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The Hardest Thing In The World Is Believing Someone Can Change. It's Always Easier To Go Along With The Way Things Are Than To Admit That You Might Have Been Wrong In The First Place.

-Jodi Picoult

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The Hardest Thing In

Jodi Picoult

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The Hardest Thing In The World Is Believing Someone Can Change. It's Always Easier To Go Along With The Way Things Are Than To Admit That You Might Have Been Wrong In The First Place.

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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.

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.

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...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.

Sometimes The Key To Happiness Is Just Expecting A Little Bit Less

What If What You Know Isn’t What People Want To Hear?

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

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

Finding Someone

Maybe I Was Naïve To Think That Silence Was Implicit Complacence, Instead Of A Festering Question. Maybe I Was Silly To Believe That Friends Owed Each Other Anything.

What If Instead Of Focusing On What You Don't Have, You Concentrate On What You've Got?

And Another Claimed It Was Inherited Through A Parent Who Was A Carrier Of The Defective Gene. I Had Always Assumed The Latter Was The Case With Claire. After All, Surely A Child Who Grew Out Of Grief Would Be Born With A Heavy Heart.

I Have No Idea What Andrew Might Have Done, And I Do Not Ask. She Believes That I Can Fix This, And Like Always, That's Enough To Make Me Think That I Can. "i'll Take Care Of It,: I Say, When What I Really Mean Is: I'll Take Care Of You.

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?

You Know Why I Think We Still Execute People? Because, Even If We Don't Want To Say It Out Loud-for The Really Heinous Crimes, We Want To Know That There's A Really Heinous Punishment. Simple As That. We Want To Bring Society Closer Together-huddle And Circle Our Wagons-and That Means Getting Rid Of People We Think Are Incapable Of Learning A Moral Lesson. I Guess The Question Is: Who Gets To Identify Those People? And What If, God Forbid, They Got It Wrong?

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?

Joseph Obomsawin, The Elder I Lived With There, Says That Those Who Turn To Animals Do So Because Humans Have Let Them Down.

But Still, It Looked Completely Natural, As If We Had Been Kissing At The Ends Of Sentences For Ages, While The Rest Of The World Was Still Hung Up On Punctuation.

That's What Love Is. It's Some Power Greater Than You And Me, That Draws Us To One Special Person

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

Into The Silence Rips A Sound That Makes Me Let Go Of Max's Hand And Cover My Ears. It Is Like The Strafe Of A Bullet, Nails On A Chalkboard, Promises Being Broken. It's A Note I Have Never Heard - This Chord Of Pure Pain - And It Takes A Moment To Realize It Is Coming From Me.

I Have Never Understood Why It Is Called Losing A Child. No Parent Is That Careless. We All Know Exactly Where Our Sons And Daughters Are; We Just Don't Necessarily Want Them To Be There

What If The One I Choose To Discount Is One Who Has Been Truly Hurt?

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.

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.

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

Doing The Right Thing For Someone Else Occasionally Means Doing Something That Feels Wrong To You.

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 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.

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.

A Dutiful Mother Is Someone Who Follows Every Step Her Child Makes...and A Good Mother Is Someone Whose Child Wants To Follow Her.

I Can't Do This To You,' He Said, Drawing Back. Emily Put Her Hand On His And Pulled The Gun To Her Temple. 'then Do It For Me,' She Said.

Peter Curled His Hands Into Fists At His Sides. 'kiss Me,' He Said. She Leaned Towards Him Slowly, Until Her Face Was Too Close To Be In Focus. Her Hair Fell Over Peter's Shoulder Like A Curtain And Her Eyes Closed. She Smelled Like Autumn-like Apple Cider And Slanting Sun And The Snap Of The Coming Cold. He Felt His Heart Scrambling, Caught Inside The Confines Of His Own Body. Josie's Lips Landed Just On The Edge Of His, Almost His Cheek And Not Quite His Mouth. 'i'm Glad I Wasn't Stuck In Here Alone,' She Said Shyly, And He Tasted The Words, Sweet As Mint On Her Breath.

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.

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.

It Was The First Time She'd Discovered Something She Really Didn't Want To Find, And She Didn't Know What To Do Once She'd Found It.

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

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

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

A Woman Isn't All That Different From A Bonfire. A Fire's A Beautiful Thing, Right? Something You Can't Take Your Eyes Off, When It's Burning. If You Can Keep It Contained, It'll Throw Light And Heat For You. It's Only When It Gets Out Of Control That You Have To Go On The Offensive.

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.

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

The Saddest Day In The World Will Be The One When She Stops Pretending.

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.

I Felt A Splinter Of Guilt Wedge Into My Heart. Charlotte Had Hurt Me; In Return, I'd Hurt Rob. Maybe That's What We Do To The People We Love: Take Shots In The Dark And Realize Too Late We've Wounded The People We're Trying To Protect.

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

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

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

It Is So Easy To Presume That While Your Own World Has Ground To An Absolute Halt, So Has Everyone Else's.

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.

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

What Could You Give Me," I Ask, My Voice Shaking, "to Make Me Forget ... That You Forgot About Me?

There Is A Fine Line Between Seeing Something That's Lost As Missing, And Seeing It As Something That Might Be Found.

I Don't Believe In God. But Sitting There, In A Room Full Of Those Who Feel Otherwise, I Realize That I Do Believe In People. In Their Strength To Help Each Other, And To Thrive In Spite Of The Odds, I Believe That The Extraordinary Trumps The Ordinary, Any Day. I Believe That Having Something To Hope For -- Even If It's Just A Better Tomorrow -- Is The Most Powerful Drug On This Planet.

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.

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.

Besides The Obvious Difference, There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Best Friend And Losing A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumphs And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside. One Moment, You'd Start To Call Her To Tell Her A Snippet Of News Or To Vent About Your Awful Day Before Realizing You Did Not Have That Right Anymore; The Next, You Could Not Remember The Digits Of Her Phone Number.

It's Hard To Be The One Always Waiting. I Mean, There's Something To Be Said For The Hero Who Charges Off To Battle, But When You Get Right Down To It There's A Whole Story In Who's Left Behind.

Reason Number 106 Why Dogs Are Smarter Than Humans: Once You Leave The Litter, You Server Contact With Your Mothers.

She Told Me She'd Be A Phoenix." The Image Of The Mythical Creature Rising From The Ashes Glitters In My Mind. "they Don't Really Exist." "she Said That Depends On Whether Or Not There's Someone Who Can See Them.

But Sometimes, In Order To Win, You Have To Make Sacrifices.

Sometimes I Think My Whole Life Has Been About Holding On To You.

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

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

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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.

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

Motherhood Is A Sisyphean Task. You Finish Sewing One Seam Shut, And Another Rips Open. I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

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.

He’s Not Your Typical Prince, More Like A Square Peg In A Round Hole, Kind Of Like Me. He’s The Sort Of Guy Who Wouldn’t Mind Reading Side By Side On A Date.

How Many Times Would I Throw This Away Before I Realized It Was What I Had Been Looking For All Along?

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.

What She Hadn't Realized Was That Sometimes When Your Vision Was That Sharp And True, It Could Cut You. That Only If You'd Felt Such Fullness Could You Really Understand The Ache Of Being Empty.

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

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.

People Are Always Afraid Of The Unknown - And Banding Together Against The Thing That Is Different From Us Is A Time-honoured Tradition For Rallying The Masses.

There Is No Cosmic Scale On Which You Can Weigh Your Actions; You Learn Too Late What Choices Ruin The Fragile Balance.

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

The Wolves Knew When It Was Time To Stop Looking For What They'd Lost, To Focus Instead On What Was Yet To Come.

You Need To Learn To Write On Demand, And To Get Critiqued Without Flinching. When Someone Can Rip Your Work To Shreds Without It Feeling As Though Your Arm Has Been Hacked Off, You're Ready To Send Your Novel Off To An Agent.

Since I Was Five, I've Known That I Was Adopted, Which Is A Politically Correct Term For Being Clueless About One's Own Origins.

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

Saying Thank You

But Will You Miss Me? More Importantly - Will I Miss You? Does Either One Of Us Really Want To Hear The Answer To That Question?

I Love Meeting My Readers - So The More I Can Talk To At One Event The Better!

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.

If There's Something As Good As [him] In My Life, I'm Going To Pay For It.

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.

I Think People Do Things All The Time In The Name Of Love That They Shouldn't Be Doing - Such Is The Nature Of Us.

It's Disappointing To Know That Someone Can See Right Through You.

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

Lies Were Only As Strong As The Suckers That Believed Them.

The Bottom Line Is That We Never Fall For The People We're Supposed To.

Falling In Love

Ross Was A Firm Believer That You Could Not Force Circumstance. You Could Buckle Your Seat Belt, But Still Crash The Car. You Could Throw Yourself In Front Of An Oncoming Train, But Somehow Survive. You Could Wait For Years To Find A Ghost, And Then Have One Sneak Up On You When You Were Too Busy Falling In Love With A Woman To Pay Attention. To That End, He Made The Conscious Decision To Stop Waiting For Lia. When He Least Expected Her, That Was When She Would Show Up.

Falling In Love

I Learn From My Own Daughter That You Don’t Have To Be Awake To Cry.

But Then Again, Maybe Bad Things Happen Because It’s The Only Way We Can Keep Remembering What Good Is Supposed To Look Like.

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

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

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.

I Think That Different Things Sell In Different Countries.

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

If You Want Something To Be True Badly Enough, You Can Rewrite It That Way, In Your Head. You Can Even Start To Believe It.

In Poland, For A While, My Books All Had Cartoons On The Cover. I Trust My Publishers In Each Country To Know What Works In Their Individual Markets.

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

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.

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 Choose To Be Looking For Something, You'd Better Be Ready For Whatever It Is You Are Find. Because It May Not Be What You've Been Expecting.

"stupid English." "english Isn't Stupid," I Say. "well, My English Teacher Is." He Makes A Face. "mr. Franklin Assigned An Essay About Our Favorite Subject, And I Wanted To Write About Lunch, But He Won't Let Me." "why Not?" "he Says Lunch Isn't A Subject." I Glance At Him. "it Isn't." "well," Jacob Says, "it's Not A Predicate, Either. Shouldn't He Know That?"

I Don't Understand Why People Never Say What They Mean. It's Like The Immigrants Who Come To A Country And Learn The Language But Are Completely Baffled By Idioms. (seriously, How Could Anyone Who Isn't A Native English Speaker 'get The Picture,' So To Speak, And Not Assume It Has Something To Do With A Photo Or A Painting?)

Dr. Keller Begins Pacing. "i Don't Think We've Been Hearing Faith Just Right. Her Guard...the Words..they Sound Alike." What Do You Mean?" Your Daughter," Dr. Keller Says Flatly. "i Think She's Seeing God.

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.

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

But There's An Enormous Difference Between An Audience That's Watching You Because They Can't Wait To See What Comes Next And An Audience That's Watching You Because They're Waiting For You To Fail.

Sometimes To Get What You Want The Most, You Have To Do What You Want The Least.

My Sisters Keeper

Words Are Like Nets - We Hope They'll Cover What We Mean, But We Know They Can't Possibly Hold That Much Joy, Or Grief, Or Wonder.

The Jury Is Supposed To Be Twelve Peers, But Technically That Would Mean Every Single Person On The Jury Should Have Asperger's Syndrome, Because Then They'd Really Understand Me.

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.

I Don't Understand Why It's A Sin If You Love Something And Want To Keep It From Having To Suffer.

It Seems To Me That No Matter What Religion You Subscribe To, Acts Of Kindness Are The Stepping-stones To Making The World A Better Place--because We Become Better People In It.

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

Isn't It Amazing How, When You Strip Away Everything, People Are So Much Alike?

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.

Writing Is Grunt Work - You Need To Have Self-motivation, Perseverance, And Faith... Talent Is The Smallest Part Of It.

Real Mothers Don't Just Listen With Humble Embarrassment To The Elderly Lady Who Offers Unsolicited Advice In The Checkout Line When A Child Is Throwing A Tantrum. We Take The Child, Dump Him In The Lady's Cart, And Say, "great. Maybe You Can Do A Better Job." Real Mothers Know That It's Okay To Eat Cold Pizza For Breakfast. Real Mothers Admit It Is Easier To Fail At This Job Than To Succeed.

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

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Most Of Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands. My Mantra Is That You Can Always Edit A Bad Page; You Can't Edit A Blank Page.

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

Listen,” She Said. “i May Not Be What You Want Right Now, But I’m All You’ve Got.

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.

I Adore The Way He Looks At Me Sometimes, As If Love Is A Quantity He Cannot Measure Scientifically, Because It Multiplies Too Quickly.

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

How Do You Tell Someone That You Weren't The Person He Thought You Were? And More Importantly, How Did You Tell Him That You'd Meant The Things You'd Said, When Everything Else About You Turned Out To Be A Lie.

By Now You've Already Formed Your Own Impression. You Believe That An Act Committed A Lifetime Ago Defines A Man, Or You Believe That A Person's Past Has Nothing To Do With His Future. You Think I Am Either A Hero, Or A Monster. Maybe Knowning More About Circumstances Will Make You Think Differently About Me, But It Won't Change What Happened Twenty-eight Years Ago.

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

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

You Came Back Fighting And Furious At Me. You Told Me You'd Been Looking For Mermaids, And I Interrupted You. [...] I Said That Next Time, You Had To Take Me With You." "was There A Next Time?" "well, You Tell Me, You Don't Need Water To Feel Like You're Drowning, Do You?

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.

She Understood What It Was Like To Stand Right In Front Of People You Loved, Even Though They Could Not See You.

But There’s A Part Of Me That Wonders What It Would Be Like To Be The Most Important Person To Someone Else, To Always Feel Like You Were Missing A Piece Of Yourself When He Wasn’t Near You.

With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

If You Want To Know Someone's Story, They Have To Tell It Aloud. But Every Time, The Telling Is A Little But Different. It's New, Even To Me.

If You Gave Someone Your Heart And They Died, Did They Take It With Them? Did You Spend The Rest Of Forever With A Hole Inside You That Couldn't Be Filled?

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

Maybe A Mother Wasn't What She Seemed To Be On The Surface.

In This New Place We've Found, Sometimes There Aren't Words, Because The Truth Can Be Even More Difficult Than The Lies.

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.

Peter Was, Simply, What A Person Would Look Like If You Boiled Down The Most Raw Emotions And Filtered Them Of Any Social Contract. If You Hurt, Cry. If You Rage, Strike Out. If You Hope, Get Ready For A Disappointment.

Relationships Always Sounded So Physically Painful: You Fell In Love, You Broke A Heart, You Lost Your Head. Was It Any Wonder That People Came Through The Experience With Battle Scars?

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.

There Are Some Weapons You Can't Protect Yourself Against.

Protect Yourself

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)

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

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.

Even Though I Don't Write About Things That Come From My Life Because I'm Lucky, And I Live In A Great Place With Great Kids And, You Know, A Great Husband, I Think You Can Find Threads Of Me In The Characters, So That's Really What Being A Writer Is, Probably.

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

Bleeding Heart, He’d Called Her. Well. He Should Know. He’d Been The First To Rip It To Pieces.

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

My Whole Life Was About Her, What If Her Whole Life Wasn’t All About Me?

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

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

[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.

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

Human Condition

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

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.

When You're A Parent You Find Yourself Looking At The Unknown That Is Your Child, Trying To Find A Piece Of Yourself Inside Her, Because Sometimes That Is What It Takes To Claim.

Finding Yourself

Does Fate Ever Play By The Rules?

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

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.

I Can Give Or Take Elephants; I Never Can Find The Cheetah-but The Zebras Captivate Me. They'd Be One Of The Few Things That Would Fit If We Were Lucky Enough To Live In A World That's Black Or White.

You Can Make It Dark, But I Can't Make It Light.

Maybe If You Spend Your Life Pretending You're On A Movie Set, You Don't Ever Have To Admit That The Walls Are Made Out Of Paper And The Food Is Plastic And The Words In Your Mouth Aren't Really Yours.

Researching 'lone Wolf,' I Was Amazed At How Thoughtful And Intelligent These Animals Are. There Has Never Been A Documented Attack Against A Human By A Wolf That Wasn't Provoked By The Human.

I Believe In Love. I Think It Just Hits You And Pulls The Rug Out From Underneath You And, Like A Baby, Demands Your Attention Every Minute Of The Day.

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

Think About It: Romeo And Juliet Bucked The System, And Look Where It Got Them. Superman Has The Hots For Lois Lane, When The Better Match, Of Course, Would Be With Wonder Woman.

Scars Are Just A Treasure Map For Pain You've Buried Too Deep To Remember.

Dante Believed God Punished Suicides By Trapping The Person's Spirit In A Tree Trunk. On Judgment Day, They Were The Only Sinners Who Didn't Get Their Souls Back, Because They Tried To Get Rid Of Them Once Before.

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

The Woman Who Opens The Door Has A Blue Stain On Her Shirt And Dark Hair Wound Into A Messy Knot And The Most Beautiful Eyes I Have Ever Seen. They're Pale, Like A Lioness's, Nearly Golden, But They Also Look Like They've Done Their Fair Share Of Crying, And We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn't Have Any.

Why Are Terms Of Endearment Always Food? Honey, Cookie, Sugar, Pumpkin. Its Not Like Caring About Someone Is Enough To Actually Sustain You.

Love Meant Jumping Off A Cliff And Trusting That A Certain Person Would Be There To Catch You At The Bottom.

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.

Coop Kissed Me Deeply, Drawing My Breath From Me In A Long, Sweet Ribbon. "perhaps I Haven't Mentioned It, But I'm An Expert When It Comes To First Steps." Are You," I Said. "then Tell Me How." You Close Your Eyes," Coop Answered, "and Jump.

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

People Don’t Just Disappear. There’s Always A Reason, Or An Enemy With A Grudge. There’s Always A Loose Thread That Starts To Unravel.

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.

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

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.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

If You Had Grown Up With Me, This Is One Of The Things I Would Have Tried To Teach You: Marry A Man Who Loves You More Than You Love Him. Because I Have Both Now, And When It Is The Other Way Around, There Is No Spell In The World That Can Even Out The Balance.

Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.

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.

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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