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Once You Call Something A Story, It's Set In Stone. It Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End That Can't Be Transformed, Because By Definition, If You Do That, It's Not The Same Story Anymore

-Jodi Picoult

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Once You Call Something

Jodi Picoult

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Once You Call Something A Story, It's Set In Stone. It Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End That Can't Be Transformed, Because By Definition, If You Do That, It's Not The Same Story Anymore

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

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

The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

Change Is A Funny Thing. We Never Are Quite Sure What We Are Becoming Or Even Why. Then One Day We Look At Ourselves And Wonder Who We Are And How We Got That Way. Only One Thing About Change Remains Constant...it Is Always Painful

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.

Writer's Block Is For People Who Have The Luxury Of Time.

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

When The News You Don't Want To Hear Is Looming Before You Like Everest, Two Things Can Happen. Tragedy Can Run You Through Like A Sword, Or It Can Become Your Backbone. Either You Fall Apart And Sob, Or You Say, 'right. What's Next?

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

I Know Mark,' I Reply. 'and I Don't Like Him.' 'but I Do. And Part Of Being Social Means Being Civil To Someone You Don't Like.' 'that's Stupid. It's A Huge World. Why Not Just Get Up And Walk Away?' 'because That's Rude,' Jess Explains. 'i Think It's Rude To Stick A Smile On Your Face And Pretend You Like Talking To Someone When In Reality You'd Rather Be Sticking Bamboo Slivers Under Your Fingernails.

The Act Of Reading Is A Partnership. The Author Builds A House, But The Reader Makes It A Home.

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.

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.

I Learned A Lot That Night. For Example, That Part Of Being The Magician's Assistant Means Coming Face-to-face With Illusion. That Invisibility Is Really Just Knotting Your Body In A Certain Way And Letting The Black Curtain Fall Over You. That People Don't Vanish Into Thin Air; That When You Can't Find Someone, It's Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Think The 'new York Times' Reviews Overall Tend To Overlook Popular Fiction, Whether You're A Man, Woman, White, Black, Purple Or Pink. I Think There Are A Lot Of Readers Who Would Like To See Reviews That Belong In The Range Of Commercial Fiction Rather Than Making The Blanket Assumption That All Commercial Fiction Is Unworthy.

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

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

I Grew Up In A Household Where We Didn't Really Talk About Our Feelings, And Where The Only Reason You Went To A Doctor Was Because You'd Accidentally Cut Off A Limb With A Chain Saw.

Sometimes There Aren't Words. The Silence Between Us Is Flung Wide As An Ocean. But I Manage To Reach Across It, To Wrap My Arms Around Him.

It Was Nice Not Having To Be The One In Control, For A Little While. It Was Nice To Be The One Who Was Protected, Instead Of The One Who'd Been Protecting Eveyone Else.

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

You Would Be Surprised At The Lengths You Will Go To Believe The Best About Someone If You Truly Love Him

In The Custom Of Mourning, The Fabric Of The Night Had Been Ripped, Revealing A Star At Each Tiny Tear.

She Became Whoever She Needed To Be To Survive,but She Never Let Anyone Else Define Her.

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

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

Falling In Love

We Dont Have To Accept Each Others Beliefs..but We Do Have To Accept Each Others Right To Believe Them.

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.

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

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

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

I Will Say Overwhelmingly What Means So Much More To Me Than The Opinion Of One Reviewer Are The Letters I Get From Fans Who Tell Me How A Particular Book Has Changed Their Life.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When You Can Not Find Someone, It Is Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere

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.

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...!

My High School Guidance Counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, Once Had Me Take An Aptitude Test To Figure Out My Future. The Number One Job Recommendation For My Set Of Skills Was An Air Traffic Accident Investigator, Of Which There Are Fewer Than Fifty In The World. The Number Two Job Was A Museum Curator For Chinese-american Studies. The Number Three Job Was A Circus Clown.

Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.

Beautiful Things

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.

People Have To Experience Things That Terrify Them. If They Don't, How Will They Ever Come To Appreciate Safety?

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

All It Takes Is A Second And Your Whole Life Can Get Turned Upside Down.

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

The Problem With You Is That You Always See A Glass Of Milk Half Empty Instead Of Half Filled.

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.

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

There Are Just As Many Stories To Be Told In The Dark Spots S There Are In The Bright Ones.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

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 You Have Been Burned By Fire Once, You Don't Leap Into The Flames Again.

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.

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

I Believed The Reason There Was A God Was To Prevent Such Atrocities From Happening To The Same Person Twice. But Nothing Prepared Me For This: I Have Done What I've Sworn I Could Never Do; I Have Become My Own Nightmare... I Have Lost Control.

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

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

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.

And Just Like That, Something Inside Shifted Very Subtly, So That All The Empty Spaces In Him Suddenly Disappeared, So That His Breath Timed To Hers, So That His Blood Sang. This Is Why There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Just Didn’t Have Words Big Enough To Describe Them.

There Are Stars In The Night Sky That Look Brighter Than The Others, And When You Look At Them Through A Telescope You Realize You Are Looking At Twins. The Two Stars Rotate Around Each Other, Sometimes Taking Nearly A Hundred Years To Do It. They Create So Much Gravitational Pull There's No Room Around For Anything Else. You Might See A Blue Star, For Example, And Realize Only Later That It Has A White Dwarf As A Companion - That First One Shines So Bright, By The Time You Notice The Second One, It's Too Late.

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.

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.

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

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

I Believe That Having Something To Hope For - Even If It's Just A Better Tomorrow- Is The Most Powerful Drug On This Planet.

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

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

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

My Favorite Part Of Any Event Is A Q&a. I Do Get Asked A Lot Of The Same Questions But Every Now And Then Someone Surprises Me - And I Love That.

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.

That,” She Says, “was Never Here Before.

The Answer Is That There Is No Good Answer. So As Parents, As Doctors, As Judges, And As A Society, We Fumble Through And Make Decisions That Allow Us To Sleep At Night--because Morals Are More Important Than Ethics, And Love Is More Important Than Law.

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.

In The Space Between Yes And No, There's A Lifetime. It's The Difference Between The Path You Walk And The One You Leave Behind; It's The Gap Between Who You Thought You Could Be And Who You Really Are; Its The Legroom For The Lies You'll Tell Yourself In The Future.

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.

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.

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

Behind Your Back

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

Here I Am, Wasting Away Inside A Book I Wish I Could Escape, And All She Wants To Do Is Stay In The Story. If I Could Talk To This Girl Delilah, I’d Ask Her Why On Earth She Would Ever Trade A Single Second Of The World She’s In For The One In Which I’m Stuck

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.

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

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

Remember Something

Do You Know How, When You Are On The Verge Of A Breakdown, The World Pounds In Your Ears; A Rush Of Blood, Of Consequence? Do You Now How It Feels When The Truth Cuts Your Tongue To Ribbons, And Still You Have To Speak It?

Normal, In Our House, Is Like A Blanket Too Short For A Bed--sometimes It Covers You Just Fine, And Other Times It Leaves You Cold And Shaking; And Worst Of All, You Never Know Which Of The Two It's Going To Be.

If Words Had Flavors, Hers Would Be Bitter Almonds And Coffee Grounds.

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.

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

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

You Don't Make A Friend," Jacob Said With A Scowl. "it's Not Like They Come With Directions Like You'd Find On A Box Of Macaroni And Cheese.

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

Maybe If God Gives You A Handicap, He Makes Sure You've Got A Few Extra Doses Of Humor To Take The Edge Off.

Some People Don't Know What To Do With An Act Of Kindness.

He Is Dark And Quiet And Completely Different From Me, Which Is Exactly Why I Should Put Distance Between Us. But It Is Also The Reason I Find Him So Fascinating.

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.

When You Finally Start To Write Something, Do Not Let Yourself Stop...even When You Are Convinced It's The Worst Garbage Ever. This Is The Biggest Caveat For Beginning Writers. Instead, Force Yourself To Finish What You Began, And Then Go Back And Edit It.

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

Asking Me To Describe My Son Is Like Asking Me To Hold The Ocean In A Paper Cup

I Learned A Long Time Ago With You That Folks Who Were Trying To Be Kind Would Rather Do It With A Macaroni-and-cheese Bake Than Any Personal Involvement. You Hand Off A Serving Dish And You've Done Your Job - No Need To Get Personally Involved, And Your Conscience Is Clean. Food Is The Currency Of Aid.

People Had Figured Out All Sorts Of Ways To Make Things Seem Different Than They Truly Were.

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

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.

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.

Like Connor, Alex Protected Me -and He Was The Only Person I Let Close Enough To Do It. Like Connor, Alex Could Finish My Sentences Before I Did. But Unlike Connor, For Whom I Had Ultimately Come Too Late, I Was Just In Time To Take Care Of Alex.

How Could You Beat An Enemy You Couldn't See?

Any Time You Put On The Mouthpiece Of Somebody That You're Not, There's A Professional Responsibility To Get It Right. I Did A Great Deal Of Research In Both Of Those Arenas.

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.

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?

As A Child, What I Was Missing Was So Much Bigger To Me Than What I Had. My Mother-mythic, Imaginary-was A Deity And A Superhero And A Comfort All At Once. If Only I'd Had Her, Surely, She Would Have Been The Answer To Every Problem; If Only I'd Had Her , She Would Have Been The Cure For Everything That Ever Had Gone Wrong In My Life.

You Don't Love Someone Because They're Perfect, You Love Them In Spite Of The Fact That They're Not.

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

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

Imagine A World That Seemed So Much Bigger Than You. Imagine Waking Up One Morning And Finding A Piece Of Yourself You Didn't Even Know Existed.

A Fire Can't Burn Forever. Eventually, It Consumes Itself.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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

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

When You Are Attracted To People, It's Because Of The Details. Their Kindness. Their Eyes. The Fact That They Can Get You To Laugh When You Need It The Most.

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

So Much Of Marriage Was Implicit And Nonverbal. Had I Gotten So Complacent I'd Forgotten To Communicate?

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.

There Are All Sorts Of Losses People Suffer - From The Small To The Large. You Can Lose Your Keys, Your Glasses, Your Virginity. You Can Lose Your Head, You Can Lose Your Heart, You Can Lose Your Mind. You Can Relinquish Your Home To Move Into Assisted Living, Or Have A Child Move Overseas, Or See A Spouse Vanish Into Dementia. Loss Is More Than Just Death, And Grief Is The Gray Shape-shifter Of Emotion.

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

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.

All I Know Is That I Carried You For Nine Months. I Fed You, I Clothed You, I Paid For Your College Education. Friending Me On Facebook Seems Like A Small Thing To Ask In Return.

Mother Daughter

Mother And Daughter

Mom And Daughter

Crazy Girls Did This, Girls Who Walked Like Zombies Through Ya Novels. But. Trixie Felt The Sting Of The Skin As It Split, The Sweet Welling Rise Of Blood. It Hurt, Though Not As Much As Everything Else Idd.

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

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.

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.

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!

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?

You Can't Pay A Landlord In Dogma.

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

Raw Love, Like Raw Heartache, Could Blindside You.

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.

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

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

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.

What Does It Feel Like?” He Asked. “what Does What Feel Like?” Peter Thought For A Moment. “being At The Top.” Josie Reached Across Him For Another Packet Of Material And Fed It Into The Stapler. She Did Three Of These, And Peter Was Certain That She Was Going To Ignore Him, But Then She Spoke. “like If You Take One Wrong Step,” She Said, “you’re Going To Fall.

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

My Sisters Keeper

I Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That Before I Was A Writer, I Was A Teacher. I Still Am. My Classroom's Just Gotten A Little Bigger.

No," He Said Calmly, Filled With Purpose. He Took Her Arms Lightly In His Hands And Shook Her. "i Am Not Giving You Up." Emily Looked At Him, And For Just A Moment He Could Read Her Thoughts. Melanie Use To Say They Were Like Twins, With Their Own Secret, Silent Language. In That Instant, Chris Felt Her Fear And Her Resignation, And The Knotty Pain Of Coming Up Against A Brick Wall Again And Again. She Glanced Away, And He Could Breathe Again. "the Thing Is, Chris" Emily Said, "it's Not Your Choice.

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

Were Not Meant To Be

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

Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole.

The Only Way Someone Can Leave You Is If You Let Them.

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.

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've Never Been In Love, But I've Always Imagined It--weirdly--like Some Sort Of Oxiclean Commercial. The Tv Host Shows A Scene From An Ordinary Day, And Then Takes A Big Old Sponge Soaked In Love And Swipes Away The Stains. Suddenly That Same Scene Is Missing All The Mistakes, All The Loneliness. The Colors Are Like Jewels, Ten Times Richer Than They Were Before. The Music Is Louder And Clearer. "love," The Host Will Say, "makes Life A Little Brighter.

You Don't Make Peace Only With G-d. You Make It With People. Sin Isn't Global. It's Personal. If You Do Wrong To Someone, The Only Way To Fix That Is To Go To That Same Person And Do Right By Him.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If You Tell Yourself You Feel Fine, You Will.

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

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

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.

Each Memory Is Like A Paper Flower Stowed Up A Magician's Sleeve: Invisible One Moment And Then So Substantial And Florid The Next I Cannot Imagine How It Stayed Hidden All This Time. And Like Those Paper Flowers, Once They've Been Let Loose In The World, The Memories Are Impossible To Tuck Away Again.

You Don't Love Someone Because They're Perfect," She Says. "you Love Them In Spite Of The Fact That They're Not." I Don't Know How To Respond To That; It's Like Being Told After Thirty-five Years That The Sky, Which I've Seen As A Brilliant Blue, Is In Fact Rather Green.

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

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. There Were Times I Stayed In My Room For Days On End With Headphones On, If Only So That I Would Not Have To Listen To My Mother Cry. There Were The Weeks That My Father Worked Round-the-clock Shifts, So That He Wouldn't Have To Come Home To A House That Felt Too Big For Us.

I Know How Difficult It Can Be When The Image You've Had Of Something Doesn't Match Its Reality; When The Friend Beside You Turns Into A Monster.

We Are All, I Suppose, Beholden To Our Parents - The Question Is, How Much?

I’m Gonna Miss You,” Brianna Says. “i’m Gonna Miss You Too, Baby,” Angelo Murmurs. For Pete’s Sake. It’s Not Like She’s Leaving On A Trip Around The World. She’s Only Headed To Homeroom.

Here's What No One Ever Tells You About Love: It Hurts, Having Your Heart Broken

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.

Your Hand Fits Mine Like The Last Piece Of A Jigsaw Puzzle

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.

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.

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

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

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?

And, After All, What Is A Lie? 'tis But The Truth In Masquerade.

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

I'm Grateful For My Children, Who Are Slowly Emerging To Become Their Own Wonderful, Interesting, Compassionate Young Adults - Which Makes Me Believe That Along The Way I Must Have Done Something Right.

Would You Give Up Your Vengeance Against Someone You Hate If It Meant Saving Someone You Love? Would You Want Your Dreams To Come True If It Meant Granting Your Enemy's Dying Wish?

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

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

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

You Are Only As Invincible As Your Smallest Weakness, And Those Are Tiny Indeed - The Length Of A Sleeping Baby's Eyelash, The Span Of A Child's Hand. Life Turns On A Dime, And - It Turns Out - So Does One's Conscience.

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.

Sometimes You Can See Things Happen Right In Front Of Your Eyes And Still Jump To The Wrong Conclusions.

Love Makes Life A Little Brighter

What Makes You Walk Past Thirty-thousand People Without A Second Glance, And Then You Look At The Thirty-thousandth-and-first Person And Know You'll Never Take Your Eyes Off Her Again?

Witness Testimony Is Always Flawed. It's Better Than Circumstantial Evidence, Sure, But People Aren't Camcorders; They Don't Record Every Action And Reaction, And The Very Act Of Remembering Involves Chosing Words, Actions And Images. In Other Words, Any Witness Who Was Supposed To Be Giving A Court Facts Is Really Just Giving Them A Version Of Fiction.

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James F. Byrnes

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