Background Image

...

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.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Are Legions Of

Jodi Picoult

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

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.

You Didn't Get Past Something Like That, You Go Through It -- And For That Reason Alone, I Understood More About Her Than She Ever Would Have Guessed.

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.

Well I Talk A Little About That, But I Don't Admit That From The Beginning I Knew We Were Not Meant To Be Together.

Were Not Meant 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.

I Know What It's Like To Start Something And Have It Suddenly Grow Out Of Control. And You Want To Get Rid Of It, Because It's Hurting You And Everyone Else Around You, But Every Time You Try To Do That, It Consumes You Again.

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?

Things Had A Way Of Working Out For The Best When You Let Them Run Their Course.

I Smiled At Him As Best I Could And Pushed The Paper Across The Table Before He Could Change His Mind. Because Henry Deville Was Correct - There Was An Ingredient In My Baking More Concenctrated Than Any Extract, More Pungent Than Any Spice; An Ingredient That Everyone Would Recognize And No One Was Able To Name: It Was Regret, And It Rose When One Least Expected.

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

Somewhere Along The Line, Organized Religion Stopped Being About Faith, And Started Being About Who Had The Power To Keep The Faith. You Said That The Purpose Of Religion Was To Bring People Together. But Does It, Really? Or Does It-knowingly, Purposefully, And Intentionally--break Them Apart?

Three Months Ago, If You Asked Me, I Would Have Told You That If You Really Loved Someone, You’d Let Them Go. But Now I Look At You, And I Dreamed About Maggie, And I See That I’ve Been Wrong. If You Really Love Someone, Allie, I Think You Have To Take Them Back.

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.

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.

We Dont Have To Accept Each Others Beliefs..but We Do Have To Accept Each Others Right To Believe Them.

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

[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.

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.

You Can’t Undo Something That’s Happened; You Can’t Take Back A Word That’s Already Been Said Out Loud.

She Was All The Things I Wasn't. And I Was All The Things She Wasn't. She Could Paint Circles Around Anyone; I Couldn't Even Draw A Straight Line. She Was Never Into Sports; I've Always Been. Her Hand, It Fit Mine.

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.

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

I Have The Most Devoted And Loyal Following. I Could Probably Type Up My Grocery List And They'd All Want To Read It. I Love That They're Willing To Let Me Go Wherever I Need To Go As An Author, And They're Happy To Come Along For The Ride As The Reader.

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

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

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

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

Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending.

That's The Paradox Of Loss: How Can Something That's Gone Weigh Us Down So Much?

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.

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

Power Isn't About Doing Something Terrible To Someone Who's Weaker Than You, Reiner. It's Having The Strength To Do Something Terrible, And Choosing Not To.

That's Because You've Never Been One. You Haven't Spent Years Wearing Someone Else's Clothes, Taking Someone Else's Name, Living In Someone Else's Houses, And Working Someone Else's Job To Fit In. And If You Don't Sell Out, Then You Run Away... Proving You're The Gypsy They Said You Were All Along.

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.

Your Problem Is That You Have Been Too Honest For Too Long. Once You Start Doing It, Lying Is Simpler Than Breathing.

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.

I'm Too Much Of A Coward To Kill Myself. And Too Much Of A Coward To Live

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

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

Instead Of Doing The Best Thing, We Sometimes Have To Settle For The Rightest 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.

No Matter What Joe Hoffman And Wade Preston Say, It's Not Gender That Makes A Family; It's Love. You Don't Need A Mother And A Father; You Don't Necessarily Even Need Two Parents. You Just Need Someone Who's Got Your Back.

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

I've Always Sort Of Wondered: If Everyone Else's Opinion Is What Matters, Then Do You Ever Really Have One Of Your Own?

There Was No Black Or White. Someone Who Had Been Good Her Entire Life Could, In Fact, Do Something Evil. People Were Just As Capable Of Committing Murder, Under The Right Circumstances, As Any Monster.

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

The Weapons An Author Has At Her Disposal Are Flawed. There Are Words That Feel Shapeless And Overused. Love, For Example. I Could Write The Word Love A Thousand Times And It Would Mean A Thousand Different Things To Different Readers.

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?)

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.

But Love Wasn't About Sacrifice, And It Wasn't About Falling Short Of Someone's Expectations. By Definition, Love Made You Better Than Good Enough; It Redefined Perfection To Include Your Traits, Instead Of Excluding Them. All Any Of Us Wanted, Really, Was To Know That We Counted. That Someone Else's Life Would Not Have Been As Rich Without Us Here.

Prayer Is Like Water - Something You Can't Imagine Has The Strength Or Power To Do Any Good, And Yet Give It Time And It Can Change The Lay Of The Land.

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.

You Can Believe Something Really Hard,' Faith Says, 'and Still Be Wrong.

Men. You Can't Live With Them...and You Can't Legally Shoot Them. I Tossed Out My Husband Eight Years Ago And Got A Llama Instead. Best Decision I Ever Made.

Turn Around, And The People You Thought You Knew Might Change. Your Little Boy Might Now Live Half A World Away. Your Beautiful Daughter Might Be Sneaking Out At Night. Your Ex-husband Might By Dying By Degrees. This Is The Reason That Dancers Learn, Early On, How To Spot While Doing Pirouettes: We All Want To Be Able To Find The Place Where We Started.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

On My License, It Says I'm An Organ Donor, But The Truth Is I'd Consider Being An Organ Martyr. I'm Sure I'm Worth A Lot More Dead Than Alive - The Sum Of The Parts Equal More Than The Whole. I Wonder Who Might Wind Up Walking Around With My Liver, My Lungs, Even My Eyeballs. I Wonder What Poor Asshole Would Get Stuck With Whatever It Is In Me That Passes For A Heart.

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

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

She's Not Classically Beautiful, But Somehow That Only Makes Her More Interesting.

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

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

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

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

It Took Me A Lifetime To Realizethings Don't Get Lost If They Don't Have Value- You Don't Miss What You Don't Care About.

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

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

My Sisters Keeper

I Wonder If Other Mothers Feel A Tug At Their Insides, Watching Their Children Grow Up Into The People They Themselves Wanted So Badly To Be.

I Think Once You Sign On To Be A Mother, That's The Only Shift They Offer.

Whether Or Not You Believe In Fate Comes Down To One Thing: Who Do You Blame When Something Goes Wrong.

Envy, After All, Comes From Wanting Something That Isn't Yours. But Grief Comes From Losing Something You've Already Had.

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

Ask A Kid Who's Struggling In Math If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He Feels Like A Moron. Ask The Math Genius If He Likes Being In A Mixed-level Class, And He'll Tell You He's Sick Of Doing All The Work During Group Projects. Sometimes, It's Better To Sort Like With Like.

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

It Was Like Trying To Bail Out An Ocean Of Water With A Teaspoon.

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

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.

I Think You Can Love A Person Too Much. You Put Someone Up On A Pedestal, And All Of A Sudden, From That Perspective, You Notice What's Wrong - A Hair Out Of Place, A Run In A Stocking, A Broken Bone. You Spend All Your Time And Energy Making It Right, And All The While, You Are Falling Apart Yourself. You Don't Even Realize What You Look Like, How Far You've Deteriorated, Because You Only Have Eyes For Someone Else.

As Lacy Waited For Her Turn To Speak On Peter's Behalf, She Thought Back To The First Time She Realized She Could Hate Her Own Child.

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.

Doctors Put A Wall Up Between Themselves And Their Patients; Nurses Broke It Down.

Suddenly I Realize That This Is What I've Been Waiting For - A Man Who Depends Entirely On Me... I Dreamed For Years Of A Man Who Couldn't Live Without Me, A Man Who Pictured My Face When He Closed His Eyes, Who Loved Me When I Was A Mess In The Morning And When Dinner Was Late And Even When I Overloaded The Washing Machine And Burned Out The Motor. [my Son] Stares Up At Me As If I Can Do No Wrong. I Have Always Wanted Someone Who Treats Me The Way He Does; I Just Didn't Know That I'd Have To Give Birth To Him.

I Watch Her Do The Simplest Things: Brushing Her Hair Into A Ponytail, Feeding The Dog, Tying Sophie's Shoelaces, And I Want To Tell Her What She Means To Me, But I Never Actually Say The Words. After All, To Acknowledge Delia As A Drug, I'd Have To Face The Fact That One Day I Might Have To Go Without Her And This I Can't Do.

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.

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

People Changed. Even The People You Thought You Knew As Well As You Knew Yourself.

When You Look Into Your Baby’s Eyes,” Lacy Said Softly, “you See Everything You Hope They Can Be…not Everything You Wish They Won’t Become.

And He Suddenly Knew That If She Killed Herself, He Would Die. Maybe Not Immediately, Maybe Not With The Same Blinding Rush Of Pain, But It Would Happen. You Couldn't Live For Very Long Without A Heart.

I Think You're The Only Person Who Gets Me. When I'm With You, The World Doesn't Feel Like A Problem I Can't Figure Out. Please Come To The Dance, Because You're My Music.

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

The Doctors May Be Mapping Out The War Games, But It Is The Nurses Who Make The Conflict Bearable.

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

I Think That's Probably The Most Devastating Thing - When Someone Who Is Larger Than Life Winds Up A Shadow Of Themselves In A Hospital Bed.

Justification Is A Remarkable Thing-takes All Those Solid Lines And Blurs Them, So That Honor Becomes As Supple As A Willow, And Ethics Burst Like Soap Bubbles.

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.

When Was The Last Time Someone Read Aloud To You? Probably When You Were A Child, And If You Think Back, You'll Remember How Safe You Felt, Tucked Under The Covers, Or Curled In Someone's Arms, As A Story Was Spun Around You Like A Web.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 Love Getting Fan Mail. Often, As A Writer, You Never Know What Your Readers Think Of A Book... You Get Critical Reviews And Sales Figures, But None Of That Is The Same As Knowing You've Made A Person Stay Up All Night Reading, Or Helped Them Have A Good Cry, Or Really Touched Their Life.

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

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.

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

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.

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

When You're Pregnant, You Can Think Of Nothing But Having Your Own Body To Yourself Again; Yet After Giving Birth You Realize That The Biggest Part Of You Is Now Somehow External, Subject To All Sorts Of Dangers And Disappearance, So You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Trying To Figure Out How To Keep Her Close Enough For Comfort. That's The Strange Thing About Being A Mother: Until You Have A Baby, You Don't Even Realize How Much You Were Missing One.

I Once Heard Someone On A Bus Say That This Guy Had Gotten Under Her Skin. And It Struck Me As A Remarkable Thought - That Someone Would Affect You So Deeply They'd Always Be A Part Of You.

Sometimes I Think The Human Heart Is Just A Simple Shelf. There Is Only So Much You Can Pile Onto It Before Something Falls Off An Edge And You Are Left To Pick Up The Pieces.

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.

I Had The Heart Of The Relationship, And No Body To Grow It In... It Broke.

Parenting Is Really Just A Matter Of Tracking, Of Hoping Your Kids Do Not Get So Far Ahead You Can No Longer See Their Next Moves.

It Was One Thing To Make A Mistake; It Was Another Thing To Keep Making It. I Knew What Happened When You Let Yourself Get Close To Someone, When You Started To Believe They Loved You: You'd Be Disappointed. Depend On Someone, And You Might As Well Admit You're Going To Be Crushed, Because When You Really Needed Them, They Wouldn't Be There. Either That, Or You'd Confide In Them And You Added To Their Problems. All You Ever Really Had Was Yourself, And That Sort Of Sucked If You Were Less Than Reliable.

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.

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.

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.

Iknew That All The Attributes He Was Teased For, At Age Five, Were Going To Work In His Favor By Thetime He Was Thirty-five...but I Couldn't Get Him There Overnight. You Can't Fast-forward Your Child'slife, No Matter How Much You Want To.

Do You Know How There Are Moments When The World Moves So Slowly You Can Feel Your Bones Shifting, Your Mind Tumbling? When You Think That No Matter What Happens To You For The Rest Of Your Life, You Will Remember Every Last Detail Of That One Minute Forever?

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.

There's An Honesty To The Wolf World That Is Liberating. There's No Diplomacy, No Decorum. You Tell Your Enemy You Hate Him; You Show Your Admiration By Confessing The Truth. That Directness Doesn't Work With Humans, Who Are Masters Of Subterfuge. Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat? Do You Really Love Me? Did You Miss Me? When A Person Asks This, She Doesn't Want To Know The Real Answer. She Wants You To Lie To Her. After Two Years Of Living With Wolves, I Had Forgotten How Many Lies It Takes To Build A Relationship.

A Lie Took Two Parties - The Weaver Of The Tale And The Sucker Who So Badly Wanted To Believe It.

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.

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 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.

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

Protect Yourself

Although You Hadn't Asked Why, It Had Less To Do With You Not Noticing Than With You Not Wanting To Hear The Answer.

Like Connor, Alex Protected Me -and He Was The Only Person I Let Close Enough To Do It. Like Connor, Alex Could Finish My Sentences Before I Did. But Unlike Connor, For Whom I Had Ultimately Come Too Late, I Was Just In Time To Take Care Of Alex.

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.

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

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?

When A Freedom Is Taken Away From You, I Suppose, You Recognize It As A Privilege, Not A Right.

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.

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

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.

Inside Each Of Us Is A Monster; Inside Each Of Us Is A Saint. The Real Question Is Which One We Nurture The Most, Which One Will Smite The Other.

Words, For All They Were Flimsy And Invisible, Had Great Strength. They Could Be Fortified As A Castle Wall And Sharp As A Foil. They Could Bite, Slap, Shock, Wound. But Unlike Deeds, Words Couldn't Really Help You. No Promise Ever Rescued A Person; It Was The Carrying-through Of It That Brought About Salvation.

If You Want To Love A Parent You Have To Understand The Incredible Investment He Or She Has In You. If You Are A Parent, And You Want To Be Loved, You Have To Deserve It.

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)

Change Is A Funny Thing. We Never Are Quite Sure What We Are Becoming Or Even Why. Then One Day We Look At Ourselves And Wonder Who We Are And How We Got That Way. Only One Thing About Change Remains Constant...it Is Always Painful

She Wanted Him To Tell Her That When You Love Someone So Hard And So Fierce, It Was All Right To Do Things That You Knew Were Wrong.

When You Love Someone

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

You Build A Wall To Keep Something Unwanted Out … Or To Hold Something Precious In.

You Would Wind Up As A Cat, I Told Her. They Don't Need Anyone Else. I Need You, She Replied. Well, I Said. Maybe I'll Come Back As Catnip.

When I Was Little, The Great Mystery To Me Was Not How Babies Were Made, But Why?

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’d Much Rather Pretend I’m Somewhere Else, And Any Time I Open The Pages Of A Book, That Happens.

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

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.

I'm Always Writing, Even When I'm Not At My Desk. I Write On My Hands. I Used To Write On My Kids' Hands, Too, But They Don't Let Me Any More. When I'm Driving I Sometimes Write All The Way Up My Arms.

There Was No Easy Switch That She Could Flip To Stem The Flow Of Feelings, No Way To Drain The Memories That Pooled Like Acid In Her Stomach Because Her Heart No Longer Knew What To Do With Them.

Many People Have A Novel Inside Them, But Most Don't Bother To Get It Out.

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

I Knew That Somewhere God Was Laughing. He Had Taken The Other Half Of My Heart, The One Person Who Knew Me Better Than I Knew Myself, And He Had Done What Nothing Else Could Do. By Bringing Us Together, He Had Set Into Motion The One Thing That Could Tear Us Apart.

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

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.

Honey, Kate Is Not Going To Die Sooner Because You Have One More Glass Of Mine, Or Because You Stay Overnight In A Hotel, Or Because You Let Yourself Crack Up At A Bad Joke. So Sit Your Ass Back Down And Turn Up The Volume And Act Like You're A Normal Person.

If It Is Possible To Die Of Grief Then Why On Earth Can't Someone Be Healed By Happiness?

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

I Was One Of The First Authors To Have An Active Website. I'm Totally Obsessed With Technology. I'm Always Looking For Ways To Connect With My Readers. I Answer All My Fan Mail.

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

There Are All Sorts Of Losses People Suffer - From The Small To The Large. You Can Lose Your Keys, Your Glasses, Your Virginity. You Can Lose Your Head, You Can Lose Your Heart, You Can Lose Your Mind. You Can Relinquish Your Home To Move Into Assisted Living, Or Have A Child Move Overseas, Or See A Spouse Vanish Into Dementia. Loss Is More Than Just Death, And Grief Is The Gray Shape-shifter Of Emotion.

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.

Would You Give Up Your Vengeance Against Someone You Hate If It Meant Saving Someone You Love? Would You Want Your Dreams To Come True If It Meant Granting Your Enemy's Dying Wish?

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

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

Technically I've Improved - I Might Turn A Metaphor In Five Words Now, Where Years Ago, It Would Have Taken Me A Paragraph. I Can't Say It Was Intentional - But You Know What They Say About Practice Making Perfect...!

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?

But It Was Like Wearing A Size Five Sneakers When Your Foot Is A Seven- You Can Get By For A Few Steps, And Then You Set Down And Pull Off The Shoes Because It Just Plain Much

The Truth Doesn't Always Set You Free; People Prefer To Believe Prettier, Neatley Wrapped Lies

Oh,that's Right. You're A...what Did You Call It? Ah, A Ghost Hunter. You Don't Have To See Things To Believe Them." Adam's Gaze Locked Onto The Persecutor's. "maybe You've Got That Backward," He Said. "maybe It's Just That I Believe Things You Cant See.

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.

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

When She Smiles, It Feels Like The First Warm Day Of March-- After An Eternity Of Snow, When You Suddenly Remember How Summer Feels On The Backs Of Your Bare Calves & In The Part Of Your Hair.

My Favorite Part Of Any Event Is A Q&a. I Do Get Asked A Lot Of The Same Questions But Every Now And Then Someone Surprises Me - And I Love That.

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.

Love [is] Supposed To Move Mountains, To Make The World Go Round, To Be All You Need, But It [falls] Apart At The Deatils. It [can't] Save A Single Person.

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 A Lot Of Things You Can't See If You Aren't' Looking.

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.

Hunger, She Often Tells Me, Has Nothing To Do With The Belly And Everything To Do With The Mind. What Mary Really Runs Isn't A Bakery, But A Community.

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

I Don't Have To Live The Lives Of My Characters To Write About Them. It's About Really Putting Yourself In Their Shoes.

If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory

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

Trending Author

Louis D. Brandeis

M. Russell Ballard

Friedrich Durrenmatt

Category