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She's Not Like Anyone I've Ever Seen Before. When I'm Not With Her, I Want To Be. And When She Opens The Book And I See Her Face, I Can Barely Remember What I'm Supposed To Say, Much Less How To Speak At All." I Test The Words On My Tongue. "i Think I Might Be In Love With Her. But How Can I Really Know, Since The Only Love I've Ever Experienced Was Written For Me?

-Jodi Picoult

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She's Not Like Anyone

Jodi Picoult

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She's Not Like Anyone I've Ever Seen Before. When I'm Not With Her, I Want To Be. And When She Opens The Book And I See Her Face, I Can Barely Remember What I'm Supposed To Say, Much Less How To Speak At All." I Test The Words On My Tongue. "i Think I Might Be In Love With Her. But How Can I Really Know, Since The Only Love I've Ever Experienced Was Written For Me?

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I Have Several Writer Friends, But I Don't Involve Them In My Work Process. I'm More Likely To Talk About The Business Of Publishing With Them.

There's A Cliff At The End Point Of A Person's Life; Most Us Of Peer Over The Edge Of It, Hanging On. That's Why, When Someone Chooses To Let Go, It's So Dramatically Visible. The Body Will Seem Almost Transparent. The Eys Will Be Looking At Something The Rest Of Us Can't See.

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.

You Know How Every Now And Then, You Have A Moment Where Your Whole Life Stretches Out Ahead Of You Like A Forked Road, And Even As You Choose One Gritty Path You've Got Your Eyes On The Other The Whole Time, Certain That You're Making A Mistake.

People Ask All The Time How I'm Doing, But The Truth Is, They Don't Really Want To Know.

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.

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

I Realize How Quickly Lies Compound. They Cover Like A Coat Of Paint, One On Top Of The Other, Until You Cannot Remember What Color You Started With.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Imagine If You Were The Positive Pole Of A Magnet, And You Were Told That Under No Circumstances Were You Allowed To Touch That Negative Pole That Was Sucking You In Like A Black Hole. Or If You Crawled Out Of The Desert And Found A Woman Standing With A Pitcher Of Ice Water, But She Held It Out Of Your Reach. Imagine Jumping Off A Building, And Then Being Told Not To Fall. That's What It Feels Like To Want A Drink.

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

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

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

If It Had Been Easy For Romeo To Get To Juliet, Nobody Would Have Cared. Same Goes For Cyrano And Don Quixote And Gatsby And Their Respective Paramours. What Captures The Imagination Is Watching Men Throw Themselves At A Brick Wall Over And Over Again, And Wondering If This Is The Time That They Won't Be Able To Get Back Up.

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

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

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.

But That's What Love Is, Isn't It? When It Hurts You More To See Someone Suffer Than It Does To Take The Pain Away?

That The Sum Of A Man's Life Was Not Where He Wound Up But In The Details That Brought Him There. That We Made Mistakes. I Closed My Eyes, Sick Of The Riddles, And To My Surprise All I Could See Were Dandelions-as If They Had Been Painted On The Fields Of My Imagination, A Hundred Thousand Suns. And I Remembered Something Else That Makes Us Human: Faith, The Only Weapon In Our Arsenal To Battle Doubt.

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

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

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

There Is A Reason The Word Belonging Has A Synonym For Want At Its Center; It Is The Human Condition.

Human Condition

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

A Man Should Live His Life A Certain Way Not Because Of Some Divine Authority, But Because Of A Personal Moral Obligation To Himself And Others.

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.

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

There's A Problem With Wounded Birds, Cassie," Connor Said. "either They Fly Away From You One Day, Or Else They Never Get Better. They Stay Hurt No Matter What You Do.

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.

If You Read The First Page Of One Of My Novels, I Can Guarantee That You Will Read The Last One. This Isn't Just Social Commentary. This Is Also About Writing Good Page-turners. I Want People To Keep Reading.

Guarantees That

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

Tip Of The Iceberg

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.

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.

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