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There Was, Really, Nothing You Could Use As A Blueprint For Your Life, Except Your Past. There Was No Starting Over. There Was Only Picking Up The Pieces Someone Had Left Behind.

-Jodi Picoult

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There Was, Really, Nothing

Jodi Picoult

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There Was, Really, Nothing You Could Use As A Blueprint For Your Life, Except Your Past. There Was No Starting Over. There Was Only Picking Up The Pieces Someone Had Left Behind.

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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.

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

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.

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

She Stares At Me For A Moment, And Then She Bursts Out Laughing. “you Haven’t Seen His Perfect Little Wife And His Perfect Little Girls. Believe Me, Oliver, I’m Not The Great Love Of His Life, The One He’ll Never Forget.” “you Are To Me,” I Say.

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Losing Chloe Had Been Like Reading A Wonderfulook Only To Realize That All The Pages Past A Certain Point Were Blank.

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It Was One Thing To Sacrifice Your Own Life For Someone Else's. It Was Another Thing Entirely To Bring Into The Mix A Third Party - A Third Party Who Knew You, Who Trusted You Implicitly.

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My Dad Used To Say That Living With Regrets Was Like Driving A Car That Only Moved In Reverse.

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

Memories Are Like A Still Life Painted By Ten Different Student Artists: Some Will Be Blue-based; Others Red; Some Will Be As Stark As Picasso And Others As Rich As Rembrandt; Some Will Be Foreshortened And Others Distant. Recollections Are In The Eye Of The Beholder; No Two Held Up Side By Side Will Ever Quite Match.

There Was, Really, Nothing You Could Use As A Blueprint For Your Life, Except Your Past. There Was No Starting Over. There Was Only Picking Up The Pieces Someone Had Left Behind.

Once The World Was Pulled Out From Beneath Your Feet, Did You Ever Get To Stand On Firm Ground Again?

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Protect Yourself

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

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

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

And Sometimes, He Was Less Lucid. He'd Run Around His Cell Like A Caged Animal; He'd Rock Back And Forth; He'd Swing From Topic To Topic As If It Was The Only Way To Cross The Jungle Of His Thoughts.

People Work Too Hard To Figure Out The Meaning Of Their Lives. Why Me, Why Now. The Truth Is, Sometimes Things Don't Happen To You For A Reason. Sometimes It's Just About Being In The Right Place At The Right Time For Someone Else.

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How Could You Not Want To Draw Breath One More Day? How Could Your Own Life Be Such A Cheap Commodity? But Then I Started To Understand: When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

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

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

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.

Here's A News Flash For The Ladies: For Every One Of You Who Thinks We All Want A Girl Like Angelina Jolie, All Skinny Elbows And Angles, The Truth Is, We'd Rather Curl Up With Someone Like Charlotte - A Woman Who's Soft When A Guy Wraps His Arms Around Her; A Woman Who Might Have A Smear Of Flour On Her Shirt The Whole Day And Not Notice Or Care, Not Even When She Goes Out To Meet With The Pta; A Woman Who Doesn't Feel Like An Exotic Vacation But Is The Home We Can't Wait To Come Back To.

The Problem Isn’t With Rock Lyrics, It’s With The Fabric Of This Society Itself.

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

Campbell" Julia Says "don't Do This To Me" "do What?" "push Me Off The Same Cliff Twice

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

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

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

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?

Teachers Deserve Respect," I Explain. "why Do They Get It For Free, When Everyone Else Has To Earn It?

If You Spent Your Life Concentrating On What Everyone Else Thought Of You, Would You Forget Who You Really Were? What If The Face You Showed The World Turned Out To Be A Mask... With Nothing Beneath It?

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

In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

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

When We're Awake, We See What We Need To See. When We're Asleep, We See What Is Really There.

Embarrassment Isn't A Just Cause Of Action.

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.

Betrayal Was A Stone Beneath A Mattress Of Thr Bed You Shared, Something You Felt Digging Into You No Matter How You Shifted Position. What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?

The First Question She Was Asked Was What Do You Do? As If That Were Enough To Define You. Nobody Ever Asked You Who You Really Were, Because That Changed. You Might Be A Judge Or A Mother Or A Dreamer. You Might Be A Loner Or A Visionary Or A Pessimist. You Might Be The Victim, And You Might Be The Bully. You Could Be The Parent, And Also The Child. You Might Wond One Day And Heal The Next.

We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn’t Have Any.

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.

The Music We Listen To May Not Define Who We Are. But It’s A Damn Good Start.

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?

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.

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

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

Falling In Love

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

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.

Sometimes, When You Don't Ask Questions, It's Not Because You Are Afraid That Someone Will Lie To Your Face. It's Because You're Afraid They'll Tell You The Truth.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

It Is So Strange, To Encounter An Ex. It's As If You're In A Foreign Film, And What You're Saying Face-to-face Has Nothing To Do With The Subtitles Flowing Beneath You. We Are So Careful Not To Touch, Although Once Upon A Time, I Slept Plastered To Him In Our Bed, Like Lichen On A Rock. We Are Two Strangers Who Knows Every Shameful Secret, Every Hidden Freckle, Every Fatal Flaw In Each Other.

Once Upon A Time

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.

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

Here's What No One Ever Tells You About Love: It Hurts, Having Your Heart Broken

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

But You Could Only Remake Your Own Future, Not Anyone Else's, And For Some People That Just Wasn't Good Enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe Honesty Is Overvalued. What's Truly Priceless Is Picking Out From A Stream Of Falsehoods The Ones You Most Need To Hear.

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

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

Was It The Act Of Giving Birth That Made You A Mother? Did You Lose That Label When You Relinquished Your Child? If People Were Measured By Their Deeds, On The One Hand, I Had A Woman Who Had Chosen To Give Me Up; On The Other, I Had A Woman Who'd Sat Up With Me At Night When I Was Sick As A Child, Who'd Cried With Me Over Boyfriends, Who'd Clapped Fiercely At My Law School Graduation. Which Acts Made You More Of A Mother? Both, I Realized. Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

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

I Would Have Given Anything To Keep Her Little. They Outgrow Us So Much Faster Than We Outgrow Them. Brian Fitzgerald, Talking About His Children.

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

The Brain Of A Person In Love Will Show Activity In The Amygdala, Which Is Associated With Gut Feelings, And In The Nucleus Accumbens, An Area Associated With Rewarding Stimuli That Tends To Be Active In Drug Abusers. Or, To Recap: The Brain Of A Person In Love Doesn't Look Like The Brain Of Someone Overcome By Deep Emotion. It Looks Like The Brain Of A Person Who's Been Snorting Coke.

True Love Is Felonious… You Take Someone’s Breath Away… You Rob Them Of The Ability To Utter A Single Word… You Steal A Heart.

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

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

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