Background Image

...

There Are Millions Of People In The World, And The Spirits Will See That Most Of Them You Never Have To Meet. But There Are One Or Two You Are Tied To, And The Spirits Will Cross You Back And Forth, Threading So Many Knots Until They Catch And You Finally Get It Right.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Are Millions Of

Jodi Picoult

...

There Are Millions Of People In The World, And The Spirits Will See That Most Of Them You Never Have To Meet. But There Are One Or Two You Are Tied To, And The Spirits Will Cross You Back And Forth, Threading So Many Knots Until They Catch And You Finally Get It Right.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

All Teenagers Knew This Was True. The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face. For Years, Parents Tell You That You Can Be Anything, Have Anything, Do Anything. That Was Why She'd Been So Eager To Grow Up-until She Got To Adolescence And Hit A Big Fat Wall Ofreality. As It Turned Out, She Couldn't Have Anything She Wanted. You Didn't Get To Be Pretty Or Smart Or Popular Just Because You Wanted It. You Didn't Control Your Own Destiny, You Were Too Busy Trying To Fit In.

I Was Starting To See That What Looks Like Garbage From One Angle Might Be Art From Another. Maybe It Did Take A Crisis To Get To Know Yourself; Maybe You Needed To Get Whacked Hard By Life Before You Understood What You Wanted Out Of It.

Kids Think With Their Brains Cracked Wide Open; Becoming An Adult, I've Decided, Is Only A Slow Sewing Shut.

...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.

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

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.

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.

Many Of My Books Come From What If Questions That I Can't Answer, Things That I'm Worried About As Either A Woman, A Wife, A Mom, An American.

She Was Forced To Consider The Startling Fact That The Love Of Her Life Might Not Actually Be Someone With Whom She Could Spend A Lifetime.

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

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

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

Beliefs Are The Roads We Take To Our Dreams. Believe You Can Do Something-or Believe You Can't-and You'll Be Right Everytime.

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

He Is Dark And Quiet And Completely Different From Me, Which Is Exactly Why I Should Put Distance Between Us. But It Is Also The Reason I Find Him So Fascinating.

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

It Was No Coincidence, That Fear Could Move A Person To Extremes, Just As Seamlessly As Love. They Were The Conjoined Twins Of Emotion: If You Didn't Know What Was At Stake To Lose, You Had Nothing To Fight For.

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.

There Are So Many Ways To Betray Someone. You Can Whisper Behind His Back. You Can Deceive Him On Purpose. You Can Deliver Him Into The Hands Of His Enemy, When He Trusts You. You Can Break A Promise. The Question Is, If You Do Any Of Those Things, Are You Also Betraying Yourself?

Being A Teenager Isn't All That Different From Being Part Of Someone Else's Story. There's Always Someone Who Thinks They Know Better Than You Do

What Is Right, In The End, Is Not Always What It Seems To Be, And Some Rules Are Better Broken.

When You Love Someone, You Don't See Parts Of Him You Don't Like.

When You Love Someone

Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending.

I Think...she Said Finally, "that All Of Us Have Got Our Ghosts.

Fiction Is Like That, Once It Is Released Into The World: Contagious, Persistent. Like The Contents Of Pandora's Box, A Story That's Freely Given Can't Be Contained Anymore. It Becomes Infectious, Spreading From The Person Who Created It To The Person Who Listens, And Passes It On.

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

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

But This Is Inaccurate. A Runaway Train Is An Accident. Me, I'll Jump In Front Of The Tracks. I'll Even Tie Myself Down In Front Of The Speeding Engine. There's Some Illogical Part Of Me Hat Still Believes If You Want Superman To Show Up, First There's Got To Be Someone Worth Saving.

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

Just When You Think You've Got Your Life By The Reins, That's When It's Most Likely To Run Away With You.

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

The Real Power Of A Wolf Isn't In Its Fearsome Jaws, Which Can Clench With Fifteen Hundred Pounds Of Pressure Per Square Inch. The Real Power Of A Wolf Is Having That Strength, And Knowing When Not To Use It.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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

The More You Get Past Pain, The More It Goes From Coal To Diamond.

I Think There Are Two Different Oceans - The One That Plays With You In The Summer, And The One That Gets So Mad In The Winter.

You Okay In There?" "no, I'm Hanging From A Closet Rod.

Do You Remember The Summer We Signed You Up For Camp? And The Night Before You Left, You Said You've Changed Your Mind And Wanted To Stay Home? I Told You To To Get A Seat On The Left Side Of The Bus, So When You Pulled Away, You'd Be Able To Look Back And See Me There Waiting For You." I Press Her Hand Against My Cheek, Hard Enough To Leave A Mark. "you Get That Same Seat In Heaven. One Where You Can Watch Me, Watching You.

Sometimes It Made Her Want To Put Her Fist Through Glass; Other Times, It Made Her Cry A River.

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

My Mother Used To Tell Me That When Push Comes To Shove, You Always Know Who To Turn To. That Being A Family Isn't A Social Construct But An Instinct.

I Had Absolutely No Trauma In My Childhood. If Anyone Ever Assumed That My Books Were Autobiographical, They'd Be Sorely Disappointed, Because None Of These Things Happened To Me.

I Try Really Hard To Ask People To Take A Look At Their Bookshelves. Are There Female Writers On It? Gay Writers? Writers Of Color? There Should Be.

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.

If You Tell Yourself You Feel Fine, You Will.

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

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

There Are Two Ways To Be Happy: Improve Your Reality, Or Lower Your Expectations.

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

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

As A Child, What I Was Missing Was So Much Bigger To Me Than What I Had. My Mother-mythic, Imaginary-was A Deity And A Superhero And A Comfort All At Once. If Only I'd Had Her, Surely, She Would Have Been The Answer To Every Problem; If Only I'd Had Her , She Would Have Been The Cure For Everything That Ever Had Gone Wrong In My Life.

Many Trees Have Died So That The Catholic Church Can Preach Against Homosexuality.

A Public Persona That Might Be Different From What We Truly Feel Inside... Everyone Wonders If They Are Good Enough, Smart Enough, Pretty Enough, No Matter How Old They Are. It Is An Archetypical Moral Dilemma - Do You Act Like Yourself And Risk Becoming An Outcast?

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.

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

Human Condition

If You Didn't Remember Something Happening, Was It Because It Never Had Happened? Or Because You Wished It Hadn't?

Remember Something

You Couldn't Have Strength Without Weakness, You Couldn't Have Light Without Dark, You Couldn't Have Love Without Loss

You Have Everything. A Family, A Great Job, A Lot Of People Who Look Up To You. You've Got A Place To Go Home To. So Go.

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

Mother Daughter

The Answer Is That There Is No Good Answer. So As Parents, As Doctors, As Judges, And As A Society, We Fumble Through And Make Decisions That Allow Us To Sleep At Night--because Morals Are More Important Than Ethics, And Love Is More Important Than Law.

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

It Just Goes To Show You: You Can Put Nine Insane Miles Between You And Another Person. You Can Make A Vow To Never Speak His Name. You Can Surgically Remove Someone From Your Life. And Still, He'll Haunt You.

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fresh And Honest. When You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation. Those Three Words Were What Everyone Used; Simple Syllables Couldn't Contain Something As Rare As What I Felt For Sean. I Wanted Him To Feel What I Felt When I Was With Him: That Incredible Combination Of Comfort, Decadence, And Wonder; The Knowledge That, With Just A Single Taste Of Him, I Was Addicted.

I Know That The First Person I Kissed Won't Be Nearly As Important As The Last Person I Kiss.

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

She Had Never Been A Pretty Crier. She Sobbed The Way She Did Everything Else - With Passion And Excess.

The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

History Could Hover, Like A Faint Perfume Or A Memory Stamped On The Back Of One's Eyelids.

I Am Always Consulted About Covers, And Give Feedback, But I Am Also Aware That What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up Off A Shelf In The Uk Is Very Different From What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up In The Us.

You Know What The Difference Is Between A Dream And A Goal?... A Plan.

He Gently Touched His Mother's Cheek, Felt Her Sorrow Slip Over His Fingertips.

The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Got Was From A Labor Nurse Who Told Me The Following: 1. After Your Baby Gets Here, The Dog Will Just Be A Dog. 2. The Terrible Twos Last Through Age Three. 3. Never Ask Your Child An Open-ended Question, Such As "do You Want To Go To Bed Now?" You Won't Want To Hear The Answer, Believe Me. "do You Want Me To Carry You Upstairs, Or Do You Want To Walk Upstairs To Go To Bed?" That Way, You Get The Outcome You Want And They Feel Empowered.

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

Traveling Is All Very Well And Good As Long As You Knew There Is A Place Or Person You Can Call Home

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

Knowing Someone

So Much Of The Language Of Love Was Like That: You Devoured Someone With Your Eyes, You Drank In The Sight Of Him, You Swallowed Him Whole. Love Was Substance, Broken Down And Beating Through Your Bloodstream.

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.

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?

History Isn't About Dates And Places And Wars. It's About The People Who Fill The Spaces Between Them.

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

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

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.

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.

[jules] Slides Into A Seat Beside Me With Her Hot Lunch Tray, Sighing. “four Hours, Thirty-six Minutes, And Twelve Seconds Till We’re Out Of Purgatory For The Weekend.” “maybe Later,” I Murmur, Still Distracted By The Day’s Previous Events. “so, Let Me Show You How A Conversation Works. I Say Something, And Then You Say Something Back That Actually Relates To What I Was Talking About, As If You Were Even The Least Bit Interested.” “huh?” I Say.

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.

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

Domestic Violence

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

Finding Someone

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.

A Duck Walks Into A Bar And The Bartender Asks, What'll It Be? The Duck Doesn't Answer Because It's A Duck.

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.

The Cost Of Growth Is Always A Small Act Of Violence.

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.

Most People In America Want An Easy Read. I Call It Mcfiction - Books Which Pass Right Through You Without You Even Digesting Them. I Don't Mean A Book That Has Two-syllable Words. I Mean Chapters You Can Read In A Toilet Break. Happy Endings. We Are More Of A Tv Culture.

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

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

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.

My Mother... She Is Beautiful, Softened At The Edges And Tempered With A Spine Of Steel. I Want To Grow Old And Be Like Her.

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

Clearly God Was In Some Kind Of Mood On My Birthday.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

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

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

Because Hate's Just The Flip Side Of Love. Like Heads And Tails On A Dime. If You Don't Know What It Feels Like To Love Someone, How Would You Know What Hate Is? One Can't Exist Without The Other.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Think This Is Every Mother's Worst Nightmare - Something Dreadful Happening To Her Child.

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

Heroes Didn't Leap Tall Buildings Or Stop Bullets With An Outstretched Hand; They Didn't Wear Boots And Capes. They Bled, And They Bruised, And Their Superpowers Were As Simple As Listening, Or Loving. Heroes Were Ordinary People Who Knew That Even If Their Own Lives Were Impossibly Knotted, They Could Untangle Someone Else's. And Maybe That One Act Could Lead Someone To Rescue You Right Back.

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

It's Like Picking Up An Unfamiliar Piece Of Sheet Music & Starting To Stumble Through It, Only To Realize It Is A Melody You'd Once Learned By Heart, One You Can Play Without Even Trying.

Normal, In Our House, Is Like A Blanket Too Short For A Bed--sometimes It Covers You Just Fine, And Other Times It Leaves You Cold And Shaking; And Worst Of All, You Never Know Which Of The Two It's Going To Be.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

This Is What It Always Comes Down To, I Realized. There Are The Ones Who Believe, And The Ones Who Don't, And Caught In The Space Between Them Are Guns.

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.

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

I Am An Activist. I Have A Really Big Pulpit With My Fiction And I Love Knowing That I Can Make People Think.

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

Some Women Are Meant To Change The World While Others Are Meant To Hold It Together.

Changing The World

The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Alway All That Hate, Is You.

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

I Know What It's Like When The Things You Believe Make You Feel Like You're On The Outside Looking In.

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.

This Is When I Realize That Anna Has Already Left The Table, And More Importantly, That Nobody Noticed.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.

Beautiful Things

And I Think, Not For The First Time, That What Is Immoral Is Not Always Wrong.

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.

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

Raw Love, Like Raw Heartache, Could Blindside You.

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.

Is Fate Getting What You Deserve, Or Deserving What You Get?

What You Deserve

The World Just Feels Different For Those Of Us Who Come Alive After Dark. It's More Fragile And Unreal, A Replica Of The One Everyone Else Inhabits.

I Would Tell Them That When You Look At A Person, You Never Know What The're Hiding.

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.

What I Want, More Than Anything, Is To Turn Back Time A Little. To Become The Kid I Used To Be, Who Believed Whatever My Mother Said Was One Hundred Percent True And Right Without Looking Hard Enough To See The Hairline Crack.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Started Writing When I Had Three Kids Under The Age Of 4. I Used To Write Every Ten Minutes I Got To Sit In Front Of A Computer. Now, When I Have More Time, I Function The Same Way: If It's Writing Time, I Write.

An Item That Looks Perfectly Normal On The Surface Might Only Be Disguised.

Perfectly Normal

If We Don't Change The Direction We Are Headed, We Will End Up Where We Are Going.

I Have Loved Before, But It Didn’t Feel Like This. I Have Kissed Before, But It Didn’t Burn Me Alive. Maybe It Lasts A Minute, And Maybe It’s An Hour. All I Know Is That Kiss, And How Soft Her Skin Is When It Brushes Against Mine, And That, Even If I Did Not Know It Until Now, I Have Been Waiting For This Person Forever.

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

Write A Living Will. And Become An Organ Donor!

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?

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.

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

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

Me, I Was Already Jaded And Tarnished, Skeptical That A Fantasy World Could Keep Reality At Bay.

I Always Wondered Why God Was Supposed To Be A Father," She Whispers. Fathers Always Want You To Measure Up To Something. Mothers Are The Ones Who Love You Unconditionally, Don't You Think?

We Make Messes Of Our Lives, But Every Now And Then, We Manage To Do Something That's Exactly Right. The Challenge Is Figuring Out Which Is Which.

The First Time Someone I Loved Left Me Behind...i Didn't Know How My Family Would Balance. We Had Been Such A Sturdy Little End Table, Four Solid Legs. I Was Sure We Would Now Be Off-kilter, Always Unstable. Until One Day I Looked More Closely, And Realized That We Had Simply Become A Stool.

Religion Was Supposed To Be A Blanket Drawn Up To Your Chin To Keep You Warm, A Promise That When It Came To The End, You Wouldn't Die Alone - But It Could Just As Easily Leave You Shivering Out In The Cold, If What You Believed Became More Important Than The Fact That You Believed.

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

Words Got In The Way. The Things We Felt The Hardest--like What It Was Like To Have A Boy Touch You As If You Were Made Of Light, Or What It Meant To Be The Only Person In The Room Who Wasn't Noticed--weren't Sentences; They Were Knots In The Wood Of Our Bodies, Places Where Our Blood Flowed Backward. If You Asked Me, Not That Anyone Ever Did, The Only Words Worth Saying Were I'm Sorry.

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

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

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

"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?"

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

When I Think About Writers Who Use Fiction As Social Commentary And To Raise Social Awareness But Who Are Also Very Popular, I Think Of Dickens.

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.

All I Know Is That I Carried You For Nine Months. I Fed You, I Clothed You, I Paid For Your College Education. Friending Me On Facebook Seems Like A Small Thing To Ask In Return.

Mother Daughter

Mother And Daughter

Mom And Daughter

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

If You End Your Story, It's A Static Work Of Art, A Finite Circle. But If You Don't, It Belongs To Anyone's Imagination. It Stays Alive Forever.

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

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 Tell You This As A Cautionary Tale: Beware Of Getting What You Want. It's Bound To Disappoint You.

Getting What You Want

Cautionary Tales

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Read A Ton. Take A Workshop Course So You Learn To Give And Get Criticism.

Writing Workshop

History Tells Us That Six Million Jews Disappeared During That War. If There Was No Holocaust, Where Did They Go?' She Shakes Her Head. 'all Of That, And The World Didn't Learn Anything. Look Around. There's Still Ethnic Cleansing. There's Discrimination.

To Me Gay Rights Is The Last Civil Right That We Have Not Granted In America And I Think It's An Enormous Embarrassment.

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.

Do You Know How, When You Are On The Verge Of A Breakdown, The World Pounds In Your Ears; A Rush Of Blood, Of Consequence? Do You Now How It Feels When The Truth Cuts Your Tongue To Ribbons, And Still You Have To Speak It?

Grief Is A Curious Thing, When It Happens Unexpectedly. It Is A Band-aid Being Ripped Away, Taking The Top Layer Off A Family. And The Underbelly Of A Household Is Never Pretty, Ours No Exception. There Were Times I Stayed In My Room For Days On End With Headphones On, If Only So That I Would Not Have To Listen To My Mother Cry. There Were The Weeks That My Father Worked Round-the-clock Shifts, So That He Wouldn't Have To Come Home To A House That Felt Too Big For Us.

People Always Say That, When You Love Someone, Nothing In The World Matters. But That's Not True, Is It? You Know, And I Know, That When You Love Someone, Everything In The World Matters A Little Bit More.

Be A Good Listener, Don't Judge And Don't Put Boundaries On Someone Else's Grief.

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

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.

I Consider Myself Spiritual And I'm Married To A Man Who Is Both An Atheist And A Humanist, And My Kids Have Been Raised With The Traditions Of Different Religions, But They Do Not Go To Church Or Temple. My Feeling Is That Everyone Should Be Able To Believe What They Want Or Need To Believe.

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes We Find Ourselves Walking Through Life Blindfolded, And We Try To Deny That We're The Ones Who Securely Tied The Knot.

Walking Through Life

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.

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... ...parents Aren't The People You Come From. They're The People You Want To Be, When You Grow Up. I Sat Between My Mother And My Father, Watching Strangers On Tv Carry In Shaker Rockers And Dusty Paintings And Ancient Beer Tankards And Cranberry Glass Dishes; People And Their Hidden Treasures, Who Had To Be Told By Experts That They'd Taken Something Incredibly Precious For Granted.

What If It Turns Out That A Life Isn’t Defined By Who You Belong To Or Where You Came From, By What You Wished For Or Whom You’ve Lost, But Instead By The Moments You Spend Getting From Each Of These Places To The Next?

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.

Trending Author

Vita Sackville-West

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Category