Background Image

...

What I Mean Is That Those Thoughts, They're Human. And Just Because You Turn Out Differently Than Everyone's Imagined You Would Doesn't Mean That You've Failed In Some Way. A Kid Who Gets Teased In One School Might Move To A Different One, And Be The Most Popular Girl There, Just Because No One Has Any Other Expectations Of Her. Or A Person Who Goes To Med School Because His Entire Family Is Full Of Doctors Might Find Out That What He Really Wants To Be Is An Artist Instead.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What I Mean Is

Jodi Picoult

...

What I Mean Is That Those Thoughts, They're Human. And Just Because You Turn Out Differently Than Everyone's Imagined You Would Doesn't Mean That You've Failed In Some Way. A Kid Who Gets Teased In One School Might Move To A Different One, And Be The Most Popular Girl There, Just Because No One Has Any Other Expectations Of Her. Or A Person Who Goes To Med School Because His Entire Family Is Full Of Doctors Might Find Out That What He Really Wants To Be Is An Artist Instead.

Views: 7731

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

You’ll Tell Yourself Anything You Have To, To Pretend That You’re Still The One In Control.

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?

You Can't Exist In This World Without Leaving A Piece Of Yourself Behind.

There's Always Going To Be Bad Stuff Out There. But Here's The Amazing Thing -- Light Trumps Darkness, Every Time. You Stick A Candle Into The Dark, But You Can't Stick The Dark Into The Light.

The Problem Was , You Never Heard Anyone Say,"wow, Check Out The Brain On That Babe.

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.

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.

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

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 Have A Sister, So I Know-that Relationship, It's All About Fairness: You Want Your Sibling To Have Exactly What You Have-the Same Amount Of Toys, The Same Number Of Meatballs On Your Spaghetti, The Same Share Of Love. But Being A Mother Is Completely Different. You Want Your Child To Have More Than You Ever Did. You Want To Build A Fire Underneath Her And Watch Her Soar. It's Bigger Than Words.

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

I Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.

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.

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

Tutoring A Four Year Old To Get Into An Exclusive Preschool Made As Much Sense As Hiring A Swim Coach For A Guppy.

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

By Definition, Love Made You Better Than Good Enough; It Redefined Perfection To Include Your Traits, Instead Of Excluding Them.

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.

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

I Don't Know Whether You Can Look At Your Past And Find, Woven Like The Hidden Symbols On A Treasure Map, The Path That Will Point To Your Final Destination.

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.

[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.

I Imagine Having That Sixth Sense, The Certainty That What I'm Looking For Is Within Reach, Even If It's Still Hidden.

The Right Idea Is The One You Can't Stop Thinking About; The One That's In Your Head First Thing In The Morning.

I Wonder If You've Got A Minute." I Have Many Minutes, All Of Them Used Toward A Common Purpose.

You Can Love A Person And Still Hate The Decisions They've Made, Can't You?

I'm Telling You, If Aliens Landed On Earth Today And Took A Good Hard Look At Why Babies Get Born, They'd Conclude That Most People Had Children By Accident, Or Because They Drink Too Much On A Certain Night, Or Because Birth Control Isn't One Hundred Percent, Or For A Thousand Other Reasons That Really Aren't Very Flattering.

I Think That When You Live In A World With Limits... When You've Met Everyone And Seem Everything You're Going To See - You Lose The Hope That Something Extraordinary Will Happen In Your Life

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

Protect Yourself

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

To Be Truly Popular, It Has To Look Like Something You Are, When In Reality, It's What You Make Yourself.

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 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.

No One Ever Asks A Kid For Her Opinion, But It Seems To Me That Growing Up Means You Stop Hoping For The Best, And Start Expecting The Worst.

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

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.

The First Time She Kissed Me, I Truly Thought I'd Had An Aneurysm - My Pulse Was Thundering So Loud And My Senses Were Exploding. This, I Remember Thinking, The Only Word I Could Hold On To In A Sea Of Feelings.

I Think Grief Is Like A Really Ugly Couch. It Never Goes Away. You Can Decorate Around It; You Can Slap A Doily On Top Of It; You Can Push It To The Corner Of The Room-but Eventually, You Learn To Live With It.

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.

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

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.

You Always Knew After Shitty Things Happened, Who Your Friends Really Were.

Behind Your Back

My Grandmother Told Me That Her Father Used To Ask Her A Riddle: What Must You Break Apart In Order To Bring A Family Close Together? Bread, Of Course.

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

You Know How Sometimes, Your Life Is So Perfect You’re Afraid For The Next Moment, Because It Couldn’t Possibly Be Quite As Good? That’s What It Felt Like.

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

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

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.

If You Think Of A Relationship As A Living Entity, I Guess It's One Thing If The Missing Two Percent Is, Like, A Fingernail. But When It's The Heart, That's A Whole Different Ball Of Wax.

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.

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.

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

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 Makes You Walk Past Thirty-thousand People Without A Second Glance, And Then You Look At The Thirty-thousandth-and-first Person And Know You'll Never Take Your Eyes Off Her Again?

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

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

Her Hands Quieted. "yeah. Because Even If The Law Says That No One Is Responsible For Anyone Else, Helping Someone Who Needs It Is The Right Thing To Do." I Sat Down Beside Her, Close Enough That The Skin Of Her Arm Hummed Right Next To Mine. "you Really Believe That?" She Looked Down At Her Lap "yeah." Then How," I Asked, "can You Walk Away From Me?

Helping Someone

That's Why We Read Fiction, Isn't It? To Remind Us That Whatever We Suffer, We're Not The Only Ones?

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

The Night Is Falling Down Around Us. Meteors Rain Like Fireworks, Quick Rips In The Seam Of The Dark... Every Second, Another Streak Of Silver Glows: Parentheses, Exclamation Points, Commas - A Whole Grammar Made Of Light, For Words Too Hard To Speak.

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.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

I Feel I'm Able To Get Rid Of Any Demons Lurking In My Psyche Through My Writing, Which Leaves Me Free To Create All Of This And To Enjoy Our Family Life, Stepping Away From All The Fictional Traumas And The Dramas. If I Write About Family In Crisis, Then I Won't Have To Live Through It, I Guess.

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?

Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending.

Take It From Me: Love Has All The Lasting Permanence Of A Rainbow- Beautiful While It's There, And Just As Likely To Have Disappeared By The Time You Blink.

You Know It's Never Fifty-fifty In A Marriage. It's Always Seventy-thirty, Or Sixty-forty. Someone Falls In Love First. Someone Puts Someone Else Up On A Pedestal. Someone Works Very Hard To Keep Things Rolling Smoothly; Someone Else Sails Along For The Ride.

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.

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.

I Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.

Falling In Love

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

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.

People Have To Experience Things That Terrify Them. If They Don't, How Will They Ever Come To Appreciate Safety?

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.

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?

Parenting Isn't A Noun But A Verb--an Ongoing Process Instead Of An Accomplishment. And That No Matter How Many Years You Put Into The Job, The Learning Curve Is, Well, Fairly Flat.

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.

Sometimes We Don't Know We're Dreaming; We Can't Even Fathom That We're Asleep.

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

Time Is An Optical Illusion- Never Quite As Soild Or Strong As We Think It Is

Optical Illusions

The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.

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.

It Was The First Time She'd Discovered Something She Really Didn't Want To Find, And She Didn't Know What To Do Once She'd Found It.

You Know Someone's Right For You When The Things They Don't Have To Say Are Even More Important Than The Things They Do.

If You Focus On Sandbagging The Beachhead, You Can Ignore The Tsunami That's Approaching. Try It Any Other Way And You'll Go Crazy.

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

When Heaven Breaks, Who Fixes It?

You Know How Every Now And Then, You Have A Moment Where Your Whole Life Stretches Out Ahead Of You Like A Forked Road, And Even As You Choose One Gritty Path You've Got Your Eyes On The Other The Whole Time, Certain That You're Making A Mistake.

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

What Makes A Treasure A Treasure." Marine Replied, "is How Rare A Find It Is, When You Need It The Most.

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.

Being A Good Mother, It Seemed To Me, Meant You Ran The Risk Of Losing Your Child.

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.

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.

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.

See, As Much As You Want To Hold On To The Bitter Sore Memory That Someone Has Left This World, You Are Still In It

Bad Is Not An Absolute, But A Relative Term. Ask The Robber Who Used The Cash He Stole To Feed His Infant; The Rapist Who Was Sexually Abused As A Child; The Kidnapper Who Truly Believed He Was Saving A Life. And Just Because You Break The Law Doesn't Mean You Have Intentionally Crossed The Line Into Evil. Sometimes The Line Creeps Up On You, And Before You Know It, You're Standing On The Other Side.

No Child Really Chooses His Religion; It Is Just The Luck Of The Draw Which Blanket Of Beliefs You Are Wrapped In.

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

Music Therapy, To Me, Is Music Performance Without The Ego. It's Not About Entertainment As Much As Its About Empathizing. If You Can Use Music To Slip Past The Pain And Gather Insight Into The Workings Of Someone Else's Mind, You Can Begin To Fix A Problem.

Listen, I Would Say, This Is Not How I Thought Our Lives Would Go; And May Be We Cannot Find Our Way Out Of This Alley. But There Is No One I'd Rather Be Lost With.

And Yet, You Never Knew Wwhat You Were Capable Of Until You Arrived At That Given Moment. Life Was Just A Whole String Of Spots Where You Continued To Surprise Yourself.

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

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.

For Better Or For Worse, Music Is The Language Of Memory. It Is Also The Language Of Love.

Language Of Love

In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Mow The Front Lawn; Color Your Hair; Watch A Third Of A Hockey Game. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Bake Scones Or Get A Tooth Filled By A Dentist; You Can Fold Laundry For A Family Of Five. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Stop The World; Or You Can Just Jump Off It.

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.

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.

Every Life Has A Soundtrack.

I Could Think Whatever I Wanted To, But Realized That Any Promises I Made Myself Were Destined To Be Broken.

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

I Wondered How Long It Took For A Baby To Become Yours, For Familiarity To Set In. Maybe As Long As It Took A New Car To Lose That Scent, Or A Brand-new House To Gather Dust. Maybe That Was The Process More Commonly Described As Bonding: The Act Of Learning Your Child As Well As You Know Yourself.

Happiness Is What You Choose To Remember.

How Foolish It Is To Run Away With A Man Who's Already Run Away With Someone Else.

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

I Leaned Forward And Kissed Him. And Again. As If I Were Passing Him All Those Silent Words I Cound Not Say, The Ones That Explained My Biggest Secret: That I Might Not Have Oi But I Knew How He (adam) Felt. That I Was Breaking Apart, Too, All The Time."-amelia

You Can Fool Yourself, You Know. You'd Think It's Impossible, But It Turns Out It's The Easiest Thing Of All.

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?

Fiction Comes In All Shapes And Sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We All Tell Them. Sometimes,because We Hope To Entertain. Sometimes,because We Need To Distract. And Sometimes, Because We Have To.

People In The Real World Would Kill For A Happily Ever After, And You're Willing To Just Throw It Away ?" I Look Away From Her. "it's Hardly A Happily Ever After When You Wind Up Right At The Beginning.

The Woman Who Opens The Door Has A Blue Stain On Her Shirt And Dark Hair Wound Into A Messy Knot And The Most Beautiful Eyes I Have Ever Seen. They're Pale, Like A Lioness's, Nearly Golden, But They Also Look Like They've Done Their Fair Share Of Crying, And We All Know That A Sky With Clouds In It Is Much More Interesting Than One That Doesn't Have Any.

But What If Your Obsession Has Nothing To Do With Drugs Or Thrills Or Money? What If What You Want Most In The World Is To Recapture The Way Life Was A Week, A Month, A Year Ago-and You Are Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

It Doesn't Take A Whole Long Life To Realize That What We Deserve To Have, We Rarely Get.

My Sisters Keeper

You Can Stay Up All Night And Still Not Count All The Ways To Lose The People You Love.

Sometimes There Aren't Words. The Silence Between Us Is Flung Wide As An Ocean. But I Manage To Reach Across It, To Wrap My Arms Around Him.

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

Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole.

Love Doesn't Follow The Rules... Nothing Is Worth Having So Much As Something Unattainable.

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.

But I Think Half The Battle Is Figuring Out What Works For You, And I Am Much Better At Being A Mother Than I Ever Would Have Been As A Lawyer. I Sometimes Wonder If It Is Just Me, Or If There Are Other Women Who Figure Out Where They Are Supposed To Be By Going Nowhere." - My Sister's Keeper

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.

On The Other Hand, I Think Cats Have Asperger's. Like Me, They're Very Smart. And Like Me, Sometimes They Simply Need To Be Left Alone.

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

When You Have Been With Your Partner For So Many Years, They Become The Glove Compartment Map That You've Worn Dog-eared And White-creased, The Trail You Recogonize So Well You Could Draw It By Heart And For This Very Reason Keep It With You On Journeys At All Times. And Yet, When You Least Expect It, One Day You Open Your Eyes And There Is An Unfamiliar Turnoff, A Vantage Point Taht Wasn't There Before, And You Have To Stop And Wonder If Maybe This Landmark Isn't New At All, But Rather Something You Have Missed All Along.

Any Highway . . . They All Take You To The Same Place, Don't They?

I Wish I Could Tell Him I Understand: The Higher You Raise Your Hopes, The Farther You Have To Fall.

I Wonder If What Makes A Family A Family Isn't Doing Everything Right All The Time But, Instead, Giving A Second Chance To The People You Love Who Do Things Wrong.

Could You Really Love Someone Who Was Capable Of Falling In Love With Somebody Else?

Falling In Love

Just Because It's Fiction Doesn't Mean It's Any Less True.

And If Your Parents Have You For A Reason, Then That Reason Better Exist. Because Once It's Gone, So Are You.

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

Shooting Stars Are Not Stars At All. They Re Just Rocks That Enter The Atmosphere And Catch Fire Under Friction. What We Wish On When We See One Is Only A Trail Of Debris.

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

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

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

I Have No Idea What Andrew Might Have Done, And I Do Not Ask. She Believes That I Can Fix This, And Like Always, That's Enough To Make Me Think That I Can. "i'll Take Care Of It,: I Say, When What I Really Mean Is: I'll Take Care Of You.

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

Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.

Beautiful Things

Princes Don't Come Around Everyday, And Happy Endings Don't Grow On Trees

If You Want To See God Laugh, Make A Plan.

Sometimes All You Need To Live One More Day Is A Good Reason To Stick Around.

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.

You Might Not Write Well Every Day, But You Can Always Edit A Bad Page. You Can't Edit A Blank Page.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

I ...understand How A Parent Might Hit A Child- It's Because You Can Look Into Their Eyes And See A Reflection Of Yourself That You Wish You Hadn't.

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.

Things Break All The Time. Glass And Dishes And Fingernails. Cars And Contracts And Potato Chips. You Can Break A Record, A Horse, A Dollar. You Can Break The Ice. There Are Coffee Breaks And Lunch Breaks And Prison Breaks. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Chains Can Be Broken. So Can Silence, And Fever... Promises Break. Hearts Break.

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.

And Another Claimed It Was Inherited Through A Parent Who Was A Carrier Of The Defective Gene. I Had Always Assumed The Latter Was The Case With Claire. After All, Surely A Child Who Grew Out Of Grief Would Be Born With A Heavy Heart.

At 17, The Smallest Crises Took On Tremendous Proportions; Someone Else's Thoughts Could Take Root In The Loam Of Your Own Mind; Having Someone Accept You Was As Vital As Oxygen. Adults, Light Years Away From This, Rolled Their Eyes And Smirked And Said, 'this Too Shall Pass' - As If Adolescence Was A Disease Like Chicken Pox, Something Everyone Recalled As A Milk Nuisance, Completely Forgetting How Painful It Had Been At The Time.

It Felt Like I'd Been Living Underground, And For A Moment, I'd Been Given This Glimpse Of The Sky. Once You've Seen That, How Can You Go Back Where You Came From?

Was There A Language Of Loss? Did Everyone Who Suffered Speak A Different Dialect?

Just So You Know: If This Ever Happens To You, You Will Not Be Ready.

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.

My Brother Believed In All Sorts Of Mythical Creatures: Pixies, Dragons, Werewolves, Honest Men.

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.

Where Did You Go?" "to The End Of The Driveway," My Mother Says. "i Was Nine Months Pregnant; That Was The Maximum Distance I Could Waddle Without Feeling As If My Uterus Was Falling Out." I Wince. "do You Have To Be Quite So Graphic?" "what Would You Like Me To Call It, Zoe? A Fetal Living Room?

There Were Lies We Told To Save Ourselves, And Then There Were Lies We Told To Rescue Others. What Counted More, The Mistruth, Or The Greater Good?

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

Domestic Violence

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.

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.

When You [lose Someone], It Feels Like The Hole In Your Gum When A Tooth Falls Out. You Can Chew, You Can Eat, You Have Plenty Of Other Teeth, But Your Tongue Keeps Going Back To That Empty Place, Where All Nerves Are Still A Little Raw

You Get Through It, You Just Never Get Over It

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.

Sometimes Knowing What's Right Isn't A Rational Decision, Or Even What Works On Paper. Sometimes Leaving Is The Best Course Of Action After All.

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

The Only Difference Between A Wish And A Prayer Is That You're At The Mercy Of The Universe For The First, And You've Got Some Help With The Second.

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

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

Perfectly Normal

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

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

I Realize Then That We Never Have Children, We Receive Them. And Sometimes It’s Not For Quite As Long As We Would Have Expected Or Hoped. But It Is Still Far Better Than Never Having Had Those Children At All.

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

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

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.

When You Love Someone, You Say Their Name Different. Like It's Safe Inside Your Mouth.

Just Because You Keep Something A Secret Doesn't Mean It Never Happened, No Matter How Much You Want That To Be True.

Most People Who Offer Their Help Do It To Make Themselves Feel Better, Not Us. To Be Honest, I Don't Blame Them. It's Superstition: If You Give Assistance To The Family In Need... If You Throw Salt Over Your Shoulder... If You Don't Step On The Cracks, Then Maybe You'll Be Immune. Maybe You'll Be Able To Convince Yourself That This Could Never Happen To 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?

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.

Parents Aren’t The People You Come From. They’re The People You Want To Be, When You Grow Up.

The Apple . . . Came Before Adam And Eve In The Story Of Creation. It Had To Have Been There At Least Three Years Because That's How Long It Takes For A New Tree To Bear Fruit.

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.

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.

Sometimes Chris Wished He Could Sneak A Peek At The Back Of The Book, So To Speak, And See How It Was All Going To Turn Out, So That He Wouldn't Have To Bother Going Through The Motions.

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.

Trending Author

John C. Calhoun

Paul Tudor Jones

William Greider

Category