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Summertime, I Think, Is A Collective Unconscious. We All Remember The Notes That Made Up The Song Of The Ice Cream Man; We All Know What It Feels Like To Brand Our Thighs On A Playground Slide That's Heated Up Like A Knife In A Fire; We All Have Lain On Our Backs With Our Eyes Closed And Our Hearts Beating Across The Surface Of Our Lids, Hoping That This Day Will Stretch Just A Little Longer Than The Last One, When In Fact It's All Going In The Other Direction.

-Jodi Picoult

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Summertime, I Think, Is

Jodi Picoult

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Summertime, I Think, Is A Collective Unconscious. We All Remember The Notes That Made Up The Song Of The Ice Cream Man; We All Know What It Feels Like To Brand Our Thighs On A Playground Slide That's Heated Up Like A Knife In A Fire; We All Have Lain On Our Backs With Our Eyes Closed And Our Hearts Beating Across The Surface Of Our Lids, Hoping That This Day Will Stretch Just A Little Longer Than The Last One, When In Fact It's All Going In The Other Direction.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

Superheroes Were Born In The Minds Of People Desperate To Be Rescued.

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

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I Imagine How Cool It Would Be If All Small Talk Wasn't Lies.

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Sometimes, All It Takes To Become Human Again Is Someone Who Can See You That Way, No Matter How You Present On The Surface.

It Was So Damn Hard To Find Love In This World, To Locate Someone Who Could Make You Feel That There Was A Reason You'd Been Put On This Earth. A Child, I Imagined, Was The Purest Form Of That. A Child Was The Love You Didn't Have To Look For, Didn't Have To Prove Anything To, Didn't Have To Worry About Losing. Which Is Why, When It Happened, It Hurt So Badly.

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His Hand Is Cool On My Cheek As He Paints A Tear Beneath My Left Eye, Dark Blue And Swollen With Sorrow.

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

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I've Been An Idiot To Think That Real Life Could Have A Happy Ending

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

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If I Have Gained Anything Over These Months, It Is The Knowledge There Is No Starting Over - Only Living With The Mistakes You've Made. But Then, Caleb Taught Me Long Ago You Can't Build Anything Without Some Sort Of Foundation. Maybe We Learn To Live Our Lives By Understanding, Firsthand, How Not To Live Them.

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.

The Best Way To Prevent A Heartache Was To Cushion The Coming Blow.

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Objection!" Metz Shouts. Grounds?" The Judge Asks. Well...he's My Witness!

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Whether It Was Power They Sought, Or Revenge, Or Love-well, Those Were All Just Different Forms Of Hunger. The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

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.

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Nobody Wants To Admit To This, But Bad Things Will Keep On Happening. Maybe That's Beause It's All A Chain, And A Long Time Ago Someone Did The First Bad Thing, And That Led Someone Else To Do Another Bad Thing, And So On. You Know, Like That Game Where You Whisper A Sentence Into Someone's Ear, And That Person Whispers It To Someone Else, And It All Comes Out Wrong In The End. But Then Again, Maybe Bad Things Happen Because It's The Only Way We Can Keep Remembering What Good Is Supposed To Look Like.

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?

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

And The Very Act Of Living Is A Tide; At First It Seems To Make No Difference At All, And Then One Day You Look Down And See How Much Pain Has Eroded

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.

I Imagined What It Would Be Like To Hold A Butterfly In Your Hands Something Bejeweled And Treasured And To Know That Despite Your Devotion It Was Dying By Degrees.

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

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

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?

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.

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It Was Always Easier For Me To Show Love Than To Say It. The Word Reminded Me Of Pralines: Small, Precious, Almost Unbearable Sweet. I Would Light Up In His Presence; I Felt Like A Sun In The Constellation Of His Embrace. But Trying To Put What I Felt For Him Into Words Diminished It Somehow, Like Pinning A Butterfly Under Glass, Or Videotaping A Comet.

Perhaps He D Always Known That The Truth Of A Person Lies In The Heart.

If You Tell Yourself You Feel Fine, You Will.

Did You Ever Walk Through A Room That's Packed With People, And Feel So Lonely You Can Hardly Take The Next Step?

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

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.

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

You Saved Me," I Said. Nathaniel Put His Hands On Either Side Of My Face. "i Had To," He Said. "so You Could Save Me Back.

I Remember For That One Moment, I Believe I Was Hitch Hiking On One Of Those Comets, Falling So Fast That I'd Surely Burn Away Before I Ever Hit The Ground.

You Want To Write Something As Good As What You've Read.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Once The World Was Pulled Out From Beneath Your Feet, Did You Ever Get To Stand On Firm Ground Again?

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

How Far Can A Person Go... And Still Live With Himself.

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

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.

Wheather It Is Conscious Or Not, You Eventually Make The Decision To Divide Your Life In Half - Before And After - With Loss Being That Tight Bubble In The Middle. You Can Move Around In Spite Of It; You Can Laugh And Smile And Carry On With Your Life, But All It Takes Is One Slow Range Of Motion, A Doubling Over, To Be Fully Aware Of The Empty Space At Your Center.

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.

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

If His Voice Hasn't Been The Melody Of My Life, It's Been The Bass Line, So Subtle You Don't Notice It Until It's Missing.

If You Loved Someone, Really Loved Them, Would You Let Them Go?

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.

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.

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?

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

A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right, Like When You Pop A Piece Of Fancy Chocolate Into Your Mouth Expecting Toffee Filling And You Get Lemon Zest Instead.

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

For Better Or For Worse, Music Is The Language Of Memory. It Is Also The Language Of Love.

Language Of Love

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

Identification Is Not The Same As Knowing Someone Through And Through.

Knowing Someone

Polar North Can't Get Away From A Magnet; The Magnet Finds It, No Matter What.

What Is The Point Of Trying To Put Down On Paper Emotions That Are Too Complex, Too Huge, Too Overwhelming To Be Confined By An Alphabet? Love Isn't The Only Word That Fails. Hate Does, Too.

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.

Add Love, And All The Lines Between Right And Wrong Were Bound To Disappear.

There's Always Going To Be Bad Stuff Out There. But Here's The Amazing Thing -- Light Trumps Darkness, Every Time. You Stick A Candle Into The Dark, But You Can't Stick The Dark Into The Light.

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Marilyn Vos Savant

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