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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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Nobody, Who Looks At

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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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.

I Think My Writing Has Become "cleaner."

I Wonder If Other Mothers Feel A Tug At Their Insides, Watching Their Children Grow Up Into The People They Themselves Wanted So Badly To Be.

I Would Have Given Anything To Keep Her Little. They Outgrow Us So Much Faster Than We Outgrow Them. Brian Fitzgerald, Talking About His Children.

To Me, A Good Event Is Governed By The Audience.

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

I Know Better Than Most People That A Criminal Isn't Always A Thug In A Black Leather Jacket With A Big Brand On His Forehead To Warn Us Away. Criminals Sit Next To Us On The Bus. They Pack Our Groceries And Cash Our Paychecks For Us And Teach Our Children. They Look No Different From You Or Me. And That's Why They Get Away With It.

Leather Jackets

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.

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

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.

All Teenagers Knew This Was True. The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face. For Years, Parents Tell You That You Can Be Anything, Have Anything, Do Anything. That Was Why She'd Been So Eager To Grow Up-until She Got To Adolescence And Hit A Big Fat Wall Ofreality. As It Turned Out, She Couldn't Have Anything She Wanted. You Didn't Get To Be Pretty Or Smart Or Popular Just Because You Wanted It. You Didn't Control Your Own Destiny, You Were Too Busy Trying To Fit In.

I Don't Have To Live The Lives Of My Characters To Write About Them. It's About Really Putting Yourself In Their Shoes.

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

I Wanted Him To Feel What I Felt When I Was With Him: That Incredible Combination Of Comfort, Decadence, And Wonder; The Knowledge That, With Just A Single Taste Of Him, I Was Addicted.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

I Don't Base My Books On My Life (thank Goodness) And I Don't Pick The Topic First. In Fact, The Topic Picks Me - Via A Question I Can't Answer As A Mom, A Wife, A Woman, An American. I Find Myself Wondering "what If..." And It Blossoms Into A Whole Novel.

I Don't Know What He Means By That, But I Nod And Smile At Him. You'd Be Surprised At How Far That Response Can Get You In A Conversation Where You Are Completely Confused.

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

You Fell In Love With Someone Because Of The Tilt Of His Smile, Or Because He Could Make You Laugh, Or In This Case, Because He Made You Believe That You Were The Only One Who Could Save Him.

No One Ever Asks A Kid For Her Opinion, But It Seems To Me That Growing Up Means You Stop Hoping For The Best, And Start Expecting The Worst.

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

What Is Right, In The End, Is Not Always What It Seems To Be, And Some Rules Are Better Broken.

But If You Seek Forgiveness, Doesn't That Automatically Mean You Cannot Be A Monster? By Definition, Doesn't That Desperation Make You Human Again?

Here Are The Things I Know For Sure: When You Think You're Right, You Are Most Likely Wrong. Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole. And, In Spite Of What I Said, You Can Miss A Person You've Never Known. I Learn This Over And Over Again.

I Always Hated When My Scars Started To Fade, Because As Long As I Could Still See Them, I Knew Why I Was Hurting.

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

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

Did You Ever Think That Maybe What You See Isn't Really What's True?

Once Upon A Time There Were Two Sisters. One Of Them Was Really, Really Strong, And One Of Them Wasn't.' You Looked At Me. 'your Turn.' I Rolled My Eyes. 'the Strong Sister Went Outside Into The Rain And Realized The Reason She Was Strong Was Because She Was Made Out Of Iron, But It Was Raining And She Rusted. The End.' No, Because The Sister Who Wasn't Strong Went Outside Into The Rain When It Was Raining, And Hugged Her Really Tight Until The Sun Came Out Again.

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

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

What’s The Difference Between Spending Your Life Trying To Be Invisible, Or Pretending To Be The Person You Think Everyone Wants You To Be? Either Way, You’re Faking.

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.

My Mother Moves So Fast I Do Not Even See It Coming. But She Slaps My Face Hard Enough To Make My Head Snap Backward. She Leaves A Print That Stains Me Long After It’s Faded. Just So You Know: Shame Is Five-fingered.

When I Was Little I Bragged About My Firefighting Father: My Father Would Go To Heaven, Because If He Went To Hell He Would Put Out All The Fires.

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

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

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

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

As Anyone Who's Ever Contracted It Knows, Lies Are An Infectious Disease. They Slip Under The Almond Slivers Of Your Fingernails And Into Your Bloodstream.

I Could Tell Her From Personal Experience That When People We Love Make Choices We Don't Always Understand Them. But We Can Go On Loving Them, Just The Same. It Isn't A Matter Of Comprehension. It's Forgiveness. But All This Took Me A Lifetime To Discover, And Where Has It Gotten Me?... Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

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Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

Can You Hate Someone For What They Have Done, But Still Love Them For Whom They Had Been?

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

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.

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.

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

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

Remember When You Were A Little Kid And You'd Fall Asleep In The Car? And Someone Would Carry You Out And Put You Into Bed, So That When You Woke Up In The Morning, You Knew Automatically You Were Home Again? That's What I Think It's Like To Die.

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

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

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.

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.

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

For Me It's More Important That I Outline All The Facets Of A Controversial Issue And Let The Reader Make Up His Or Her Mind. I Don't Care If Readers Change Their Minds, But I Would Like Readers To Ask Themselves Why Their Opinion Is What It Is.

After All, Once You Know That Part Of Something Exists, It Stands To Reason That The Rest Of It Is Somewhere Out There, Too.

Somewhere Out There

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

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

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.

If You Don't Get Sick, You Won't Get Well.

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.

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.

Missed Opportunities Were Never Superficial Wounds; They Cut Straight To The Bone.

I Know What It's Like To Start Something And Have It Suddenly Grow Out Of Control. And You Want To Get Rid Of It, Because It's Hurting You And Everyone Else Around You, But Every Time You Try To Do That, It Consumes You Again.

The Inuit Say That The Stars Are Holes In Heaven. And Every Time We See The People We Loved Shining Through, We Know They're Happy.

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

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

She Had Loved Him. He Knew This; He Had Never Doubted It. But She Had Also Asked Him To Kill Her. If You Love Someone That Much, You Did Not Lay That Sort Of Burden On Him For The Rest Of His Life.

If You Love Someone

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.

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

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

I Have Never Fit Into This Town, This Marriage, This Skin. I Am The Child Who Was Picked Last To Play Tag; I Am The Girl Who Laughed Although She Did Not Get The Joke; I Am The Piecemeal Part Of You That You Pretend Doesn't Exist, Except It Is All I Am, All The Time.

Dark Matter Has A Gravitation Effect On Other Objects. You Can't See It, You Can't Feel It, But You Can Watch Something Being Pulled In Its Direction.

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?

Read A Ton. Take A Workshop Course So You Learn To Give And Get Criticism.

Writing Workshop

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

It Was A Strange Thing, To Still Be In Love With Your Wife And To Not Know If You Liked Her. What Would Happen When This Was All Over? Could You Forgive Someone If She Hurt You And The People You Love, If She Truly Believed She Was Only Trying To Help? I Had Filed For Divorce, But That Wasn't What I Really Wanted. What I Really Wanted Was For All Of Us To Go Back Two Years, And Start Over. Had I Ever Really Told Her That?

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.

Words Are Like Eggs Dropped From Great Heights; You Can No More Call Them Back Than Ignore The Mess They Leave When They Fall.

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

You Can't Be Real," Delilah Murmurs. "says Who?" I Ask. "did You Really Think That A Story Exists Only When You're Reading It?

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.

There's Some Illogical Part Of Me That Still Believes If You Want Superman To Show Up, First There's Got To Be Someone Worth Saving.

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

Tip Of The Iceberg

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

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

Finding Someone

It Takes Two People To Make A Friendship Work

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.

Forgiveness Is Spiritual. Punishment Is Legal," Leo Says. "they're Not Mutually Exclusive.

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

The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face.

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?

And Yet, You Never Knew Wwhat You Were Capable Of Until You Arrived At That Given Moment. Life Was Just A Whole String Of Spots Where You Continued To Surprise Yourself.

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 Think We Deserve A Happily-ever-after." "if Anyone Ever Did, It's Us.

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

Ross Believed In Past Lives. Moreover, He Believed That The Person You Fell In Love With In Each Life Was The Same Person You Fell In Love With In The Life Before, And The One Before That. Sometimes, You Might Miss Her - She'd Be Reborn In Post-world War I Generation, And You Wouldn't Come Back Until The Fifties. Sometimes, Your Paths Would Cross And You Wouldn't Recognize Each Other. Get It Right - That Is: Fall Madly, Truly, Deeply - And Perhaps There'd Be An Eternity Carved Out Solely For The Two Of You.

The Truth Was, History Repeated Itself On A Daily Basis; Mistakes Were Made Over And Over. People Were Haunted By What They Had Done, And By What They Hadn't Had Time To Do.

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.

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?

Life Was What Happened When All The What-if’s Didn’t, When What You Dreamed Or Hoped Or – In This Case – Feared Might Come To Pass Passed By Instead.

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

Was It The Act Of Giving Birth That Made You A Mother? Did You Lose That Label When You Relinquished Your Child? If People Were Measured By Their Deeds, On The One Hand, I Had A Woman Who Had Chosen To Give Me Up; On The Other, I Had A Woman Who'd Sat Up With Me At Night When I Was Sick As A Child, Who'd Cried With Me Over Boyfriends, Who'd Clapped Fiercely At My Law School Graduation. Which Acts Made You More Of A Mother? Both, I Realized. Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

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.

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

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

After A Certain Point, A Heart With So Many Stress Fractures Can Never Be Anything But Broken.

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

Stem Cell Research Has Become Such A Polarizing Issue In America... And I Wanted To Bring It Down To The Personal Level, Instead Of The Political.

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

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

If You've Lived Through It, You Already Know There Are No Words That Will Ever Come Close To Describing It, And If You Didn't - You Will Never Understand.

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

I Realize Then That We Never Have Children, We Receive Them. And Sometimes It’s Not For Quite As Long As We Would Have Expected Or Hoped. But It Is Still Far Better Than Never Having Had Those Children At All.

What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?

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

Parenting Is Really Just A Matter Of Tracking, Of Hoping Your Kids Do Not Get So Far Ahead You Can No Longer See Their Next Moves.

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

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

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

The First Time Someone I Loved Left Me Behind...i Didn't Know How My Family Would Balance. We Had Been Such A Sturdy Little End Table, Four Solid Legs. I Was Sure We Would Now Be Off-kilter, Always Unstable. Until One Day I Looked More Closely, And Realized That We Had Simply Become A Stool.

How Can You Be A Survivor, When You Can't Even Remember The War?

If You Have A Sister And She Dies, Do You Stop Saying You Have One? Or Are You Always A Sister, Even When The Other Half Of The Equation Is Gone?

The Real Power Of A Wolf Isn't In Its Fearsome Jaws, Which Can Clench With Fifteen Hundred Pounds Of Pressure Per Square Inch. The Real Power Of A Wolf Is Having That Strength, And Knowing When Not To Use It.

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

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

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

I Don't Know The First Thing About Holding Together A Family, Especially One That Resembles An Heirloom Vase, Shattered But Glued Back Together For Its Beauty, And No One Mentions That You Can See The Cracks As Plain As Day.

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

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.

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

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

Newborns Reminded Her Of Tiny Buddhas

The Joke's On Them. One Little Hypodermic Wont' Be Enough. Split A Piece Of Wood, And They'll Find Me. Lift Up A Stone, And They'll Find Me. Look In The Mirror, And They'll Find Me...if You Really Want To Know What Makes Someone A Killer, Ask Yourself What Would Make You Do It.

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

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

It Is Strange To Think That We Might Have Crossed Paths, And Still Not Have Known What We Were Missing.

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.

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

I'm Not Saying You Did The Wrong Thing. I'm Not Even Saying It Wasn't Something I'd Thought Of Doing, Myself. But Even If It Was The Just Thing To Do, Or The Fitting Thing, It Still Wasn't The Right Thing.

She's Not Classically Beautiful, But Somehow That Only Makes Her More Interesting.

Something Still Exists As Long As There's Someone Around To Remember It.

I Leaned Forward And Kissed Him. And Again. As If I Were Passing Him All Those Silent Words I Cound Not Say, The Ones That Explained My Biggest Secret: That I Might Not Have Oi But I Knew How He (adam) Felt. That I Was Breaking Apart, Too, All The Time."-amelia

The World Just Feels Different For Those Of Us Who Come Alive After Dark. It's More Fragile And Unreal, A Replica Of The One Everyone Else Inhabits.

When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books

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

I Don't Write The Same Book Over And Over - I Think If I Did That, I Would Stop Writing. I Couldn't Write A Series With The Same Character, And I Couldn't Write A Romance Novel Over And Over Again That Takes Place At A Different Beach Every Year. That's Not Who I Am.

It Does'nt Matter Who Forgives You, If You're The One Who Can't Forget.

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.

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

History Tells Us That Six Million Jews Disappeared During That War. If There Was No Holocaust, Where Did They Go?' She Shakes Her Head. 'all Of That, And The World Didn't Learn Anything. Look Around. There's Still Ethnic Cleansing. There's Discrimination.

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.

He Gently Touched His Mother's Cheek, Felt Her Sorrow Slip Over His Fingertips.

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

[i] Don't Think I Was Trying To Kill Myself. I Just Wanted To Hurt, And Understand Exactly Whay I Was Hurting. This Made Sense: You Cut, You Felt Pain, Period.

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

I Think That's Probably The Most Devastating Thing - When Someone Who Is Larger Than Life Winds Up A Shadow Of Themselves In A Hospital Bed.

Believe Me, Being Gay Is Not A Choice. Noone Would Choose To Make Life Harder Than It Has To Be.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

You Figured That The Only Way I'd Be Happy Is If I Did The Things You Thought Would Be Best For Me.

[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.

When It Comes To Memories, The Good And The Bad Never Balance.

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

Did You Ever Wonder If The Person In The Picture Is The Same One You See When You Look In The Mirror?" - "that's The Eternal Question, Isn't It? Are We Born Who We Are, Or Do We Make Ourselves That Way?

Until This Moment, I Had Not Realized That Someone Could Break Your Heart Twice, Along The Very Same Fault Lines.

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.

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

Remember Something

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?

I Don't Know What It Is About Death That Makes It So Hard. I Suppose It's The One-sided Communication; The Fact That We Never Get To Ask Our Loved One If She Suffered, If She Is Happy Wherever She Is Now...if She Is Somewhere. It's The Question Mark That Comes With Death That We Can't Face, Not The Period.

Life Was What Happened When All The What-ifs Didn't.

It Still Hurts," She Whispered. "even When You're Doing It For Someone Else, That Doesn't Stop Your Ribs From Getting Cracked, Or Your Wrist Swelling, Or Your Cuts From Bleeding.

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.

There's No Way To Convince Her That Just Because You Put Half. Planet Between You And Someone Else, You Can't Drive That Person Out Of Your Thoughts. Believe Me. I've Tried.

I Wondered What Happened When You Offered Yourself To Someone, And They Opened You, Only To Discover You Were Not The Gift They Expected And They Had To Smile And Nod And Say Thank You All The Same.

Saying Thank You

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

I Think You Can Love A Person Too Much. You Put Someone Up On A Pedestal, And All Of A Sudden, From That Perspective, You Notice What's Wrong - A Hair Out Of Place, A Run In A Stocking, A Broken Bone. You Spend All Your Time And Energy Making It Right, And All The While, You Are Falling Apart Yourself. You Don't Even Realize What You Look Like, How Far You've Deteriorated, Because You Only Have Eyes For Someone Else.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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?

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

Writing Is Total Grunt Work. A Lot Of People Think It's All About Sitting And Waiting For The Muse. I Don't Buy That. It's A Job. There Are Days When I Really Want To Write, Days When I Don't. Every Day I Sit Down And Write.

When The Door Opens, I Realize That The Only Thing Worse Than Waiting Is The Moment You Realize A Decision Has Been Made.

She Had Never Been A Pretty Crier. She Sobbed The Way She Did Everything Else - With Passion And Excess.

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.

You Can Be Strapped To The Most Stable Chair And Still Feel The World Give Way Beneath You.

We Could All Be Lucky. We Could All Be What We Want To Be, Instead Of Who Someone Else Told Us To Be.

The World Is A Place Where The Extraordinary Can Sit Just Beside The Ordinary With The Thinnest Of Boundaries; That Even In Environments Inhospitable To Man, All Sort Of Entities Might Thrive.

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.

Since It Had Gotten So Quiet In The Room That You Could Hear The Sound Of Your Own Doubts.

Inside Each Of Us Is A Monster; Inside Each Of Us Is A Saint. The Real Question Is Which One We Nurture The Most, Which One Will Smite The Other.

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

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Vincent Van Gogh

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