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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?

-Jodi Picoult

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It Felt Like I'd

Jodi Picoult

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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?

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The Night Is Falling Down Around Us. Meteors Rain Like Fireworks, Quick Rips In The Seam Of The Dark... Every Second, Another Streak Of Silver Glows: Parentheses, Exclamation Points, Commas - A Whole Grammar Made Of Light, For Words Too Hard To Speak.

What I Really Want To Tell Him Is To Pick Up That Baby Of His And Hold Her Tight, To Set The Moon On The Edge Of Her Crib And To Hang Her Name Up In The Stars.

That’s What Religion Does. It Points A Finger. It Causes Wars. It Breaks Apart Countries. It’s A Petri Dish For Stereotypes To Grow In. Religion’s Not About Being Holy...just Holier-than-thous.

Mistakes Are Something That Happen By Accident. You Didn't Walk Out The Door One Morning And Fall Into Some Guy's Bed. You Thought About It, For A While. You Made That Choice.

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.

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

Most People Who Offer Their Help Do It To Make Themselves Feel Better, Not Us. To Be Honest, I Don't Blame Them. It's Superstition: If You Give Assistance To The Family In Need... If You Throw Salt Over Your Shoulder... If You Don't Step On The Cracks, Then Maybe You'll Be Immune. Maybe You'll Be Able To Convince Yourself That This Could Never Happen To You.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

My Sisters Keeper

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

A Man Should Live His Life A Certain Way Not Because Of Some Divine Authority, But Because Of A Personal Moral Obligation To Himself And Others.

When You Love Someone More Than He Loves You, You'll Do Anything To Switch The Scales. You Dress The Way You Think He'd Like You To Dress. You Pick Up His Favorite Figures Of Expression. You Tell Yourself That If You Re-create Yourself In His Image, Then He'll Crave You In The Same Way You Crave Him.

Parents Aren’t The People You Come From. They’re The People You Want To Be, When You Grow Up.

Sometimes, When You Don't Ask Questions, It's Not Because You Are Afraid That Someone Will Lie To Your Face. It's Because You're Afraid They'll Tell You The Truth.

There Is A Curious Thing That Happens With The Passage Of Time: A Calcification Of Character... Change Isn't Always For The Worst; The Shell That Forms Around A Piece Of Sand Looks To Some People Like An Irritation, And To Others, Like A Pearl.

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.

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

Life, It Turns Out, Goes On. There Is No Cosmic Rule That Grants You Immunity From The Details Just Because You Have Come Face-to-face With A Catastrophe. The Garbage Can Still Overflow, The Bills Arrive In The Mail, Telemarketers, Interrupt Dinner.

I Have No Idea What Andrew Might Have Done, And I Do Not Ask. She Believes That I Can Fix This, And Like Always, That's Enough To Make Me Think That I Can. "i'll Take Care Of It,: I Say, When What I Really Mean Is: I'll Take Care Of You.

I Think A Persons Life Is Supposed To Be Like A Dvd. You Can See The Version Everyone Else Sees, Or You Can Choose The Directors Cut-the Way He Wanted You To See It, Before Everything Else Got In The Way. There Are Menus, Probably, So That You Can Start At The Good Spots And Not Have To Relive The Bad Ones. You Can Measure Your Life By The Number Of Scenes You’ve Survived, Or The Minutes You’ve Been Stuck There. Probably, Though, Life Is More Like One Of Those Dumb Video Surveillance Tapes. Grainy, No Matter How Hard You Stare At It. And Looped: The Same Thing, Over And Over.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

This Was The Reason There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Didn't Have Words Big Enough To Describe Them.

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

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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.

But I Didn't Frame It; I Put Into An Envelope And Sealed It And Stuffed It Far Back Into A Corner Drawer Of A Filing Cabinet. It's There, Just In Case One Of These Days I Start To Lose Her. There Might Be A Morning When I Wake Up And Her Face Isn't The First Thing I See. Or A Lazy August Afternoon When I Can't Quite Recall Anymore Where The Freckles Were On Her Right Shoulders. Maybe One Of These Days, I Will Not Be Able To Listen To The Sound Of Snow Falling And Hear Her Footsteps.

Real Mothers Don't Just Listen With Humble Embarrassment To The Elderly Lady Who Offers Unsolicited Advice In The Checkout Line When A Child Is Throwing A Tantrum. We Take The Child, Dump Him In The Lady's Cart, And Say, "great. Maybe You Can Do A Better Job." Real Mothers Know That It's Okay To Eat Cold Pizza For Breakfast. Real Mothers Admit It Is Easier To Fail At This Job Than To Succeed.

I Never Said I Do Not Remember, My Grandmother Corrects. I Said I Prefer To Forget.

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.

Embarrassment Isn't A Just Cause Of Action.

I Was One Of The First Authors To Have An Active Website. I'm Totally Obsessed With Technology. I'm Always Looking For Ways To Connect With My Readers. I Answer All My Fan Mail.

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

Sometimes, Mothers Say And Do Things That Seem Like They Don't Want Their Kids... But When You Look More Closely, You Realize That They're Doing Those Kids A Favor. They're Just Trying To Give Them A Better Life.

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Q: How Would You Like Your Eggs In The Morning? A: Unfertilized

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Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

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

Many Of My Books Come From What If Questions That I Can't Answer, Things That I'm Worried About As Either A Woman, A Wife, A Mom, An American.

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

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

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

No Matter How Much You Consumed, You Would Not Have Your Fill.

I Think That Different Things Sell In Different Countries.

The Person May Have A Scar, But It Also Means They Have A Story

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

Love Makes Life A Little Brighter

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

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?

No Matter Who You Are, There Is Always Some Part Of You That Wishes You Were Someone Else, And When, For A Millisecond, You Get That Wish, It's A Miracle.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide... But I Can Try. I Feel Air Catch In My Lungs And I Get A Cramp In My Side And This Pain, This Wonderful Physical Pain That I Can Place, Reminds Me That After All I Am Still Alive.

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.

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

I Understand Better Than She'd Imagine That History Is Indelible. You Can Mask It; You Can Patch It Smooth And Clear; But You Always Know What's Hidden Underneath.

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

When You Love Someone

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

Maybe Fate Isn't The Pond You Swim In But The Fisherman Floating On Top Of It, Letting You Run The Line Wild Until You Are Weary Enough To Be Reeled Back In.

I Smiled At Him As Best I Could And Pushed The Paper Across The Table Before He Could Change His Mind. Because Henry Deville Was Correct - There Was An Ingredient In My Baking More Concenctrated Than Any Extract, More Pungent Than Any Spice; An Ingredient That Everyone Would Recognize And No One Was Able To Name: It Was Regret, And It Rose When One Least Expected.

What If Instead Of Focusing On What You Don't Have, You Concentrate On What You've Got?

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

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.

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?

Her Hands Quieted. "yeah. Because Even If The Law Says That No One Is Responsible For Anyone Else, Helping Someone Who Needs It Is The Right Thing To Do." I Sat Down Beside Her, Close Enough That The Skin Of Her Arm Hummed Right Next To Mine. "you Really Believe That?" She Looked Down At Her Lap "yeah." Then How," I Asked, "can You Walk Away From Me?

Helping Someone

The Problem Was , You Never Heard Anyone Say,"wow, Check Out The Brain On That Babe.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

But Once You Throw A Stone, There Are Ripples In The Pond, Even If You Remove The Rock.

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.

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.

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

There Should Be A Statute Of Limitation On Grief. A Rulebook That Says It Is All Right To Wake Up Crying, But Only For A Month. That After 42 Days You Will No Longer Turn With Your Heart Racing, Certain You Have Heard Her Call Out Your Name. That There Will Be No Fine Imposed If You Feel The Need To Clean Out Her Desk; Take Down Her Artwork From The Refrigerator; Turn Over A School Portrait As You Pass - If Only Because It Cuts You Fresh Again To See It. That It's Okay To Measure The Time She Has Been Gone, The Way We Once Measured Her Birthdays.

Mistakes Are Like The Memories You Hide In An Attic: Old Love Letters From Relationships That Tanked, Photos Of Dead Relatives, Toys From A Childhood You Miss. Out Of Sight Is Out Of Mind, But Somewhere Deep Inside You Know They Still Exist. And You Also Know That You're Avoiding Them.

Let Me Tell You What Happens When You Cook Down The Syrup Of Loss Over The Open Fire Of Sorrow: It Solidfies Into Something Wlaw. Not Grief, Like You'd Expect, Or Even Regret. No, It Gets Thick As Paste, Black As Ash; Yet It Isn't Until You Dip A Finger In And Feel That Sharp Taste Dissolving On Your Tounge That You Realize This Is Angel In Its Purest Form, Unrefined; A Substance To Be Weighed And Measyred And Spread.

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

You Know Someone's Right For You When The Things They Don't Have To Say Are Even More Important Than The Things They Do.

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.

People Always Say That, When You Love Someone, Nothing In The World Matters. But That's Not True, Is It? You Know, And I Know, That When You Love Someone, Everything In The World Matters A Little Bit More.

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

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.

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

We'd Sit With A Big Bowl Of Popcorn, Wrapped Together In A Queen-size Blanket, And Would Escape To A Place Where Magic Was Ours For The Taking, Where Men Rescued The People They Loved Instead Of Abandoning Them. A Place Where, No Matter How Bad Things Looked At That Moment, There Would Always Be A Happy Ending.

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.

It Seems To Me That No Matter What Religion You Subscribe To, Acts Of Kindness Are The Stepping-stones To Making The World A Better Place--because We Become Better People In It.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Am An Activist. I Have A Really Big Pulpit With My Fiction And I Love Knowing That I Can Make People Think.

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

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.

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.

When She Smiles, It Feels Like The First Warm Day Of March-- After An Eternity Of Snow, When You Suddenly Remember How Summer Feels On The Backs Of Your Bare Calves & In The Part Of Your Hair.

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

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

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

I Think That When You Live In A World With Limits... When You've Met Everyone And Seem Everything You're Going To See - You Lose The Hope That Something Extraordinary Will Happen In Your Life

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.

You Know How Every Now And Then, You Have A Moment Where Your Whole Life Stretches Out Ahead Of You Like A Forked Road, And Even As You Choose One Gritty Path You've Got Your Eyes On The Other The Whole Time, Certain That You're Making A Mistake.

It's Like The Psychiatrists Themselves Are Buying Into That Stupid Belief That Therapy Is Something To Hide.

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's The Child Who's Supposed To Cry, And The Mom Who Makes It All Better, Not The Other Way Around, Which Is Why Mothers Will Move Heaven And Earth To Hold It Together In Front Of Their Own Kids.

Families Were Never What You Wanted Them To Be. We All Wanted What We Couldn't Have: The Perfect Child, The Doting Husband, The Mother Who Wouldn't Let Go. We Live In Our Grown-up Dollhouses Completely Unaware That, At Any Moment, A Hand Might Come In And Change Around Everything We'd Become Accustomed To.

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

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

Shelby Believed That Love Was Like A Solar Eclipse - Breathtakingly Beautiful, Absorbing, And Capable Of Rendering You Blind. She Had Not Necessarily Gone Out Of Her Way To Avoid A Relationship, But She Hadn't Wanted On Either. It Was Called Falling In Love For A Reason - Because, Inevitably, You Crashed At The Bottom.

Falling In Love

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.

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.

What If Love Wasn't The Act Of Finding What You Were Missing But The Give-and-take That Made You Both Match?

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

You Have Everything. A Family, A Great Job, A Lot Of People Who Look Up To You. You've Got A Place To Go Home To. So Go.

Well I Talk A Little About That, But I Don't Admit That From The Beginning I Knew We Were Not Meant To Be Together.

Were Not Meant To Be

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

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.

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

Things That Look Impossible Suddenly Seem A Lot Better, Once You Get God On Board.

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.

You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find Out What You'd Been Missing.

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

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.

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.

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

The Scariest Thing In The World Is Thinking Someone You Love Is Going To Die.

Someone You Love

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

I Always Wondered Why God Was Supposed To Be A Father," She Whispers. Fathers Always Want You To Measure Up To Something. Mothers Are The Ones Who Love You Unconditionally, Don't You Think?

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.

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?

I Don't Understand Why People Never Say What They Mean. It's Like The Immigrants Who Come To A Country And Learn The Language But Are Completely Baffled By Idioms. (seriously, How Could Anyone Who Isn't A Native English Speaker 'get The Picture,' So To Speak, And Not Assume It Has Something To Do With A Photo Or A Painting?)

This Isn't A Lie, Actually. I Don't Care Why Edward Left. All I Really Want To Know Is Why I Wasn't Enough To Make Him Stay.

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

Loneliness Is A Mirror, And Recognizes Itself.

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.

The Question I Hate The Most Is "how Did You Do It - Write Novels And Raise Your Children Simultaneously!" I Mean, Do Male Authors Get Asked That??

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

Life Isn't Nearly As Stable As We Want It To Be.

My Sisters Keeper

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

Just Because You Didn't Put A Name To Something Did Not Mean It Wasn't There.

She Stares At Me For A Moment, And Then She Bursts Out Laughing. “you Haven’t Seen His Perfect Little Wife And His Perfect Little Girls. Believe Me, Oliver, I’m Not The Great Love Of His Life, The One He’ll Never Forget.” “you Are To Me,” I Say.

Everyone Knew That If You Divided Reality By Expectation, You Got A Happiness Quotient. But When You Invert The Equation - Expectation Divided By Reality - You Didn't Get The Opposite Of Happiness. What You Got, Lewis Realized, Was Hope.

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.

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

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

That The Sum Of A Man's Life Was Not Where He Wound Up But In The Details That Brought Him There. That We Made Mistakes. I Closed My Eyes, Sick Of The Riddles, And To My Surprise All I Could See Were Dandelions-as If They Had Been Painted On The Fields Of My Imagination, A Hundred Thousand Suns. And I Remembered Something Else That Makes Us Human: Faith, The Only Weapon In Our Arsenal To Battle Doubt.

An Item That Looks Perfectly Normal On The Surface Might Only Be Disguised.

Perfectly Normal

Even Though I Don't Write About Things That Come From My Life Because I'm Lucky, And I Live In A Great Place With Great Kids And, You Know, A Great Husband, I Think You Can Find Threads Of Me In The Characters, So That's Really What Being A Writer Is, Probably.

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

You Know It's Never Fifty-fifty In A Marriage. It's Always Seventy-thirty, Or Sixty-forty. Someone Falls In Love First. Someone Puts Someone Else Up On A Pedestal. Someone Works Very Hard To Keep Things Rolling Smoothly; Someone Else Sails Along For The Ride.

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.

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.

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

Human Condition

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

It Was One Thing To Sacrifice Your Own Life For Someone Else's. It Was Another Thing Entirely To Bring Into The Mix A Third Party - A Third Party Who Knew You, Who Trusted You Implicitly.

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

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

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

To Say There Had Been A Loss Was Ludicrous; One Lost A Shoe Or A Set Of Keys. You Did Not Suffer The Death Of A Child And Say There Was A Loss. There Was A Catastrophe. A Devastation. A Hell.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

When You [lose Someone], It Feels Like The Hole In Your Gum When A Tooth Falls Out. You Can Chew, You Can Eat, You Have Plenty Of Other Teeth, But Your Tongue Keeps Going Back To That Empty Place, Where All Nerves Are Still A Little Raw

Close A Door, And You'd Still Feel A Breeze Through The Window.

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.

I Wondered How Long It Took For A Baby To Become Yours, For Familiarity To Set In. Maybe As Long As It Took A New Car To Lose That Scent, Or A Brand-new House To Gather Dust. Maybe That Was The Process More Commonly Described As Bonding: The Act Of Learning Your Child As Well As You Know Yourself.

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

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.

Instead Of Doing The Best Thing, We Sometimes Have To Settle For The Rightest Thing.

Accidents Did Not Just Happen. From Time To Time They Were Carefully Plotted, Calculated, And Arranged To One’s Advantage-all, Of Course, Under The Cloak Of Happenstance.

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

There Was No Easy Switch That She Could Flip To Stem The Flow Of Feelings, No Way To Drain The Memories That Pooled Like Acid In Her Stomach Because Her Heart No Longer Knew What To Do With Them.

I Think Once You Sign On To Be A Mother, That's The Only Shift They Offer.

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

I'm Too Much Of A Coward To Kill Myself. And Too Much Of A Coward To Live

What He Did Was Wrong. He Doesn't Deserve Your Love. But He Does Deserve Your Forgiveness, Because Otherwise He Will Grow Like A Weed In Your Heart Until It's Choked And Overrun. The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Away All That Hate, Is You.

And I Remembered Something Else That Makes Us Human: Faith, The Only Weapon In Our Arsenal To Battle Doubt.

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

Falling In Love

A Real Friend Isn't Capable Of Feeling Sorry For You.

You Build A Wall To Keep Something Unwanted Out … Or To Hold Something Precious In.

It Is Always Hardest For Me To Write A Book That Has Kids In It Close To My Kids' Ages. It Is Always Hardest For Me To Write A Book That Has Kids In It Close To My Kids' Ages.

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.

Anna Is The Only Proof I Have That I Was Born Into This Family. Instead Of Dropped Off On The Doorstep By Some Bonnie And Clyde Couple That Ran Off Into The Night. 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. (jesse)

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.

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

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