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

-Jodi Picoult

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It Just Goes To

Jodi Picoult

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

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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.

As Lacy Waited For Her Turn To Speak On Peter's Behalf, She Thought Back To The First Time She Realized She Could Hate Her Own Child.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

Everytime I Look At A Zebra, I Can't Figure Out Whether It's Black With White Stripes Or White With Black Stripes, And That Frustrates Me.

It Never Failed To Amaze Me How The Most Ordinary Day Could Be Catapulted Into The Extraordinary In The Blink Of An Eye.

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.

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

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

Love Was That Way. You Could Not Render It In Black Or White. It Always Came Down To The Strange, Blended Shades Of Grey.

I Realized It Was Like Looking Into The Sun—you Shouldn't Do It, Because You'd Turn Your Face Away And Be Blind To Everything Else.

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.

We Have Been Naive Enough To Believe That We Were Invincible; That We Could Run Blind Through The Hairpin Turns Of Life At Treacherous Speeds And Never Crash.

I'm Always Writing, Even When I'm Not At My Desk. I Write On My Hands. I Used To Write On My Kids' Hands, Too, But They Don't Let Me Any More. When I'm Driving I Sometimes Write All The Way Up My Arms.

The Apple . . . Came Before Adam And Eve In The Story Of Creation. It Had To Have Been There At Least Three Years Because That's How Long It Takes For A New Tree To Bear Fruit.

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.

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?

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

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

Bad Is Not An Absolute, But A Relative Term. Ask The Robber Who Used The Cash He Stole To Feed His Infant; The Rapist Who Was Sexually Abused As A Child; The Kidnapper Who Truly Believed He Was Saving A Life. And Just Because You Break The Law Doesn't Mean You Have Intentionally Crossed The Line Into Evil. Sometimes The Line Creeps Up On You, And Before You Know It, You're Standing On The Other Side.

Although You Hadn't Asked Why, It Had Less To Do With You Not Noticing Than With You Not Wanting To Hear The Answer.

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

Honey, Kate Is Not Going To Die Sooner Because You Have One More Glass Of Mine, Or Because You Stay Overnight In A Hotel, Or Because You Let Yourself Crack Up At A Bad Joke. So Sit Your Ass Back Down And Turn Up The Volume And Act Like You're A Normal Person.

She Shrugged. "you Can Be Happy For Someone Else's Good Fortune, But That Doesn't Mean You Forget Your Own Bad Luck.

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

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.

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?

There's That Unwritten Schism That Literary Writers Get All The Awards And Commericals Writers Get All The Success.

Nowadays, I Dont Have Expectations, And This Way She Beats Them All.

I Know That The First Person I Kissed Won't Be Nearly As Important As The Last Person I Kiss.

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

Here's What I Hadn't Realized: The Mother You Haven't Seen For Almost Thirty-six Years Isn't Your Mother, She's A Stranger. Sharing Dna Doesn't Make You Fast Friends. This Wasn't A Joyous Reunion. It Was Just Awkward.

Maybe If You Spend Your Life Pretending You're On A Movie Set, You Don't Ever Have To Admit That The Walls Are Made Out Of Paper And The Food Is Plastic And The Words In Your Mouth Aren't Really Yours.

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

I Consider Myself Spiritual And I'm Married To A Man Who Is Both An Atheist And A Humanist, And My Kids Have Been Raised With The Traditions Of Different Religions, But They Do Not Go To Church Or Temple. My Feeling Is That Everyone Should Be Able To Believe What They Want Or Need To Believe.

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?

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

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

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

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.

For Me, Every Book Is A Journey - Questioning A Really Difficult Topic That Most People Don't Want To Talk About, Much Less Write About. And That's What I Need; That Works For Me As A Writer.

There Are Always Sides. There Is Always A Winner And A Loser. For Every Person Who Gets, There's Someone Who Must Give.

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.

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, Um, I Have This Problem. I Broke Up With My Boyfriend, You See. And I'm Pretty Upset About It, So I Wanted To Talk To My Best Friend. [...] The Thing Is, They're Both You.

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 Used To Think I'd Be Just Like Them When I Grew Up, But I Am Not. And The Thing Is, Somewhere Along The Way, I Stopped Wanting To Be Like Them, Anyway.

And He Suddenly Knew That If She Killed Herself, He Would Die. Maybe Not Immediately, Maybe Not With The Same Blinding Rush Of Pain, But It Would Happen. You Couldn't Live For Very Long Without A Heart.

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

"stupid English." "english Isn't Stupid," I Say. "well, My English Teacher Is." He Makes A Face. "mr. Franklin Assigned An Essay About Our Favorite Subject, And I Wanted To Write About Lunch, But He Won't Let Me." "why Not?" "he Says Lunch Isn't A Subject." I Glance At Him. "it Isn't." "well," Jacob Says, "it's Not A Predicate, Either. Shouldn't He Know That?"

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

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

I Didn't Want To See Her Because It Would Make Me Feel Better. I Came Because Without Her, It's Hard To Remember Who I Am.

Power Isn't About Doing Something Terrible To Someone Who's Weaker Than You, Reiner. It's Having The Strength To Do Something Terrible, And Choosing Not To.

And In General, The Residents Of The Town Wondered Why They All Felt Hollow Just Beneath The Throat, The Result Of Missing Something They Had Never Been Able To Name In The First Place.

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.

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.

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.

There Was A Difference Between People Looking At You Because They Wanted To Be Like You, And People Looking At You Because Your Misfortune Brought Them One Rung Higher.

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?

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

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.

Guarantees That

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

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

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

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.

It's Crazy, Right? To Love Someone Who's Hurt You? It's Even Crazier To Think That Someone Who Hurts You Loves You.

Love Doesn't Follow The Rules... Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable.

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.

But What If Your Obsession Has Nothing To Do With Drugs Or Thrills Or Money? What If What You Want Most In The World Is To Recapture The Way Life Was A Week, A Month, A Year Ago-and You Are Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

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.

Memories Are Like A Still Life Painted By Ten Different Student Artists: Some Will Be Blue-based; Others Red; Some Will Be As Stark As Picasso And Others As Rich As Rembrandt; Some Will Be Foreshortened And Others Distant. Recollections Are In The Eye Of The Beholder; No Two Held Up Side By Side Will Ever Quite Match.

When You Have Been With Your Partner For So Many Years, They Become The Glove Compartment Map That You've Worn Dog-eared And White-creased, The Trail You Recogonize So Well You Could Draw It By Heart And For This Very Reason Keep It With You On Journeys At All Times. And Yet, When You Least Expect It, One Day You Open Your Eyes And There Is An Unfamiliar Turnoff, A Vantage Point Taht Wasn't There Before, And You Have To Stop And Wonder If Maybe This Landmark Isn't New At All, But Rather Something You Have Missed All Along.

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

I Would Rather Be In Minority And Be Right, Than In The Majority And Wrong.

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

My Brother Believed In All Sorts Of Mythical Creatures: Pixies, Dragons, Werewolves, Honest Men.

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.

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fesh And Honest. Whe You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation.

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?

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.

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?

I Can See Myself Now, She Said. And I Can See What I Want To Be, Ten Years From Now. But I Don't Understand How I'm Going To Get From Here To There.

I've Always Sort Of Wondered: If Everyone Else's Opinion Is What Matters, Then Do You Ever Really Have One Of Your Own?

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

A Girl Who Is Thirteen-which Is Hard, And Difficult, And Beautiful, And Painful, And Exhilarating.

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.

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

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

Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

As It Turned Out, Though, It Was A Lot Easier To Say That Someone Deserved To Die For What They Did Than It Was To Take The Responsibility To Make That Happen.

I'm The Kind Of Person You Want To Kill. I Had An Incredibly Happy Childhood. I Married A Terrific Guy When I Was 23. I Have Great, Well-adjusted Kids. Sometimes My Husband And I Look At Each Other And Do A Little Jig In The Kitchen. This Is The Best Life.

Sometimes Knowing What's Right Isn't A Rational Decision, Or Even What Works On Paper. Sometimes Leaving Is The Best Course Of Action After All.

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

It Was A Catch-22: If You Didn’t Put The Trauma Behind You, You Couldn’t Move On. But If You Did Put The Trauma Behind You, You Willingly Gave Up Your Claim To The Person You Were Before It Happened.

You Came Back Fighting And Furious At Me. You Told Me You'd Been Looking For Mermaids, And I Interrupted You. [...] I Said That Next Time, You Had To Take Me With You." "was There A Next Time?" "well, You Tell Me, You Don't Need Water To Feel Like You're Drowning, Do You?

I Think Many Of My Books, Including "handle With Care," Including "my Sister's Keeper" Circle Back To How Far Are We Willing To Go For The People We Love? I Think Love Changes The Way We Think. It's The Thing That Takes You Out Of What Your Normal Set Of Beliefs Would Be.

Dr. Keller Begins Pacing. "i Don't Think We've Been Hearing Faith Just Right. Her Guard...the Words..they Sound Alike." What Do You Mean?" Your Daughter," Dr. Keller Says Flatly. "i Think She's Seeing God.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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.

Part Of Growing Up Was Learning Not To Be Quite That Honest - Learning When It Was Better To Lie, Rather Than To Hurt Someone With The Truth.

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.

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

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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.

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

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

I Write Adult Fiction, But A Good 40 To 50 Per Cent Of My Readers Are Teenagers. I Love That If They Have To Grow Up And Move Past Jk Rowling They Can Move To Me. From Jo To Jodi!

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

Behind Your Back

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?

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

My Sisters Keeper

Turn Around, And The People You Thought You Knew Might Change. Your Little Boy Might Now Live Half A World Away. Your Beautiful Daughter Might Be Sneaking Out At Night. Your Ex-husband Might By Dying By Degrees. This Is The Reason That Dancers Learn, Early On, How To Spot While Doing Pirouettes: We All Want To Be Able To Find The Place Where We Started.

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.

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?

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

It's A Fallacy That Writers Have To Shut Themselves Up In Their Ivory Towers To Write. I Have All These Interruptions, Three Of Which I Gave Birth To. If I Was Thrown For A Loop Every Time I Was Distracted I Could Never Get Anything Done.

Eric Understands That The World Is Rarelythe Way It Is Supposed To Be. And He Knows That, Given The Chance, We Don't Have To Wait For Someone To Make Messes Of Our Lives. We Do A Good Enough Job, Ourselves.

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

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

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

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.

Whether It Was Power They Sought, Or Revenge, Or Love-well, Those Were All Just Different Forms Of Hunger. The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

Being A Teenager Isn't All That Different From Being Part Of Someone Else's Story. There's Always Someone Who Thinks They Know Better Than You Do

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.

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?

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

My Sisters Keeper

You Would Wind Up As A Cat, I Told Her. They Don't Need Anyone Else. I Need You, She Replied. Well, I Said. Maybe I'll Come Back As Catnip.

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?)

I Think My Writing Has Become "cleaner."

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

When You Love Someone

Just Because It's Fiction Doesn't Mean It's Any Less True.

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

My Sisters Keeper

Teachers Deserve Respect," I Explain. "why Do They Get It For Free, When Everyone Else Has To Earn It?

It Is A Remarkable Question- Do All The Wonderful Things Happen When We Are Not Aware Of Them?

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

I May Not Have A Degree, But I Certainly Got An Education.

Is It Because They Are So Comfortable, They Already Know What The Other Is Thinking? Or Is It Because After A Certain Point, There Is Simply Nothing Left To Say?

Lies Were Only As Strong As The Suckers That Believed Them.

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.

I Closed My Eyes And Curled My Fists Around The Things I Knew For Sure: That A Scallop Has Thirty-five Eyes, All Blue. That A Tuna Will Suffocate If It Ever Stops Swimming. That I Was Loved. That This Time, It Was Not Me Who Broke

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

Forgiving Isn't Something You Do For Someone Else. It's Something You Do For Yourself. It's Saying, 'you're Not Important Enough To Have A Stranglehold On Me.' It's Saying, 'you Don't Get To Trap Me In The Past. I Am Worthy Of A Future.

Think About It: Romeo And Juliet Bucked The System, And Look Where It Got Them. Superman Has The Hots For Lois Lane, When The Better Match, Of Course, Would Be With Wonder Woman.

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.

I Think There Are Crossroads In Our Lives When We Make Grand, Sweeping Decisions Without Even Realizing It.

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.

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

When Someone Loves You Up One Side And Down The Other Like That, You Make Every Effort To Stick Around.

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.

But Katie Knew It Was A Sin, Had Known From The Moment She Made The Decision To Lie With Adam. However, The Transgression Wasn't Making Love Without The Sanction Of Marriage. It Was That For The First Time In Her Life, Katie Had Put Herself First. Put Her Own Wants And Needs Above Everything And Everyone Else.

A Lie Took Two Parties - The Weaver Of The Tale And The Sucker Who So Badly Wanted To Believe It.

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

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.

Identification Is Not The Same As Knowing Someone Through And Through.

Knowing Someone

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

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

My Sisters Keeper

When You Don't Know Where You're Headed, You Find Places No One Else Would Ever Explore.

My Sisters Keeper

Into The Silence Rips A Sound That Makes Me Let Go Of Max's Hand And Cover My Ears. It Is Like The Strafe Of A Bullet, Nails On A Chalkboard, Promises Being Broken. It's A Note I Have Never Heard - This Chord Of Pure Pain - And It Takes A Moment To Realize It Is Coming From Me.

Writing Is Grunt Work - You Need To Have Self-motivation, Perseverance, And Faith... Talent Is The Smallest Part Of It.

It's Like Picking Up An Unfamiliar Piece Of Sheet Music & Starting To Stumble Through It, Only To Realize It Is A Melody You'd Once Learned By Heart, One You Can Play Without Even Trying.

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

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.

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.

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.

If She Spoke, She Would Tell Him The Truth: She Was Not Okay At All, But Horribly Empty, Now That She Knew What It Was Like To Be Filled.

At Home I Was Raped By A Guy I Thought I Loved' Trixie Said, Because Thats What It Was To Her And Always Would Be.

Music Therapy, To Me, Is Music Performance Without The Ego. It's Not About Entertainment As Much As Its About Empathizing. If You Can Use Music To Slip Past The Pain And Gather Insight Into The Workings Of Someone Else's Mind, You Can Begin To Fix A Problem.

Can You Imagine What It Would Be Like To Know That Your Life Was Just Going To Be A Series Of Days That Were All The Same, That Were Do-overs?

Ross Held Her Face Between His Hands And Kissed Her. He Tasted Doubt On Her Tongue And Pain On The Roof Of Her Mouth. He Swallowed These, And Drank Again. Consumed, She Had No Choice But To See How Empty He Was Inside, And How, Sip By Sip, She Filled Him.

Any Highway . . . They All Take You To The Same Place, Don't They?

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

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

I Know You Love Me

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

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

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

Summertime, I Think, Is A Collective Unconscious. We All Remember The Notes That Made Up The Song Of The Ice Cream Man; We All Know What It Feels Like To Brand Our Thighs On A Playground Slide That's Heated Up Like A Knife In A Fire; We All Have Lain On Our Backs With Our Eyes Closed And Our Hearts Beating Across The Surface Of Our Lids, Hoping That This Day Will Stretch Just A Little Longer Than The Last One, When In Fact It's All Going In The Other Direction.

My First Job Was As An Assistant In The Local Library. Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Way I See It, Love Is Just A Bigger, Stickier Form Of Trust.

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

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

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.

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

I Am Not A Religious Man. I Have Not Attended A Service For Many Years. But I Do Believe In God. My Own Practice Of Religion, You Could Say, It A Nonpractice. I Personally Feel That It's Just As Worthy On A Weekend To Rake The Lawns Of An Elderly Neighbor Or To Climb A Mountain And Marvel At The Beauty Of This Land We Live In As It Is To Sing Hosannas Or Go To Mass. In Other Words, I Think Every Many Finds His Own Church- And Not All Of Them Have Four Walls - Judge Haig (page 399)

Choices Are Funny Things-ask A Native Tribe That's Eaten Grubs And Roots Forever If They're Unhappy, And They'll Shrug. But Give Them Filet Mignon And Truffle Sauce And Then Ask Them To Go Back To Living Off The Land, And They Will Always Be Thinking Of That Gourmet Meal. If You Don't Know There's An Alternative, You Can't Miss It.

The Reason I Am Still Sitting At Josef's Kitchen Table Is The Same Reason Traffic Slows After A Car Wreck- You Want To See The Damage; You Can't Let Yourself Pass Without That Mental Snapshot. We Are Drawn To Horror Even As We Recoil From It.

There Are So Many Ways A Family Can Unravel. All It Takes Is A Tiny Slash Of Selfishness, A Rip Of Greed, A Puncture Of Bad Luck. And Yet, Woven Tightly, Family Can Be The Strongest Bond Imaginable.

I Love Feeling Loved. I Don't Love Knowing That I Will Always Come In Second Place. I Love The Fact That At Least Sometimes When I Am In My Home, I'm Not Alone. I Don't Love The Fact That It's Not Always. I Love Not Having To Answer To Him. I Don't Love That He Doesn't Answer To Me. I Love The Way I Feel When I Am With Him. I Don't Love The Way I Feel When I'm Not.

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.

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

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.

Maybe I Was Naïve To Think That Silence Was Implicit Complacence, Instead Of A Festering Question. Maybe I Was Silly To Believe That Friends Owed Each Other Anything.

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

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