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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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The Woman Who Opens

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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There Was A Fine Line Between Love And Hate You Heard That Cliche All The Time. But No One Told You That The Moment You Crossed It Would Be The One You Least Expected. You'd Fall In Love And Crack Open A Secret Door To Let Your Soul Mate In. You Just Never Expected Such Closeness One Day To Feel Like An Intrusion.

Falling In Love

Dark Matter Has A Gravitation Effect On Other Objects. You Can't See It, You Can't Feel It, But You Can Watch Something Being Pulled In Its Direction.

You Can Blame Your Ugliness For Keeping People At Bay, When In Reality You're Crippled By The Thought Of Letting Another Person Close Enough To Popentially Scar You Even More Deeply. You Can Tell Yourself That It's Safer To Love Someone Who Will Never Really Love You Back, Because You Can't Lose Someone You Never Had.

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

Just Because You Keep Something A Secret Doesn't Mean It Never Happened, No Matter How Much You Want That To Be True.

The Best Thing About Endings Is Knowing That Just Ahead Is The Daunting Task To Start Over.

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

He Began To Trace A Pattern On The Table With The Nail Of His Thumb. "she Kept Saying She Wanted To Keep Things Exactly The Way They Were, And That She Wished She Could Stop Everything From Changing. She Got Really Nervous, Like, Talking About The Future. She Once Told Me That She Could See Herself Now, And She Could Also See The Kind Of Life She Wanted To Have - Kids, Husband, Suburbs, You Know - But She Couldn't Figure Out How To Get From Point A To Point B.

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

You Signed No Contract To Become A Parent, But The Responsibilities Were Written In Invisible Ink. There Was A Point When You Had To Support Your Child, Even If No One Else Would. It Was Your Job To Rebuild The Bridge, Even If Your Child Was The One Who Burned It In The First Place.

All Writers Start With A Layer Of Truth, Don't They? If Not, Their Stories Would Be Nothing But Spools Of Cotton Candy, A Fleeting Taste Wrapped Around Nothing But Air.

Did You Ever Think That Maybe What You See Isn't Really What's True?

Is It Because They Are So Comfortable, They Already Know What The Other Is Thinking? Or Is It Because After A Certain Point, There Is Simply Nothing Left To Say?

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.

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

Everyone Knew That If You Divided Reality By Expectation, You Got A Happiness Quotient. But When You Invert The Equation - Expectation Divided By Reality - You Didn't Get The Opposite Of Happiness. What You Got, Lewis Realized, Was Hope.

Anna Is The Only Proof I Have That I Was Born Into This Family. Instead Of Dropped Off On The Doorstep By Some Bonnie And Clyde Couple That Ran Off Into The Night. On The Surface, We’re Polar Opposites. Under The Skin, Though, We’re The Same: People Think They Know What They’re Getting, And They’re Always Wrong. (jesse)

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?

I Know That There Will Be Other Women, But They Couldn't Compare. Maybe I'll Change, Maybe Love Will Change, But I Think We Were A Once-in-a-lifetime. You Could Never Leave Me; That's Why I Am Not More Upset. You Can't Possibly Break These Feelings. They Stretch, And They Last.

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

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.

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.

Maybe You Had To Leave In Order To Really Miss A Place; Maybe You Had To Travel To Figure Out How Beloved Your Starting Point Was.

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.

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

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.

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.

Just Because You Had Every Right To Feel Sorry For Yourself Didn't Mean You Ever Took The Opportunity To Do So.

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

I Know That Books I Have Written Will Still Resonate In 50 Years - Particularly 'my Sister's Keeper.' It Has Sold Three Million Copies In The States Alone. I Strongly Feel That, As A Novelist, You Have A Platform And The Ability To Change People's Minds.

I Truly Believed That The Cost Of Success For Us Shouldn't Be The Cost Of Failure For A Good Friend.

If God Wanted Us To Act On Instinct, We Wouldn't Have The Power Of Reason.

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

I Love Feeling Loved. I Don't Love Knowing That I Will Always Come In Second Place. I Love The Fact That At Least Sometimes When I Am In My Home, I'm Not Alone. I Don't Love The Fact That It's Not Always. I Love Not Having To Answer To Him. I Don't Love That He Doesn't Answer To Me. I Love The Way I Feel When I Am With Him. I Don't Love The Way I Feel When I'm Not.

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.

Life Isn't Nearly As Stable As We Want It To Be.

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

May I Ask You Something?" I Say. "why Do You Read Books, When You Could Be Outside, Living A Million Different Adventures Every Day?" "because You Can Always Count On A Book To Stay The Same. Everything Else Changes When You Least Expect It," She Replies, Bitter. "families Split Apart, And Nothing's Forever. In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

Isn’t That What True Romance Is Supposed To Be About? Finding The Person Who’s Your Soul Mate. Someone You Dream About At Night.someone Whose Name Is On Your Lips When You Wake Up In The Morning.

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

You Give Her All Your French Fries, Even When She Won't Give You Back Onion Rings,' Sophie Says. 'and When You Say Her Name It Sounds Different.' How?' Sophie Thinks. 'like It's Covered With Blankets.

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?

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.

I Think My Writing Has Become "cleaner."

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

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World, While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together. And Then There Are Those Of Us Who Simply Don't Want To Be In It, Because We Know No Matter How Much We Struggle, We Can't Comfortably Fit.

I Didn't Think I Could Possibly Love Another Baby As Much As I Loved The One I'd Already Had," I Continue. "but The Strangest Thing Happened When I Held You For The First Time. It Was Like My Heart Suddenly Unfolded. Like There Was This Secret Space I Didn't Even Know Existed, And There Was Room For Both Of You." I Stare At Her. "once My Feelings Were Stretched Like That, There Was No Going Back. Without You, It Just Would Have Felt Empty.

Life, It Turns Out, Goes On. There Is No Cosmic Rule That Grants You Immunity From The Details Just Because You Have Come Face-to-face With A Catastrophe. The Garbage Can Still Overflow, The Bills Arrive In The Mail, Telemarketers, Interrupt Dinner.

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.

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

How Do You Walk Into Someone's Life Again After Twenty-eight Years? How Do You Pick Up, When You Were Too Young To Know Where You Left Off.

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

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

If History Has A Habit Of Repeating Itself, Doesn't Someone Have To Stay Behind To Shout Out A Warning?

There Are Some Dreams That Get Stuck Between Your Teeth When You Sleep, So That When You Open Your Mouth To Yawn Awake They Fly Right Out Of You.

When This Is Over...we Will Got To The Rainforest, Or A Beach As White As Bone. We Will Eat Grapes From The Vine, We Will Swim With Sea Turtles, We Will Walk Miles On Cobblestone Streets. We Will Laugh And Talk And Confess. We Will.

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.

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.

She Stared At Peter, And She Realized That In That One Moment, When She Hadn't Been Thinking, She Knew Exactly What He'd Felt As He Moved Through The School With His Backpack And His Guns. Every Kid In This School Played A Role: Jock, Brain, Beauty, Freak. All Peter Had Done Was What They All Secretly Dreamed Of: Be Someone, Even For Just Nineteen Minutes, Who Nobody Else Was Allowed To Judge.

Have A Conversation With Your Family About Your End-of-life Wishes While You Are Healthy. No One Wants To Have That Discussion... But If You Do, You'll Be Giving Your Loved Ones A Tremendous Gift, Since They Won't Have To Guess What Your Wishes Would Have Been, And It Takes The Onus Of Responsibility Off Of Them.

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.

The Best Place To Cry Is On A Mother's Arms.

Mother Daughter

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.

If You're Afraid Of Everyone Leaving You, What Do You Do?" Make Them Stay." And If You Can't Do That, Or Don't Know How To?" Ellie Shrugged. "i Don't Know." Yes, You Do. In Fact, You've Done It. You Leave First," Coop Said, "so You Don't Have To Watch Them Walk Away.

Music Therapy, To Me, Is Music Performance Without The Ego. It's Not About Entertainment As Much As Its About Empathizing. If You Can Use Music To Slip Past The Pain And Gather Insight Into The Workings Of Someone Else's Mind, You Can Begin To Fix A Problem.

And If Your Parents Have You For A Reason, Then That Reason Better Exist. Because Once It's Gone, So Are You.

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

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.

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fesh And Honest. Whe You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation.

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

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

Tip Of The Iceberg

I Wonder If What Makes A Family A Family Isn't Doing Everything Right All The Time But, Instead, Giving A Second Chance To The People You Love Who Do Things Wrong.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

There's No Way To Explain To A Child That The Line Between Good And Evil Isn't Nearly As Black And White As A Fairy Tale Would Lead You To Believe. That An Ordinary Person Can Turn Into A Villain, Under The Right Circumstances. That Sometimes We Dragon Slayers Do Things We Aren't Proud Of.

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

Logical Thinking Keeps You From Wasting Time Worrying, Or Hoping. It Prevents Disappointment. Imagination, On The Other Hand, Only Gets You Hyped Up Over Things That Will Never Realistically Happen.

I Don't Know What He Means By That, But I Nod And Smile At Him. You'd Be Surprised At How Far That Response Can Get You In A Conversation Where You Are Completely Confused.

Just Because Fate Had Thrown Another Obstacle In My Way Didn't Mean I Had To Give Up My Dreams.

There Are Legions Of Us, I Realized. The Mothers Who Have Broken Babies, And Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Wondering If We Should Have Spared Them. And The Mothers Who Have Let Their Broken Babies Go, Who Look At Our Children And See Instead The Faces Of The Ones They Never Met.

There Are Two Reasons Not To Tell The Truth--becuase Lying Will Get You What You Want, And Because Lying Will Keep Someone From Getting Hurt.

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.

Lie To Yourself Until It's True.

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

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

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

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.

I Don’t Think Anyone Who Falls In Love Has A Choice. You’re Just Pulled To That Person Like True North, Whether It’s Good For You Or Bound To Break Your Heart.

Falling In Love

It Turns Out That Sharing The Past With Someone Is Different From Reliving It When You’re Alone. It Feels Less Like A Wound, More Like A Poultice.

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

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

I Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.

Falling In Love

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

What Could It Be Like To Find Out, In A Matter Of Minutes, That The Person You Believed The Sun Rose And Set On Was Not The Person You'd Thought?

It Makes Faith Think Of A Hammock In Their Yard, A Web Of Rope That She Thought Would Unravel The First Time She Leaned Back On It, But That Managed To Support Her All The Same.

We All Have Things That Come Back To Haunt Us. Some Of Us Just See Them More Clearly Than Others.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

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.

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

As Anyone Who's Ever Contracted It Knows, Lies Are An Infectious Disease. They Slip Under The Almond Slivers Of Your Fingernails And Into Your Bloodstream.

When You Begin A Journey Of Revenge, Start By Digging Two Graves: One For Your Enemy, And One For Yourself.

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

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

Seeing Her Sitting There Unresponsive Makes Me Realize That Silence Has A Sound.

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

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

You Have To Understand What You’re Missing Before You Can Really Feel A Loss.

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

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.

Infatuation's Just Another Word For Not Seeing Clearly. When You Start To Love A Person- That's When They Become Real

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.

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.

It's About A Girl Who Is On The Cusp Of Becoming Someone.. A Girl Who May Not Know What She Wants Right Now, And She May Not Know Who She Is Right Now, But Who Deserves The Chance To Find Out.

But Rules Only Work When Everyone Plays By Them. What Happens When Someone Doesn't, And The Fallout Bleeds Right Into His Life? Whats Stronger- The Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?

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

I Used To Believe Everything My Brother Told Me, Because He Was Older And I Figured He Knew More About The World. But As It Turns Out, Being A Grown-up Doesn’t Mean You’re Fearless. It Just Means You Fear Different Things.

They Don't Like The Thought Of Someone Else Making Demands On The Person Whom They See As Belonging Entirely To Them.

Domestic Violence

Just So You Know, When They Say "once Upon A Time” . . . They’re Lying

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

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

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.

When You Want Something So Desperately, You Shake With The Need For It. You Tell Yourself That You Don't Need More Than One Sip, Because It's Just The Taste You Crave, And Once It's On Your Tongue You Will Be Able To Make It Last Alifetime. You Dream Of It At Night. You See A Thousand Mile-high Obstacles Between Where You Stand And What You Want, And You Convince Yourself You Have The Power To Hurdle Them. You Tell Yourself This Even When, Leaping The First Block, You Wind Up Bruised And Bloodied And Flattened.

There Are So Many Ways A Family Can Unravel. All It Takes Is A Tiny Slash Of Selfishness, A Rip Of Greed, A Puncture Of Bad Luck. And Yet, Woven Tightly, Family Can Be The Strongest Bond Imaginable.

People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

Life Can Change In An Instant; Don't Be So Worried About The Future That You Forget To Celebrate What You Have Right Now.

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.

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

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

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

Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.

Beautiful Things

On The Surface, We're Polar Opposites. Under The Skin, Though, We're The Same: People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

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

What You Didn't Tell Someone Was Just As Debilitating As What You Did.

It's Like The Psychiatrists Themselves Are Buying Into That Stupid Belief That Therapy Is Something To Hide.

I Sometimes Wonder If It Is Just Me, Or If There Are Other Women Who Figure Out Where They Are Supposed To Be By Going Nowhere.

My Sisters Keeper

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

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.

It It Strange, Suddenly Having A Memory Come Back Out Of Nowhere. You Think You're Going Crazy; You Wonder Where This Recollection Has Been Hiding All Your Life. You Try To Push It Away, Because You Think You've Hammered Out The Whole Timeline Of Your Life, But Then You See That One Extra Moment, And Suddendly You Are Breaking Apart What You Though Was A Solid Segment, And Seeing It For What It Is: Just A String Of Events, Shoulder To Shoulder, And A Gap Where There Is Room For One More.

Love Is Not A Because, It's A No Matter What.

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

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

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

Be Kind To Others Before You Take Care Of Yourself; Make Whoever You're With Feel Like They Matter.

The English Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Casting Her Out. The Amish Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Welcoming Her Back. Where I'm From, If Someone Is Accused Of Sinning, It's Not So That Others Can Place Blame. It's So That The Person Can Make Amends And Move On.

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

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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

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

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.

I Don't Know What It Is About Death That Makes It So Hard. I Suppose It's The One-sided Communication; The Fact That We Never Get To Ask Our Loved One If She Suffered, If She Is Happy Wherever She Is Now...if She Is Somewhere. It's The Question Mark That Comes With Death That We Can't Face, Not The Period.

They Don't Really Pay Attention To Me, Except When They Need My Blood Or Something. I Wouldn't Even Be Alive, If It Wasn't For Kate Being Sick.

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.

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?

So I Do What I Do Best. I Move In The Opposite Direction.

I Wonder If, As You Get Older, You Stop Missing People So Fiercely. Maybe Growing Up Is Just Focusing On What You've Got, Instead Of What You Don't.

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

Let Me Tell You This: If You Meet A Loner, No Matter What They Tell You, It's Not Because They Enjoy Solitude. It's Because They Have Tried To Blend Into The World Before, And People Continue To Disappoint Them.

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

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.

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.

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

When You Don't Know Where You're Headed, You Find Places No One Else Would Ever Explore.

My Sisters Keeper

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?

Here Are The Things I Know For Sure: When You Think You're Right, You Are Most Likely Wrong. Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole. And, In Spite Of What I Said, You Can Miss A Person You've Never Known. I Learn This Over And Over Again.

Once You Had Put The Pieces Back Together, Even Though You May Look Intact, You Were Never Quite The Same As You'd Been Before The Fall.

No, Honestly, My Mouth Shouldn't Be Able To Function Unless My Brain's Engaged.

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.

In Reality, You Don’t Ever Change The Hurricane. You Just Learn How To Stay Out Of Its Path.

I Loved Alex So Much That It Was Easier To Let Him Hurt Me Than To Watch Him Hurt Himself.

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.

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

At 17, The Smallest Crises Took On Tremendous Proportions; Someone Else's Thoughts Could Take Root In The Loam Of Your Own Mind; Having Someone Accept You Was As Vital As Oxygen. Adults, Light Years Away From This, Rolled Their Eyes And Smirked And Said, 'this Too Shall Pass' - As If Adolescence Was A Disease Like Chicken Pox, Something Everyone Recalled As A Milk Nuisance, Completely Forgetting How Painful It Had Been At The Time.

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

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.

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

The Inuit Say That The Stars Are Holes In Heaven. And Every Time We See The People We Loved Shining Through, We Know They're Happy.

I Shouldn't Have Eavesdropped, But Sometimes, That's The Only Way To Find Out The Truth.

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.

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.

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.

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

Do You Know How Sometimes - When You Are Riding Your Bike And You Start Skidding Across Sand, Or When You Miss A Step And Start Tumbling Down The Stairs - You Have Those Long, Long Seconds To Know That You Are Going To Be Hurt, And Badly?

Riding Your Bike

Once Upon A Time There Was A Girl Who Wanted To Put Her Fist Through A Mirror. She Would Tell Everyone It Was So That She Could See What Was On The Other Side, But Really, It Was So That She Wouldn't Have To Look At Herself. That, And Because She Thought She Might Be Able To Steal A Piece Of Glass When No One Was Looking, And Use It To Carve Her Heart Out Of Her Chest.

I'd Like To Say That This Time I'd Kill Myself Too..but I've Never Had That Kind Of Courage.

I Don't Know Whether You Can Look At Your Past And Find, Woven Like The Hidden Symbols On A Treasure Map, The Path That Will Point To Your Final Destination.

The Optimist In Me Wants To Believe Sexuality Will Eventually Become Like Handwriting: There’s No Right Way And Wrong Way To Do It. We’re All Just Wired Differently. It's Also Worth Noting That When You Meet Someone, You Never Bother To Ask If He’s Right Or Left-handed. After All: Does It Really Matter To Anyone Other Than The Person Holding The Pen?

They're Fake Bullets, So Why Do I Feel Like Im Bleeding Out?

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.

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

You Can Be Strapped To The Most Stable Chair And Still Feel The World Give Way Beneath You.

I Wonder If The Conversations You've Never Had With Someone Count, If You've Been Over Them A Thousand Times In Your Mind.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Would Figure Out, Later, How To Explain To My Boss That, For Me, Delia Will Never Be A Story, But A Happy Ending.

[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's A] Point Where You Have To Leave The Dough Alone. It's Silly To Anthropomorphize Bread, But I Love The Fact That It Needs To Sit Quietly, To Retreat From Touch And Noise And Drama, In Order To Evolve. I Have To Admit, I Often Feel That Way Myself.

I Haven't Run Out Of Ideas Yet. Usually While I'm Working On A Book, I'm Doing Research For The Next One!

One Person's Trauma Is Another's Loss Of Innocence.

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