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There Are So Many Things I Can't Believe. That People Deserve What They Get, Both Bad And Good. That One Day I'll Live In A World Where People Are Judged By What They Do Instead Of Who They Are. That Happy Endings Don't Have Contingencies And Conditions.

-Jodi Picoult

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There Are So Many

Jodi Picoult

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There Are So Many Things I Can't Believe. That People Deserve What They Get, Both Bad And Good. That One Day I'll Live In A World Where People Are Judged By What They Do Instead Of Who They Are. That Happy Endings Don't Have Contingencies And Conditions.

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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.

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.

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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.

He Smiles At Me, And I Am Suddenly Seventeen Again - The Year I Realize That Love Doesn't Follow The Rules, The Year I Understood That Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable

Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It. There Is Always Another Appointment To Be Met, Another Bill To Pay, Another Symptom Presenting, Another Uneventful Day To Be Notched Onto The Wooden Wall. We Have Synchronized Our Watches, Studied Our Calendars, Existed In Minutes, And Completely Forgotten To Step Back And See What We've Accomplished.

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

It Is Always Hardest For Me To Write A Book That Has Kids In It Close To My Kids' Ages. It Is Always Hardest For Me To Write A Book That Has Kids In It Close To My Kids' Ages.

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.

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

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Yes, She Is." He Looks At Me, His Face Carved In Pain. "she Is Dying, Sara. She Will Die, Either Tonight Or Tomorrow Or Maybe A Year From Now If We're Really Lucky. You Heard What Dr. Chance Said. Arsenic's Not A Cure. It Just Postpones What's Coming." My Eyes Fill Up With Tears. "but I Love Her," I Say, Because That Is Reason Enough.

If You Read A Book That's Fiction And You Get Caught In The Characters And The Plot, And Swept Away, Really, By The Fiction Of It - By The Non-reality - You Sometimes Wind Up Changing Your Reality As Well. Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.

The Truth Was, History Repeated Itself On A Daily Basis; Mistakes Were Made Over And Over. People Were Haunted By What They Had Done, And By What They Hadn't Had Time To Do.

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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.

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

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Knowing Who You Are

Where You Belong

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

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You Figured That The Only Way I'd Be Happy Is If I Did The Things You Thought Would Be Best For Me.

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Mom And Daughter

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

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

There Was A Difference Between People Looking At You Because They Wanted To Be Like You, And People Looking At You Because Your Misfortune Brought Them One Rung Higher.

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.

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...when They Look At Me, I So Badly Want To Be Who They See.

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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.

How Could You Go About Choosing Something That Would Hold The Half Of Your Heart You Had To Bury?

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

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

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.

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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.

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

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A Fire Can't Burn Forever. Eventually, It Consumes Itself.

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You Fell In Love With Someone Because Of The Tilt Of His Smile, Or Because He Could Make You Laugh, Or In This Case, Because He Made You Believe That You Were The Only One Who Could Save Him.

Not Everyone Understands How You Can Spin Two Lassos At The Same Time, One Of Hope And One Of Grief.

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.

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.

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Once Upon A Time

The Act Of Writing... Is The Act Of Trying To Understand Why My Opinion Is What It Is. And Ultimately, I Think That's The Same Experience The Reader Has When They Pick Up One Of My Books.

There Had Been So Many Easy Words Between Them That Daniel Was Guilty Of Nodding Every Now And Then And Tuning Out The Excess. He Hadn't Known, At The Time, That He Should Have Been Hoarding These, Like Bits Of Sea Glass Hidden In The Pocket Of A Winter Coat To Remind Him That Once It Had Been Summer.

For Someone Who Can’t Remember Very Much, There Seems To Be A Lot I Can’t Forget.

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

You Never Forget Your First Fall.

Gay Rights Is Not Something Most Of Us Think About - Because Most Of Us Happen To Have Been Born Straight.

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.

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

Remember Something

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

Violence Up Close Has A Smell. Like Copper Blood And Charcoal Burning.

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

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?

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.

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

You Know How I Get Angry Sometimes? That's Because It's The Only Way I Can Still Feel. And I Need To Test Myself, To Make Sure I'm Really Here.

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

Remember That Every Fire Will Burn Itself Out, Even Without Your Help.

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.

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

I Think That Different Things Sell In Different Countries.

It Still Hurts," She Whispered. "even When You're Doing It For Someone Else, That Doesn't Stop Your Ribs From Getting Cracked, Or Your Wrist Swelling, Or Your Cuts From Bleeding.

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

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.

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

I Wondered About The Explorers Who'd Sailed Their Ships To The End Of The World. How Terrified They Must Have Been When They Risked Falling Over The Edge; How Amazed To Discover, Instead, Places They Had Seen Only In Their Dreams.

I Only Just Found You, I Can't Lose You Now

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

There Were Some People Who Hit Your Life So Hard, They Left A Stain On Your Future.

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

Mother Daughter

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.

In Fairytales, When The Mask Came Off, The Handsome Prince Still Loved The Girl, No Matter What -and That Alone Would Turn Her Into A Princess.

The Human Capacity For Burden Is Like Bamboo- Far More Flexible Than You'd Ever Believe At First Glance.

A Guardian Ad Litem... Gal Is Appointed By A Court To Be A Child's Advocate During Legal Proceedings That Involve A Minor. You Don't Have To Be A Lawyer To Be Trained As A Gal, But You Have To Have A Moral Compass And A Heart. Which, Actually Probably Renders Most Lawyers Unqualified For The Job.

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

Part Of Growing Up Was Learning Not To Be Quite That Honest - Learning When It Was Better To Lie, Rather Than To Hurt Someone With The Truth.

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

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

Or. I Hate That Word. It’s Two Letters Long And Stuffed To The Gills With Reasonable Doubt.

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 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.

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.

Happiness Is What You Choose To Remember.

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

Human Condition

I Know How Difficult It Can Be When The Image You've Had Of Something Doesn't Match Its Reality; When The Friend Beside You Turns Into A Monster.

I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?

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

Someone Real," I Hear Myself Saying. "someone Who Never Has To Pretend, And Who I Never Have To Pretend Around. Someone Who's Smart, But Knows How To Laugh At Himself. Someone Who Would Listen To A Symphony And Start To Cry, Because He Understands Music Can Be Too Big For Words. Someone Who Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself. Someone I Want To Talk To First Thing In The Morning And Last Thing At Night. Someone I Feel Like I've Known My Whole Life, Even If I Haven't.

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

My Sisters Keeper

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

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

Writing Workshop

For Me, Every Book Is A Journey - Questioning A Really Difficult Topic That Most People Don't Want To Talk About, Much Less Write About. And That's What I Need; That Works For Me As A Writer.

That's The Crazy Thing About Lies. You Start To Fall For Them, Yourself.

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

She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.

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?

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

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.

There Are Some Nights When You Just Want To Know There's Someone Else Besides You In This Wide World.

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

It Was A Catch-22: If You Didn’t Put The Trauma Behind You, You Couldn’t Move On. But If You Did Put The Trauma Behind You, You Willingly Gave Up Your Claim To The Person You Were Before It Happened.

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.

Lately, I Have Been Having Nightmares, Where I'm Cut Into So Many Pieces That There Isn't Enough Of Me To Be Put Back Together.

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

Every Year I Tell Myself That I’m Not Going To Read Any Reviews And Then I Do. We’re All Human And When I Read Something Negative It Hurts. I Think When You Write It’s Part Of The Game, You’re Going To Get Some Good Reviews And Some Bad Reviews And That’s How It Goes. I Don’t Write For The Reviews.

An Apology With A Defense Built In Isn't Much Of An Apology

You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find Out What You'd Been Missing.

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

Nobody, Who Looks At A Shard Of Flint Lying Beneath A Rock Ledge, Or Who Finds A Splintered Log By The Side Of The Road Would Ever Find Magic In Their Solitude. But In The Right Circumstances, If You Bring Them Together, You Can Start A Fire That Consumes The World.

I 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.

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

The Way I Challenge Myself Is By Writing Something That Really Engages Me, That Doesn't Have An Easy Answer, And Isn't Always An Easy Book To Write.

When Feeling Came Back, In A Storm Of Color And Force And Sensation, The Most You Could Do Was Hold On To The Person Beside You And Hope You Could Weather It. Alex Closed Her Eyes And Expected The Worst-but It Wasn't A Bad Thing; It Was Just A Different Thing. A Messier One, More Complicated One. She Hesitated, And Then She Kissed Patrick Back, Willing To Concede That You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find What You'd Been Missing.

Can You Imagine What It Would Be Like To Know That Your Life Was Just Going To Be A Series Of Days That Were All The Same, That Were Do-overs?

You Know, Sage, Jesus Didn't Tell Us To Forgive Everyone. He Said Turn The Other Cheek, But Only If You The One Who Was Hit. Even The Lord's Prayer Says It Loud And Clear: Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us. Not Others. What Jesus Challenges Us To Do Is To Let Go Of The Wrong Done To You Personally, Not The Wrong Done To Someone Else. But Most Christians Incorrectly Assume That This Means That Being A Good Christian Means Forgiving All Sins, And The Sinners.

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.

I Used To Think I'd Be Just Like Them When I Grew Up, But I Am Not. And The Thing Is, Somewhere Along The Way, I Stopped Wanting To Be Like Them, Anyway.

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.

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

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.

The Letters Are Mixed Up. U And I Should Be Together.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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

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

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.

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

You Get Through It, You Just Never Get Over It

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

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

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.

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.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

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

It Was A Strange Thing, To Still Be In Love With Your Wife And To Not Know If You Liked Her. What Would Happen When This Was All Over? Could You Forgive Someone If She Hurt You And The People You Love, If She Truly Believed She Was Only Trying To Help? I Had Filed For Divorce, But That Wasn't What I Really Wanted. What I Really Wanted Was For All Of Us To Go Back Two Years, And Start Over. Had I Ever Really Told Her That?

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

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

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.

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

There Is A Curious Thing That Happens With The Passage Of Time: A Calcification Of Character... Change Isn't Always For The Worst; The Shell That Forms Around A Piece Of Sand Looks To Some People Like An Irritation, And To Others, Like A Pearl.

Crazy Girls Did This, Girls Who Walked Like Zombies Through Ya Novels. But. Trixie Felt The Sting Of The Skin As It Split, The Sweet Welling Rise Of Blood. It Hurt, Though Not As Much As Everything Else Idd.

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

I Could Tell Her From Personal Experience That When People We Love Make Choices We Don't Always Understand Them. But We Can Go On Loving Them, Just The Same. It Isn't A Matter Of Comprehension. It's Forgiveness. But All This Took Me A Lifetime To Discover, And Where Has It Gotten Me?... Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

We Are All, I Suppose, Beholden To Our Parents - The Question Is, How Much?

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.

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

My Sisters Keeper

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

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

Why Are You Doing This To Yourself? When Something Bad Happens, Why Do You Have To Pick At It Until It Bleeds All Over Again?

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.

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

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