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

-Jodi Picoult

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In My Previous Life

Jodi Picoult

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

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

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Words, For All They Were Flimsy And Invisible, Had Great Strength. They Could Be Fortified As A Castle Wall And Sharp As A Foil. They Could Bite, Slap, Shock, Wound. But Unlike Deeds, Words Couldn't Really Help You. No Promise Ever Rescued A Person; It Was The Carrying-through Of It That Brought About Salvation.

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When You're Pregnant, You Can Think Of Nothing But Having Your Own Body To Yourself Again; Yet After Giving Birth You Realize That The Biggest Part Of You Is Now Somehow External, Subject To All Sorts Of Dangers And Disappearance, So You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Trying To Figure Out How To Keep Her Close Enough For Comfort. 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.

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

And Just Like That, Something Inside Shifted Very Subtly, So That All The Empty Spaces In Him Suddenly Disappeared, So That His Breath Timed To Hers, So That His Blood Sang. This Is Why There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Just Didn’t Have Words Big Enough To Describe 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.

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.

You Know How The Tightrope Guy At The Circus Wants Everyone To Believe His Act Is An Art, But Deep Down You Can See That He's Really Just Hoping He Makes It All The Way Across?

I Want To Live," He Said, "so I Have To Die.

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

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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

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?

It Was Nice Not Having To Be The One In Control, For A Little While. It Was Nice To Be The One Who Was Protected, Instead Of The One Who'd Been Protecting Eveyone Else.

I Think There Are Two Different Oceans - The One That Plays With You In The Summer, And The One That Gets So Mad In The Winter.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

There Are Two Ways To Be Happy: Improve Your Reality, Or Lower Your Expectations.

There Are All Sorts Of Losses People Suffer - From The Small To The Large. You Can Lose Your Keys, Your Glasses, Your Virginity. You Can Lose Your Head, You Can Lose Your Heart, You Can Lose Your Mind. You Can Relinquish Your Home To Move Into Assisted Living, Or Have A Child Move Overseas, Or See A Spouse Vanish Into Dementia. Loss Is More Than Just Death, And Grief Is The Gray Shape-shifter Of Emotion.

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

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 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.

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

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 Once Heard Someone On A Bus Say That This Guy Had Gotten Under Her Skin. And It Struck Me As A Remarkable Thought - That Someone Would Affect You So Deeply They'd Always Be A Part Of You.

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.

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

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

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

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

Raw Love, Like Raw Heartache, Could Blindside You.

We Make Messes Of Our Lives, But Every Now And Then, We Manage To Do Something That's Exactly Right. The Challenge Is Figuring Out Which Is Which.

Religion Isn't In Your Dna. You Don't Believe Just Because Your Parents Believe.

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

The Best Thing About Endings Is Knowing That Just Ahead Is The Daunting Task To Start Over.

You Never Forget Your First Fall.

My Grandmother Told Me That Her Father Used To Ask Her A Riddle: What Must You Break Apart In Order To Bring A Family Close Together? Bread, Of Course.

There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Friend And A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumph, And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside.

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

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

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

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

Once, I Asked My Mom Why Stars Shine. She Said They Were Night-lights, So The Angels Could Find Their Way Around In Heaven. But When I Asked My Dad, He Started Talking About Gas, And Somehow I Put It All Together And Figured That The Food God Served Caused Multiple Trips To The Bathroom In The Middle Of The Night.

I Will Say Overwhelmingly What Means So Much More To Me Than The Opinion Of One Reviewer Are The Letters I Get From Fans Who Tell Me How A Particular Book Has Changed Their Life.

There's A Lot Of Things You Can't See If You Aren't' Looking.

You Know How Hind-sight Is 20/20? Love Is When You Look Back And Wouldn't Change Anything.

True Love Is Felonious… You Take Someone’s Breath Away… You Rob Them Of The Ability To Utter A Single Word… You Steal A Heart.

If You Want To See God Laugh, Make A Plan.

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