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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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Maybe If You Spend

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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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.

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

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

Why Do Some Memories Bleed Out Of Nowhere And Others Stay Locked Behind Doors?

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

It's Hard To Be The One Always Waiting. I Mean, There's Something To Be Said For The Hero Who Charges Off To Battle, But When You Get Right Down To It There's A Whole Story In Who's Left Behind.

Sara: "you Are So Brave," I Tell Her, And Then I Smile. "when I Grow Up, I Want To Be Just Like You." To My Surprise, Kate Shakes Her Head Hard. Her Voice Is A Feather, A Thread. "no Mommy," She Says. "you'd Be Sick.

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

I Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.

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Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

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.

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.

You Know How Sometimes, Your Life Is So Perfect You’re Afraid For The Next Moment, Because It Couldn’t Possibly Be Quite As Good? That’s What It Felt Like.

The Problem Isn’t With Rock Lyrics, It’s With The Fabric Of This Society Itself.

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.

So I Do What I Do Best. I Move In The Opposite Direction.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kid Says To Me, "you Play Baseball? What Position? Left Out?" And Gets A Big Laugh From The Rest Of The Class. Kid Is Only One Person Out Of 6.792 Billion Humans On This Planet. This Planet Is Only One-eighth Of The Solar System, Whose Sun Is One Of Two Billion Stars In The Milky Way Galaxy. Put It That Way, The Comment Loses It's Importance.

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.

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

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.

Why Are You Doing This To Yourself? When Something Bad Happens, Why Do You Have To Pick At It Until It Bleeds All Over Again?

There Are Legions Of Us, I Realized. The Mothers Who Have Broken Babies, And Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Wondering If We Should Have Spared Them. And The Mothers Who Have Let Their Broken Babies Go, Who Look At Our Children And See Instead The Faces Of The Ones They Never Met.

That's Because You've Never Been One. You Haven't Spent Years Wearing Someone Else's Clothes, Taking Someone Else's Name, Living In Someone Else's Houses, And Working Someone Else's Job To Fit In. And If You Don't Sell Out, Then You Run Away... Proving You're The Gypsy They Said You Were All Along.

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

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

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.

We All Have Things That Come Back To Haunt Us. Some Of Us Just See Them More Clearly Than Others.

Raw Love, Like Raw Heartache, Could Blindside You.

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.

What If The One I Choose To Discount Is One Who Has Been Truly Hurt?

Nobody, Who Looks At A Shard Of Flint Lying Beneath A Rock Ledge, Or Who Finds A Splintered Log By The Side Of The Road Would Ever Find Magic In Their Solitude. But In The Right Circumstances, If You Bring Them Together, You Can Start A Fire That Consumes The World.

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.

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?

It's Just Like Nurses In A Hospital Tend To Know More Than The Doctors Most Of The Time; If You Really Want To Get The Answers To A Question About Court, You Should Spend More Time Buttering Up The Clerks Than The Judges.

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

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."

The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Alway All That Hate, Is You.

Three Months Ago, If You Asked Me, I Would Have Told You That If You Really Loved Someone, You’d Let Them Go. But Now I Look At You, And I Dreamed About Maggie, And I See That I’ve Been Wrong. If You Really Love Someone, Allie, I Think You Have To Take Them Back.

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

This Is Love, I Think. A Place Where People Who Have Been Alone May Lock Together Like Hawks And Spin In The Air, Dizzy With Surprise At The Connection. A Place You Go Willingly, And With Wonder

I 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.

I Close My Eyes, Thinking That There Is Nothing Like An Embrace After An Absence, Nothing Like Fitting My Face Into The Curve Of His Shoulder And Filling My Lungs With The Scent Of Him.

I Became A Firefighter Because I Wanted To Save People. But I Should Have Been More Specific. I Should Have Named Names.

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

Being A Good Mother, It Seemed To Me, Meant You Ran The Risk Of Losing Your Child.

Most People In America Want An Easy Read. I Call It Mcfiction - Books Which Pass Right Through You Without You Even Digesting Them. I Don't Mean A Book That Has Two-syllable Words. I Mean Chapters You Can Read In A Toilet Break. Happy Endings. We Are More Of A Tv Culture.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

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

I’d Much Rather Pretend I’m Somewhere Else, And Any Time I Open The Pages Of A Book, That Happens.

So Much Of The Language Of Love Was Like That: You Devoured Someone With Your Eyes, You Drank In The Sight Of Him, You Swallowed Him Whole. Love Was Substance, Broken Down And Beating Through Your Bloodstream.

People Work Too Hard To Figure Out The Meaning Of Their Lives. Why Me, Why Now. The Truth Is, Sometimes Things Don't Happen To You For A Reason. Sometimes It's Just About Being In The Right Place At The Right Time For Someone Else.

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

Men. You Can't Live With Them...and You Can't Legally Shoot Them. I Tossed Out My Husband Eight Years Ago And Got A Llama Instead. Best Decision I Ever Made.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Once You Had Put The Pieces Back Together, Even Though You May Look Intact, You Were Never Quite The Same As You'd Been Before The Fall.

Just 'cause You Can't See Me Don't Mean I Gone Away.

The Bottom Line In Both Cases Is That People Don't Change; That No Matter How Charming You Are And How Fiercely You Love, You Cannot Turn A Person Into Something She's Not.

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

Isn’t That What True Romance Is Supposed To Be About? Finding The Person Who’s Your Soul Mate. Someone You Dream About At Night.someone Whose Name Is On Your Lips When You Wake Up In The Morning.

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

But There's An Enormous Difference Between An Audience That's Watching You Because They Can't Wait To See What Comes Next And An Audience That's Watching You Because They're Waiting For You To Fail.

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.

Why Is It That Only In The Very Beginnings Of A Relationship Are You Aware Of The Heat Coming From Inside A Person, Of The Number Of Inches You Would Have To Move For Your Shoulders To Brush As If It Were An Accident?

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.

We Sit For A Few More Moments, Although There's Really Nothing Left To Say. This Is New To Me, Too, An Entire Conversation That Takes Place In Silence, Because The Heart Has Its Own Language. I Will Remember What Eric Says Even Though He Doesn't Say A Word. I Will Tell It To Her.

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.

It Takes Two People To Make A Lie Work: The Person Who Tells It, And The One Who Believes It.

By Now You've Already Formed Your Own Impression. You Believe That An Act Committed A Lifetime Ago Defines A Man, Or You Believe That A Person's Past Has Nothing To Do With His Future. You Think I Am Either A Hero, Or A Monster. Maybe Knowning More About Circumstances Will Make You Think Differently About Me, But It Won't Change What Happened Twenty-eight Years Ago.

What Could It Be Like To Find Out, In A Matter Of Minutes, That The Person You Believed The Sun Rose And Set On Was Not The Person You'd Thought?

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?

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

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

I'm Telling You, If Aliens Landed On Earth Today And Took A Good Hard Look At Why Babies Get Born, They'd Conclude That Most People Had Children By Accident, Or Because They Drink Too Much On A Certain Night, Or Because Birth Control Isn't One Hundred Percent, Or For A Thousand Other Reasons That Really Aren't Very Flattering.

Love Meant Jumping Off A Cliff And Trusting That A Certain Person Would Be There To Catch You At The Bottom.

I Imagine Having That Sixth Sense, The Certainty That What I'm Looking For Is Within Reach, Even If It's Still Hidden.

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.

Hope And Reality Lie In Inverse Proportions.

When This Is Over...we Will Got To The Rainforest, Or A Beach As White As Bone. We Will Eat Grapes From The Vine, We Will Swim With Sea Turtles, We Will Walk Miles On Cobblestone Streets. We Will Laugh And Talk And Confess. We Will.

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

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.

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.

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.

Do You Remember The Summer We Signed You Up For Camp? And The Night Before You Left, You Said You've Changed Your Mind And Wanted To Stay Home? I Told You To To Get A Seat On The Left Side Of The Bus, So When You Pulled Away, You'd Be Able To Look Back And See Me There Waiting For You." I Press Her Hand Against My Cheek, Hard Enough To Leave A Mark. "you Get That Same Seat In Heaven. One Where You Can Watch Me, Watching You.

Everyone Thinks You Make Mistakes When You're Young. But I Don't Think We Make Any Fewer When We're Grown Up

You Can’t Undo Something That’s Happened; You Can’t Take Back A Word That’s Already Been Said Out Loud.

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.

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

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?

The Damage Was Permanent; There Would Always Be Scars. But Even The Angriest Scars Faded Over Time Until It Was Difficult To See Them Written On The Skin At All, And The Only Thing That Remained Was The Memory Of How Painful It Had Been.

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

Maybe The Reason I've Never Died In This Story Is That I've Never Had Something Worth Dying For Before.

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.

Talking Out Loud To Fictional Characters Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg.

Tip Of The Iceberg

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

In Poland, For A While, My Books All Had Cartoons On The Cover. I Trust My Publishers In Each Country To Know What Works In Their Individual Markets.

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

Finding Someone

I Suddenly Remember Being Very Little And Being Embraced By My Father. I Would Try To Put My Arms Around My Father's Waist, Hug Him Back. I Could Never Reach The Whole Way Around The Equator Of His Body; He Was That Much Larger Than Life. Then One Day, I Could Do It. I Held Him, Instead Of Him Holding Me, And All I Wanted At That Moment Was To Have It Back The Other Way.

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.

Is Fate Getting What You Deserve, Or Deserving What You Get?

What You Deserve

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

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.

Maybe A Mother Wasn't What She Seemed To Be On The Surface.

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

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.

After All, The Only Way To Communicate Is To Find Someone Who Can Comprehend; The Only Way To Be Forgiven Is To Find Someone Who Is Willing To Forgive.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Tell You This As A Cautionary Tale: Beware Of Getting What You Want. It's Bound To Disappoint You.

Getting What You Want

Cautionary Tales

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

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

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

It Makes Faith Think Of A Hammock In Their Yard, A Web Of Rope That She Thought Would Unravel The First Time She Leaned Back On It, But That Managed To Support Her All The Same.

In Half Hour My Mother Has Managed To Give Me What My Father Couldn't: My Past.

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.

Tradionally, Parents Made Decisions For A Child, Because Presumably They Are Looking Out For His Or Her Best Interests. But If They Are Blinded, Instead, By The Best Interests Of Another One Of Their Children, The System Breaks Down.

Gay Teenagers Are Four Times As Likely To Attempt Suicide As Straight Ones. I Wish They Knew That There's Nothing Wrong With Them; That They Are Just A Different Shade Of Normal.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn’t Have Any.

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

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.

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.

My Mother Used To Tell Me That When Push Comes To Shove, You Always Know Who To Turn To. That Being A Family Isn't A Social Construct But An Instinct.

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

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

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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

I Know You Love Me

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?

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

When You Love Someone

Nathaniel Closes His Eyes And Jumps, His Arms Glued To His Sides Like That Fly's. He Doesn't Try To Break His Fall, Just Hits Hard, Because It Hurts Less Than Everything Else.

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.

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

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.

But There’s A Part Of Me That Wonders What It Would Be Like To Be The Most Important Person To Someone Else, To Always Feel Like You Were Missing A Piece Of Yourself When He Wasn’t Near You.

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?

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.

Things Had A Way Of Working Out For The Best When You Let Them Run Their Course.

With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

My Friends Say I Have Two Speeds: Fast And Blistering.

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.

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

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.

I Don’t Think Anyone Who Falls In Love Has A Choice. You’re Just Pulled To That Person Like True North, Whether It’s Good For You Or Bound To Break Your Heart.

Falling In Love

There Is Nothing Worse Than Silence, Strung Like Heavy Beads On Too Delicate A Conversation.

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.

Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

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.

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.

At 17, The Smallest Crises Took On Tremendous Proportions; Someone Else's Thoughts Could Take Root In The Loam Of Your Own Mind; Having Someone Accept You Was As Vital As Oxygen. Adults, Light Years Away From This, Rolled Their Eyes And Smirked And Said, 'this Too Shall Pass' - As If Adolescence Was A Disease Like Chicken Pox, Something Everyone Recalled As A Milk Nuisance, Completely Forgetting How Painful It Had Been At The Time.

I 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.

Hope And Reality Lie In Inverse Proportions, Inside The Walls Of A Hospital... Doubt Is Like Dye. Once Is Spreads Into The Fabric Of Excuses You've Woven, You'll Never Get Rid Of The Stain.

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?

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.

On A Really Dark Night, You Can See Between 1,000 And 1,500 Stars, And There Are Millions More That Haven't Been Discovered. It Is So Easy To Think That The World Revolves Around You, But All You Have To Do Is Stare Up At The Sky To Realize It Isn't That Way At All. -brian Fitzgerald

She Was Forced To Consider The Startling Fact That The Love Of Her Life Might Not Actually Be Someone With Whom She Could Spend A Lifetime.

I Think This Is Every Mother's Worst Nightmare - Something Dreadful Happening To Her Child.

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.

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

Domestic Violence

How Could You Go About Choosing Something That Would Hold The Half Of Your Heart You Had To Bury?

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.

And That Was The Greatest Heartbreak Of All- No Matter How Spectacular We Want Our Children To Be, No Matter How Perfect We Pretend They Are, They Are Bound To Disappoint. As It Turns Out, Kids Are More Like Us Than We Think: Damaged, Through And Through.

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!

Kids Think With Their Brains Cracked Wide Open; Becoming An Adult, I've Decided, Is Only A Slow Sewing Shut.

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.

The Ability To Find Sparks May Be Buried So Deep In You That You Stop Believing There's A God. Until Someone Comes Along, With So Much Light In Her That You Can't Help But See Your Own, And When You're Together,that Light Grows Even Brighter.

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.

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

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.

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

When I Think About Writers Who Use Fiction As Social Commentary And To Raise Social Awareness But Who Are Also Very Popular, I Think Of Dickens.

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

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 Knew Her Well Enough To Understand That When Delia Pushed You Away, It Was Her Way Of Making Sure She Didn't Get Shoved First.

Technically I've Improved - I Might Turn A Metaphor In Five Words Now, Where Years Ago, It Would Have Taken Me A Paragraph. I Can't Say It Was Intentional - But You Know What They Say About Practice Making Perfect...!

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?

Campbell" Julia Says "don't Do This To Me" "do What?" "push Me Off The Same Cliff Twice

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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

The Way I Challenge Myself Is By Writing Something That Really Engages Me, That Doesn't Have An Easy Answer, And Isn't Always An Easy Book To Write.

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Michel Foucault

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