Background Image

...

It Was So Damn Hard To Find Love In This World, To Locate Someone Who Could Make You Feel That There Was A Reason You'd Been Put On This Earth. A Child, I Imagined, Was The Purest Form Of That. A Child Was The Love You Didn't Have To Look For, Didn't Have To Prove Anything To, Didn't Have To Worry About Losing. Which Is Why, When It Happened, It Hurt So Badly.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Was So Damn

Jodi Picoult

...

It Was So Damn Hard To Find Love In This World, To Locate Someone Who Could Make You Feel That There Was A Reason You'd Been Put On This Earth. A Child, I Imagined, Was The Purest Form Of That. A Child Was The Love You Didn't Have To Look For, Didn't Have To Prove Anything To, Didn't Have To Worry About Losing. Which Is Why, When It Happened, It Hurt So Badly.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

How Do You Know That You Are Not Part Of A Book? That Someone's Not Reading Your Story Right Now?

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?

Fiction Is Like That, Once It Is Released Into The World: Contagious, Persistent. Like The Contents Of Pandora's Box, A Story That's Freely Given Can't Be Contained Anymore. It Becomes Infectious, Spreading From The Person Who Created It To The Person Who Listens, And Passes It On.

We're [parents]) Always Bluffing, Pretending We Know Best, When Most Of The Time We're Just Praying We Won't Screw Up Too Badly.

A Public Persona That Might Be Different From What We Truly Feel Inside... Everyone Wonders If They Are Good Enough, Smart Enough, Pretty Enough, No Matter How Old They Are. It Is An Archetypical Moral Dilemma - Do You Act Like Yourself And Risk Becoming An Outcast?

I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?

I Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.

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

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.

My Chest Feels Full Of Glitter And Helium, The Way It Used To When I Was Little And Riding My Father's Shoulders At Twilight, When I Knew That If I Held Up My Hands And Spread My Fingers Like A Net, I Could Catch The Coming Stars.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

They Don't Like The Thought Of Someone Else Making Demands On The Person Whom They See As Belonging Entirely To Them.

Domestic Violence

My Mother Walks Forward. She's Crying, But There's A Smile On Her Face. For God's Sake, Is It Any Wonder I Can't Ever Understand What You People Are Feeling?

There Are Some Things, I Think, You're Btter Off Not Remembering.

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

How Do You Tell Someone That You Weren't The Person He Thought You Were? And More Importantly, How Did You Tell Him That You'd Meant The Things You'd Said, When Everything Else About You Turned Out To Be A Lie.

I Thought Lightning Wasn't Supposed To Strike In The Same Place Twice....sure It Does...but Only If You're Too Dumb To Move.

There Was No Black Or White. Someone Who Had Been Good Her Entire Life Could, In Fact, Do Something Evil. People Were Just As Capable Of Committing Murder, Under The Right Circumstances, As Any Monster.

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.

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

[jules] Slides Into A Seat Beside Me With Her Hot Lunch Tray, Sighing. “four Hours, Thirty-six Minutes, And Twelve Seconds Till We’re Out Of Purgatory For The Weekend.” “maybe Later,” I Murmur, Still Distracted By The Day’s Previous Events. “so, Let Me Show You How A Conversation Works. I Say Something, And Then You Say Something Back That Actually Relates To What I Was Talking About, As If You Were Even The Least Bit Interested.” “huh?” I Say.

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

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?

If You Want To Love A Parent You Have To Understand The Incredible Investment He Or She Has In You. If You Are A Parent, And You Want To Be Loved, You Have To Deserve It.

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

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

Knowledge Was Power, But A Good Librarian Did Not Hoard The Gift. She Taught Others How To Find, Where To Look, How To See.

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

Do You Fix A Wheel That Isn't Broken, Or Do You Wait Until The Cart Collapses?

These Days Her Entire Life Was About Making People Believe She Was Someone She Wasn't Anymore.

When You Love Someone, You Don't See Parts Of Him You Don't Like.

When You Love Someone

Just So You Know, When They Say "once Upon A Time"....they're Lying. It's Not Once Upon A Time. Its Not Even Twice Upon A Time. It's Hundreds Of Times, Over And Over, Every Time Someone Opens Up The Pages Of This Dusty Old Book.

Once Upon A Time

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

You Might Not Write Well Every Day, But You Can Always Edit A Bad Page. You Can't Edit A Blank Page.

Does Fate Ever Play By The Rules?

An Apology With A Defense Built In Isn't Much Of An Apology

Safety Is Relative. You Can Be So Close To Shore That You Can Practically Feel It Under Your Feet, When You Suddenly Find Yourself Breaking Apart On The Rocks.

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.

I Have The Most Devoted And Loyal Following. I Could Probably Type Up My Grocery List And They'd All Want To Read It. I Love That They're Willing To Let Me Go Wherever I Need To Go As An Author, And They're Happy To Come Along For The Ride As The Reader.

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?

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

Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It. There Is Always Another Appointment To Be Met, Another Bill To Pay, Another Symptom Presenting, Another Uneventful Day To Be Notched Onto The Wooden Wall. We Have Synchronized Our Watches, Studied Our Calendars, Existed In Minutes, And Completely Forgotten To Step Back And See What We've Accomplished.

Ask A Kid Who's Struggling In Math If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He Feels Like A Moron. Ask The Math Genius If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He's Sick Of Doing All The Work During Group Projects. Sometimes, It's Better To Sort Like With Like.

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

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

Behind Your Back

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

Maybe You Had To Leave In Order To Really Miss A Place; Maybe You Had To Travel To Figure Out How Beloved Your Starting Point Was.

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.

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.

You Can Widen The Feet Of A Compass, But They Are Still Attached At The Top; You Can Spin Them Away From Each Other, But You Always Wind Up Where You Started.

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

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.

Beliefs Are The Roads We Take To Our Dreams. Believe You Can Do Something-or Believe You Can't-and You'll Be Right Everytime.

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.

Everyone Has A Book Inside Of Them - But It Doesn't Do Any Good Until You Pry It Out.

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

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

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.

Once The World Was Pulled Out From Beneath Your Feet, Did You Ever Get To Stand On Firm Ground Again?

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.

A Sacrament--like Marriage--means Living A Life Better Than Your Natural Instincts, So That You're Modeling God. And God Never Gives Up.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

There's An Honesty To The Wolf World That Is Liberating. There's No Diplomacy, No Decorum. You Tell Your Enemy You Hate Him; You Show Your Admiration By Confessing The Truth. That Directness Doesn't Work With Humans, Who Are Masters Of Subterfuge. Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat? Do You Really Love Me? Did You Miss Me? When A Person Asks This, She Doesn't Want To Know The Real Answer. She Wants You To Lie To Her. After Two Years Of Living With Wolves, I Had Forgotten How Many Lies It Takes To Build A Relationship.

Good People Are Good People; Religion Has Nothing To Do With It.

If There's Something As Good As [him] In My Life, I'm Going To Pay For It.

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

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

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.

I Have Only Known Her For Two Years. But If You Took Every Memory, Every Moment, If You Stretched Them End To End-they'd Reach Forever.

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

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

If You Didn't Remember Something Happening, Was It Because It Never Had Happened? Or Because You Wished It Hadn't?

Remember Something

Objection!" Metz Shouts. Grounds?" The Judge Asks. Well...he's My Witness!

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.

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

You Never Forget Your First Fall.

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

How Could You Not Want To Draw Breath One More Day? How Could Your Own Life Be Such A Cheap Commodity? But Then I Started To Understand: When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

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

You Can Argue That It's A Different World Now Than The One When Matthew Shepard Was Killed, But There Is A Subtle Difference Between Tolerance And Acceptance. It's The Distance Between Moving Into The Cul-de-sac And Having Your Next Door Neighbor Trust You To Keep An Eye On Her Preschool Daughter For A Few Minutes While She Runs Out To The Post Office. It's The Chasm Between Being Invited To A Colleague's Wedding With Your Same-sex Partner And Being Able To Slow-dance Without The Other Guests Whispering.

Love Is Not An Equation, It Is Not A Contract, And It Is Not A Happy Ending. Love Is The Slate Under The Chalk, The Ground That Buildings Rise, And The Oxygen In The Air. It Is The Place You Come Back To, No Matter Where Your Headed

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

My Sisters Keeper

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

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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.

But Rules Only Work When Everyone Plays By Them. What Happens When Someone Doesn't, And The Fallout Bleeds Right Into His Life? Whats Stronger- The Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?

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

Eskimos Maybe? Believed Stars Were Holes In The Sky Where People Who Died Could Peek Through At You

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

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.

I Woke Up One Morning Thinking About Wolves And Realized That Wolf Packs Function As Families. Everyone Has A Role, And If You Act Within The Parameters Of Your Role, The Whole Pack Succeeds, And When That Falls Apart, So Does The Pack.

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

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.

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

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

When A Freedom Is Taken Away From You, I Suppose, You Recognize It As A Privilege, Not A Right.

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

I Started Writing When I Had Three Kids Under The Age Of 4. I Used To Write Every Ten Minutes I Got To Sit In Front Of A Computer. Now, When I Have More Time, I Function The Same Way: If It's Writing Time, I Write.

I Don't Know What I Was Thinking, Coming Out Here. There Are No Silver Bullets In Life, There's Just The Long, Messy Climb Out Of The Pit You've Dug Youself.

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?

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

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

But There Is A Different Between Mending Someone Who's Broken And Finding Someone Who Makes You Complete.

Finding Someone

The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Got Was From A Labor Nurse Who Told Me The Following: 1. After Your Baby Gets Here, The Dog Will Just Be A Dog. 2. The Terrible Twos Last Through Age Three. 3. Never Ask Your Child An Open-ended Question, Such As "do You Want To Go To Bed Now?" You Won't Want To Hear The Answer, Believe Me. "do You Want Me To Carry You Upstairs, Or Do You Want To Walk Upstairs To Go To Bed?" That Way, You Get The Outcome You Want And They Feel Empowered.

Since I Was Five, I've Known That I Was Adopted, Which Is A Politically Correct Term For Being Clueless About One's Own Origins.

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.

My Mother... She Is Beautiful, Softened At The Edges And Tempered With A Spine Of Steel. I Want To Grow Old And Be Like Her.

Grief Is A Curious Thing, When It Happens Unexpectedly. It Is A Band-aid Being Ripped Away, Taking The Top Layer Off A Family. And The Underbelly Of A Household Is Never Pretty, Ours No Exception.

I Learn From My Own Daughter That You Don’t Have To Be Awake To Cry.

I Wonder If The Conversations You've Never Had With Someone Count, If You've Been Over Them A Thousand Times In Your Mind.

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.

The English Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Casting Her Out. The Amish Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Welcoming Her Back. Where I'm From, If Someone Is Accused Of Sinning, It's Not So That Others Can Place Blame. It's So That The Person Can Make Amends And Move On.

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.

I Can't Do This To You,' He Said, Drawing Back. Emily Put Her Hand On His And Pulled The Gun To Her Temple. 'then Do It For Me,' She Said.

In Nineteen Minutes You Can Norder A Pizza And Have It Delivered. You Can Read A Story To A Child Or Have Your Oil Changed. You Can Walk A Mile. You Can Sew A Hem. In Nineteen Minutes You Can Get Revenge.

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.

Many People Have A Novel Inside Them, But Most Don't Bother To Get It Out.

If You Want Something To Be True Badly Enough, You Can Rewrite It That Way, In Your Head. You Can Even Start To Believe It.

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

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

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

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.

I Think My Writing Has Become "cleaner."

Things Break All The Time. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Promises Break. Hearts Break.

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.

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

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

You'd Think Someone Who'd Been To Medical School Would Be Able To Hear Through A Stethoscope That Somebody Was Empty Inside.

No, Honestly, My Mouth Shouldn't Be Able To Function Unless My Brain's Engaged.

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.

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

From That Point Of View, I Realized That My Hole Was Not Miles Deep After All. My Father, In Fact, Could Stand On The Bottom And It Only Reached Up To His Chest. Darkness, You Know, Is Relative.

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World, While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together. And Then There Are Those Of Us Who Simply Don't Want To Be In It, Because We Know No Matter How Much We Struggle, We Can't Comfortably Fit.

When Was The Last Time Someone Read Aloud To You? Probably When You Were A Child, And If You Think Back, You'll Remember How Safe You Felt, Tucked Under The Covers, Or Curled In Someone's Arms, As A Story Was Spun Around You Like A Web.

You Can Stay Up All Night And Still Not Count All The Ways To Lose The People You Love.

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.

It's Because Of Libraries That Books Like Mine Get Recommended To Book Clubs And Avid Readers, Who In Turn Pass Them Onto Others Looking To Be Whisked Away From The World For A Little While...and Perhaps To Learn A Bit About Themselves In The Process.

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.

Fiction Allows For Moral Questioning, But Through The Back Door. Personally, I Like Books That Make You Think - Books You're Still Wondering About Three Days After You Finish Them; Books You Hand To A Friend And Say "read This, So We Can Talk About 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.

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

Listen, I Would Say, This Is Not How I Thought Our Lives Would Go; And May Be We Cannot Find Our Way Out Of This Alley. But There Is No One I'd Rather Be Lost With.

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

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.

Life Could Take On Any Number Of Shapes While You Were Busy Fighting Your Own Demons. But If You Were Changing At The Same Rate As The Person Beside You, Nothing Else Really Mattered. You Became Each Other's Constant.

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

I Knew That Somewhere God Was Laughing. He Had Taken The Other Half Of My Heart, The One Person Who Knew Me Better Than I Knew Myself, And He Had Done What Nothing Else Could Do. By Bringing Us Together, He Had Set Into Motion The One Thing That Could Tear Us Apart.

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.

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.

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.

You Didn't Get Past Something Like That, You Go Through It -- And For That Reason Alone, I Understood More About Her Than She Ever Would Have Guessed.

If History Has A Habit Of Repeating Itself, Doesn't Someone Have To Stay Behind To Shout Out A Warning?

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

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

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

I Imagine The Touch Of Someone Who Loves You So Much, He Cannot Bear To Watch You Sleep; And So You Wake Up With His Hand On Your Heart.

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

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.

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

When You're Different, Sometimes You Don't See The Millions Of People Who Accept You For What You Are. All You Notice Is The Person Who Doesn't.

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

My Sisters Keeper

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.

You Know, Sage, Jesus Didn't Tell Us To Forgive Everyone. He Said Turn The Other Cheek, But Only If You The One Who Was Hit. Even The Lord's Prayer Says It Loud And Clear: Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us. Not Others. What Jesus Challenges Us To Do Is To Let Go Of The Wrong Done To You Personally, Not The Wrong Done To Someone Else. But Most Christians Incorrectly Assume That This Means That Being A Good Christian Means Forgiving All Sins, And The Sinners.

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.

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

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

She Was All The Things I Wasn't. And I Was All The Things She Wasn't. She Could Paint Circles Around Anyone; I Couldn't Even Draw A Straight Line. She Was Never Into Sports; I've Always Been. Her Hand, It Fit Mine.

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

What Was Wrong With Me? I Had A Decent Life. I Was Healthy. I Wasn't Starving Or Maimed By A Land Mine Or Orphaned. Yet Somehow, It Wasn't Enough. I Had A Hole In Me, And Everything I Took For Granted Slipped Through It Like Sand. I Felt Like I Had Swallowed Yeast, Like Whatever Evil Was Festering Inside Me Had Doubled In Size.

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.

If He Says Jump, She Doesn't Even Ask "how High?" She Goes Out And Buys A Pogo Stick.

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

They Say That There Are Moments That Open Up Your Life Like A Walnut Cracked, That Change Your Point Of View So That You Never Look At Things The Same Way Again.

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.

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

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.

This Is What It Always Comes Down To, I Realized. There Are The Ones Who Believe, And The Ones Who Don't, And Caught In The Space Between Them Are Guns.

If God Wanted Us To Act On Instinct, We Wouldn't Have The Power Of Reason.

She Thought Of Death Like The Seam Of A Hem: Each Time You Lose Someone Close, It Unraveled A Little. You Could Still Go Along With Your Life, But You'd Be Forever Tripping Over Something You Previously Took For Granted.

The Bottom Line Is That We Never Fall For The People We're Supposed To.

Falling In Love

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

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

People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

If You Were Drifting With A Thousand Other People, Could You Really Still Say You Were Lost?

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.

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.

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

I Was Starting To See That What Looks Like Garbage From One Angle Might Be Art From Another. Maybe It Did Take A Crisis To Get To Know Yourself; Maybe You Needed To Get Whacked Hard By Life Before You Understood What You Wanted Out Of It.

It It Strange, Suddenly Having A Memory Come Back Out Of Nowhere. You Think You're Going Crazy; You Wonder Where This Recollection Has Been Hiding All Your Life. You Try To Push It Away, Because You Think You've Hammered Out The Whole Timeline Of Your Life, But Then You See That One Extra Moment, And Suddendly You Are Breaking Apart What You Though Was A Solid Segment, And Seeing It For What It Is: Just A String Of Events, Shoulder To Shoulder, And A Gap Where There Is Room For One More.

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.

Trending Author

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Frederick Buechner

John Bates Clark

Seth Grahame-Smith

Emmanuelle Beart

Category