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Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

-Jodi Picoult

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Sometimes I Think There's

Jodi Picoult

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Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

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You Know, He Told Me Once, Completely Exasperated, You've Got One Glass Of Water Inside Your Head, With All The Tears For A Lifetime. If You Waste Them Over Nothing, Then You Won't Be Able To Cry For Real When You Need To.

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.

It's A Fallacy That Writers Have To Shut Themselves Up In Their Ivory Towers To Write. I Have All These Interruptions, Three Of Which I Gave Birth To. If I Was Thrown For A Loop Every Time I Was Distracted I Could Never Get Anything Done.

There Had Been So Many Easy Words Between Them That Daniel Was Guilty Of Nodding Every Now And Then And Tuning Out The Excess. He Hadn't Known, At The Time, That He Should Have Been Hoarding These, Like Bits Of Sea Glass Hidden In The Pocket Of A Winter Coat To Remind Him That Once It Had Been Summer.

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

This Was Something She Would Keep Hidden Within Herself, Maybe In Place Of The Knot Of Pain And Anger She Had Been Carrying Under Her Breastbone...a Security Blanket, An Ace Up Her Sleeve. She Might Never Use It, But She Would Always Feel Its Presence Like A Swelling Secret Stone, And That Way When She Let Go Of The Rage, She Would Not Feel Nearly As Empty.

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

When You Love Someone - When You Create A Child With Him - You Don't Just Suddenly Lose That Bond. Like Any Other Energy, It Can't Be Destroyed, Just Channeled Into Something Else.

When You Love Someone

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

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.

Maybe You Expected Marriage To Be Perfect - I Guess That's Where You And I Are Different. See, I Thought It Would Be All About Making Mistakes, But Doing It With Someone Who's There To Remind You What You Learned Along The Way.

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

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?

There's Something Nice About Knowing That I'm Not The Only One Who Doesn't Quite Fit The Part.

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.

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fresh And Honest. When You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation. Those Three Words Were What Everyone Used; Simple Syllables Couldn't Contain Something As Rare As What I Felt For Sean. 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.

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?

[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.

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

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

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

There Should Be A Statute Of Limitation On Grief. A Rulebook That Says It Is All Right To Wake Up Crying, But Only For A Month. That After 42 Days You Will No Longer Turn With Your Heart Racing, Certain You Have Heard Her Call Out Your Name. That There Will Be No Fine Imposed If You Feel The Need To Clean Out Her Desk; Take Down Her Artwork From The Refrigerator; Turn Over A School Portrait As You Pass - If Only Because It Cuts You Fresh Again To See It. That It's Okay To Measure The Time She Has Been Gone, The Way We Once Measured Her Birthdays.

A World That Was Crowded With People Could Still Be A Very Lonely Place.

Here's A News Flash For The Ladies: For Every One Of You Who Thinks We All Want A Girl Like Angelina Jolie, All Skinny Elbows And Angles, The Truth Is, We'd Rather Curl Up With Someone Like Charlotte - A Woman Who's Soft When A Guy Wraps His Arms Around Her; A Woman Who Might Have A Smear Of Flour On Her Shirt The Whole Day And Not Notice Or Care, Not Even When She Goes Out To Meet With The Pta; A Woman Who Doesn't Feel Like An Exotic Vacation But Is The Home We Can't Wait To Come Back To.

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.

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.

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.

We'd Sit With A Big Bowl Of Popcorn, Wrapped Together In A Queen-size Blanket, And Would Escape To A Place Where Magic Was Ours For The Taking, Where Men Rescued The People They Loved Instead Of Abandoning Them. A Place Where, No Matter How Bad Things Looked At That Moment, There Would Always Be A Happy Ending.

Having A Fantasy Come True Doesn't Always Mean It Will Be Permanent.

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.

I Think Her Flaws Make Me Love Her Even More. She's Not Perfect, But She's Perfect To Me

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

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

I Know What Love Is. When You Find The Person You Are Supposed To Love, Bells Ring And Fireworks Go Off In Your Head And You Can't Find The Words To Speak And You Think About Him All The Time. When You Find The Person You Are Supposed To Love, You Will Know By Staring Deeply Into Their Eyes.

Lie To Yourself Until It's True.

You Make Yourself Strong Because It's Expected Of You. You Become Confident Because Someone Beside You Is Unsure. You Turn Into The Person Others Need You To Be.

When You Are A Kid You Have Your Own Language, And Unlike French Or Spanish Or Whatever You Start Learning In Fourth Grade, This One You Are Born With, And Eventually Lose...kids Think With Their Brains Cracked Wide Open; Becoming An Adult...is Only A Slow Sewing It Shut.

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.

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

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.

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

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

How Do You Tell An Adult That Maybe Everything Wrong In The World Stems From The Fact That She's Stopped Believing The Impossible Can Happen?

A Place Like This Wears Down Everything, And Tolerance Is No Exception. In Here, Coexistence Passes For Forgiveness. You Do Not Learn To Like Something You Abhor; You Come To Live With It...you Live And Let Live, And Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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.

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

Rest Easy, Real Mothers. The Very Fact That You Worry About Being A Good Mom Means That You Already Are One.

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.

What We All Want, Really, Is To Be Loved. That Craving Drives Our Worst Behavior.

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?

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

There Are 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.

Then Henry Speaks Again. "did He Do It?" I Turn To Him Slowly. "does It Matter?

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.

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.

That’s What Religion Does. It Points A Finger. It Causes Wars. It Breaks Apart Countries. It’s A Petri Dish For Stereotypes To Grow In. Religion’s Not About Being Holy...just Holier-than-thous.

Life Is Not A Plot; It's In The Details.

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

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.

The Problem Was, You Couldn't Have One Without The Other. There Couldn't Be A Bad Guy Unless There Was A Good Guy To Create The Standard. And There Couldn't Be A Good Guy Until A Bad Guy Showed Just How Far Off The Path He Might Stray.

It Is A Remarkable Question- Do All The Wonderful Things Happen When We Are Not Aware Of Them?

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

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.

Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't Stand The Thought Of Them Changing? Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't See Clearly?

When You Love Someone

Africa - You Can See A Sunset And Believe You Have Witnessed The Hand Of God. You Watch The Slope Lope Of A Lioness And Forget To Breathe. You Marvel At The Tripod Of A Giraffe Bent To Water. In Africa, There Are Iridescent Blues On The Wings Of Birds That You Do Not See Anywhere Else In Nature. In Africa, In The Midday Heart, You Can See Blisters In The Atmosphere. When You Are In Africa, You Feel Primordial, Rocked In The Cradle Of The World.

Then They Scrambled Through The Window And Into The Darkness, Determined To Turn Themselves Into What They Were Not.

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

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

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 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.

If You Want To See God Laugh, Make A Plan.

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

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

Could You Really Love Someone Who Was Capable Of Falling In Love With Somebody Else?

Falling In Love

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.

It's The Child Who's Supposed To Cry, And The Mom Who Makes It All Better, Not The Other Way Around, Which Is Why Mothers Will Move Heaven And Earth To Hold It Together In Front Of Their Own Kids.

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Think About It - When You Were Blocked In College And Had To Write A Paper, Didn't It Always Manage To Fix Itself The Night Before The Paper Was Due? Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands.

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

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

A Lot Of The Hallmark Behaviors Of Autism - Flat Affect, Stimming, Not Looking Someone In The Eye - Could Very Easily Be Misinterpreted As Signs Of Guilt.

You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find Out What You'd Been Missing.

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.

Everytime I Look At A Zebra, I Can't Figure Out Whether It's Black With White Stripes Or White With Black Stripes, And That Frustrates Me.

The Apple . . . Came Before Adam And Eve In The Story Of Creation. It Had To Have Been There At Least Three Years Because That's How Long It Takes For A New Tree To Bear Fruit.

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.

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.

Her Mouth Is Always On The Verge Of A Smile. It Makes Her Look Like There's Always Something Amazing She Needs To Tell Me, Even When It's Just Hello.

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.

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.

Unlike Elise, Who Could Discover Parts Of A Person They Didn't Even Know Were Absent, You Specialized In Tangible, But That, I Feared, Was Only A Matter Of Time.

He Rises Over Me, A Second Sun, And Fills Me With Light And Heat.

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

I Would Rather Be In Minority And Be Right, Than In The Majority And Wrong.

Here's My Question: What Age Are You When You're In Heaven?

There Is A Gulf As Wide As An Ocean Between Should And Want, And I Am Drowning In It.

You Don't Need Water To Feel Like You're Drowning, Do You?

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

I Know You Love Me

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 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.

I Think I Have Sort Of Gravitated Toward Issues That I Don't Know The Answers To, Because That's What's More Interesting For Me To Write.

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.

This Is What I Like About Photographs. They're Proof That Once, Even If Just For A Heartbeat, Everything Was Perfect.

Or In Other Words, It's The Substance You've Got When You Start That Determines The Outcome.

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

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.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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.

The Right Idea Is The One You Can't Stop Thinking About; The One That's In Your Head First Thing In The Morning.

I Wondered About The Explorers Who'd Sailed Their Ships To The End Of The World. How Terrified They Must Have Been When They Risked Falling Over The Edge; How Amazed To Discover, Instead, Places They Had Seen Only In Their Dreams.

A Lot Of The Moms Of Autistic Kids I Met Are So Consumed With Being Their Child's Advocate That There's No Room For Anything Else - Least Of All Themselves. It's Why So Many Marriages End In Divorce, When A Child Is Diagnosed On The Spectrum.

There Are Some Things We Do Because We Convince Ourselves It Would Be Better For Everyone Involved. We Tell Ourselves That It's The Right Thing To Do, The Altruistic Thing To Do. It's Far Easier Than Telling Ourselves The Truth.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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

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

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

Things Break All The Time. Glass And Dishes And Fingernails. Cars And Contracts And Potato Chips. You Can Break A Record, A Horse, A Dollar. You Can Break The Ice. There Are Coffee Breaks And Lunch Breaks And Prison Breaks. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Chains Can Be Broken. So Can Silence, And Fever... Promises Break. Hearts Break.

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.

I, Um, I Have This Problem. I Broke Up With My Boyfriend, You See. And I'm Pretty Upset About It, So I Wanted To Talk To My Best Friend. [...] The Thing Is, They're Both You.

The First Person You Fell In Love With Stole Your Heart. The First Person You Made Love With Stole Your Soul. And If These Were One And The Same, You Were Doomed.

When We're Awake, We See What We Need To See. When We're Asleep, We See What Is Really There.

I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

He Insisted That Stars Were People So Well Loved, They Were Traced In Constellations, To Live Forever

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)

He Smiles At Me, And I Am Suddenly Seventeen Again - The Year I Realize That Love Doesn't Follow The Rules, The Year I Understood That Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable

I Think There Are Readers Out There And I Don't Think The Book Is Dead. And More Importantly I Don't Think Readers Have To Choose Between Literary And Commercial Fiction.

In My Family, We Seem To Have A Tortured History Of Not Saying What We Ought To And Not Meaning What We Do.

My Sisters Keeper

Everyone Still Deserves To Have Their Say.

There Is No One Truth. There’s Only What Happened, Based On How You Perceive It.

When You Have Been With Your Partner For So Many Years, They Become The Glove Compartment Map That You've Worn Dog-eared And White-creased, The Trail You Recogonize So Well You Could Draw It By Heart And For This Very Reason Keep It With You On Journeys At All Times. And Yet, When You Least Expect It, One Day You Open Your Eyes And There Is An Unfamiliar Turnoff, A Vantage Point Taht Wasn't There Before, And You Have To Stop And Wonder If Maybe This Landmark Isn't New At All, But Rather Something You Have Missed All Along.

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.

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

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

Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have You Ever Been In Love?' Peter Looked At Josie, And Thought Of How They Had Once Tied A Note With Their Addresses To A Helium Balloon And Let It Go In Her Backyard, Certain It Would Reach Mars. Instead, They Had Received A Letter From A Widow Who Lived Two Blocks Away. 'yeah,' He Said. 'i Think So.

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

You Know Someone's Right For You When The Things They Don't Have To Say Are Even More Important Than The Things They Do.

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

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

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Think Grief Is Like A Really Ugly Couch. It Never Goes Away. You Can Decorate Around It; You Can Slap A Doily On Top Of It; You Can Push It To The Corner Of The Room-but Eventually, You Learn To Live With It.

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

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

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

I Know What It's Like To Wake Up Thinking You Will Be Able To Cast The People Who Play The Starring Roles In Your Life, Only To Realize That You Have To Watch It From The Audience.

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.

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.

My Grandmother Told Me That Her Father Used To Ask Her A Riddle: What Must You Break Apart In Order To Bring A Family Close Together? Bread, Of Course.

Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

There Were Lies We Told To Save Ourselves, And Then There Were Lies We Told To Rescue Others. What Counted More, The Mistruth, Or The Greater Good?

Who I Am, And What I Am Capable Of Doing Has Always Managed To Surprise Me.

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 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.

The Thing That Most People Didn't Understand, If They Weren't In His Line If Work, Was That A Rape Victim And A Victim Of A Fatal Accident Were Both Gone Forever. The Difference Was That The Rape Victim Still Had To Go Through The Motions Of Being Alive.

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

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

Human Condition

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.

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

Love Doesn't Follow The Rules... Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable.

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.

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.

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.

A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right.

Here's What I Hadn't Realized: The Mother You Haven't Seen For Almost Thirty-six Years Isn't Your Mother, She's A Stranger. Sharing Dna Doesn't Make You Fast Friends. This Wasn't A Joyous Reunion. It Was Just Awkward.

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've Always Been Able To See You," I Say. "it's A Rather Lovely View.

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.

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

You Get Through It, You Just Never Get Over It

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.

Like The Teens I Worked With, I Understood The Need For Miracles--they Kept Reality From Paralyzing You

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Annie Turned Away, Her Eyes Glittering. 'here's What No One Tells You,' She Said. 'when You Deliver A Fetus, You Get A Death Certificate, But Not A Birth Certificate. And Afterward, Your Milk Comes In, And There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.' She Looked Up At Me. 'you Can't Win. Either You Have The Baby And Wear Your Pain On The Outside, Or You Don't Have The Baby, And You Keep That Ache In You Forever. I Know I Didn't Do The Wrong Thing. But I Don't Feel Like I Did The Right Thing, Either.

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

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.

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

Life Was All About Being In A Certain Place, At A Certain Time.

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.

Dead Isn’t Angels Or Ghosts. It’s A Physical State Of Breakdown, A Change In All Those Carbon Atoms That Create The Temporary House Of A Body So That They Can Return To Their Most Elemental Stage.

This Isn't A Lie, Actually. I Don't Care Why Edward Left. All I Really Want To Know Is Why I Wasn't Enough To Make Him Stay.

Maybe Fate Isn't The Pond You Swim In But The Fisherman Floating On Top Of It, Letting You Run The Line Wild Until You Are Weary Enough To Be Reeled Back In.

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.

But What If Your Obsession Has Nothing To Do With Drugs Or Thrills Or Money? What If What You Want Most In The World Is To Recapture The Way Life Was A Week, A Month, A Year Ago-and You Are Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

It Doesn't Take A Whole Long Life To Realize That What We Deserve To Have, We Rarely Get.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

I Don't Want To Tell People What To Think. I'm The Least Qualified Person In The World For That. If I'd Go Around Pretending To Be The Expert On Everything, I'd Become Dan Brown, And I Don't Understand That. We All Do Our Research If We're Good Writers, And We All Work Hard To Get It Right, But That Doesn't Mean We're Experts In The Field. The Best We Can Do Is Challenge People To Learn The Facts Themselves.

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?

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