Leap Tall Buildings Or Stop Bullets With An Outstretched Hand; They Didn't Wear Boots And Capes. They Bled, And They Bruised, And Their Superpowers Were As Simple As Listening, Or Loving. Heroes Were Ordinary People Who Knew That Even If Their Own Lives Were Impossibly Knotted, They Could Untangle Someone Else's. And Maybe That One Act Could Lead Someone To Rescue You Right Back.

If His Voice Hasn't Been The Melody Of My Life, It's Been The Bass Line, So Subtle You Don't Notice It Until It's Missing.

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

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

But Sometimes, In Order To Win, You Have To Make Sacrifices.

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.

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

Do You Know How There Are Moments When The World Moves So Slowly You Can Feel Your Bones Shifting, Your Mind Tumbling? When You Think That No Matter What Happens To You For The Rest Of Your Life, You Will Remember Every Last Detail Of That One Minute Forever?

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.

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

There Is A Gulf As Wide As An Ocean Between Should And Want, And I Am Drowning In It.

People In The Real World Would Kill For A Happily Ever After, And You're Willing To Just Throw It Away ?" I Look Away From Her. "it's Hardly A Happily Ever After When You Wind Up Right At The Beginning.

Rest Easy, Real Mothers. The Very Fact That You Worry About Being A Good Mom Means That You Already Are One.

I Think That Ordinary People Who Are Placed In Extraordinary Circumstances Find Themselves Pushed Beyond Their Limits, And Learn New Truths About Themselves.

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

I Know What It's Like To Start Something And Have It Suddenly Grow Out Of Control. And You Want To Get Rid Of It, Because It's Hurting You And Everyone Else Around You, But Every Time You Try To Do That, It Consumes You Again.

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

How Could He Convey To Someone Who'd Never Even Met Her The Way She Always Smelled Like Rain, Or How His Stomach Knotted Up Every Time He Saw Her Shake Loose Her Hair From Its Braid? How Could He Describe How It Felt When She Finished His Sentences, Turnec The Mug They Were Sharing So That Her Mouth Landed Where His Had Been? How Did He Explain The Way They Could Be In A Locker Room, Or Underwater, Or In The Piney Woods Of Maine, Bus As Long As Em Was With Him, He Was At Home?

I Had Absolutely No Trauma In My Childhood. If Anyone Ever Assumed That My Books Were Autobiographical, They'd Be Sorely Disappointed, Because None Of These Things Happened To Me.

Or In Other Words, It's The Substance You've Got When You Start That Determines The Outcome.

You Don't Have To Say I Love You To Say I Love You," You Said With A Shrug. "all You Have To Do Is Say My Name And I Know." ..."can't You Hear It?" You Said. "when You Love Someone, You Say Their Name Different. Like It's Safe Inside Your Mouth.

When You Love Someone

There Is A Fine Line Between Seeing Something That's Lost As Missing, And Seeing It As Something That Might Be Found.

It's Disappointing To Know That Someone Can See Right Through You.

I Could Tell Her From Personal Experience That 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. But All This Took Me A Lifetime To Discover, And Where Has It Gotten Me?... Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

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.

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

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