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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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Was It The Act

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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

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.

Life Was What Happened When All The What-if’s Didn’t, When What You Dreamed Or Hoped Or – In This Case – Feared Might Come To Pass Passed By Instead.

Sometimes When You Find Something You Didn't Really Realize You Were Looking For, You Just Don't Know How To React.

Gay Teenagers Are Four Times As Likely To Attempt Suicide As Straight Ones. I Wish They Knew That There's Nothing Wrong With Them; That They Are Just A Different Shade Of Normal.

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.

...because He Believed That If You Wanted To Get Rid Of A Hole, You Filled It. He Had Not Realized At The Time That There Were All Sorts Of Filler That Took Up Space, But Had No Substance. That Made You Feel Just As Empty.

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

It's A Fallacy That Writers Have To Shut Themselves Up In Their Ivory Towers To Write. I Have All These Interruptions, Three Of Which I Gave Birth To. If I Was Thrown For A Loop Every Time I Was Distracted I Could Never Get Anything Done.

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

Love Makes Life A Little Brighter

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

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

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

Sometimes You Can See Things Happen Right In Front Of Your Eyes And Still Jump To The Wrong Conclusions.

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.

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

You Don't Make Peace Only With G-d. You Make It With People. Sin Isn't Global. It's Personal. If You Do Wrong To Someone, The Only Way To Fix That Is To Go To That Same Person And Do Right By Him.

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.

When You Want Something Bad, You'll Tell Yourself A Thousand Lies.

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.

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

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

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

It Was Always Easier For Me To Show Love Than To Say It. The Word Reminded Me Of Pralines: Small, Precious, Almost Unbearable Sweet. I Would Light Up In His Presence; I Felt Like A Sun In The Constellation Of His Embrace. But Trying To Put What I Felt For Him Into Words Diminished It Somehow, Like Pinning A Butterfly Under Glass, Or Videotaping A Comet.

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.

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.

I Imagine The Touch Of Someone Who Loves You So Much, He Cannot Bear To Watch You Sleep; And So You Wake Up With His Hand On Your Heart.

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Stanley Kubrick

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