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When The Door Opens, I Realize That The Only Thing Worse Than Waiting Is The Moment You Realize A Decision Has Been Made.

-Jodi Picoult

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When The Door Opens,

Jodi Picoult

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When The Door Opens, I Realize That The Only Thing Worse Than Waiting Is The Moment You Realize A Decision Has Been Made.

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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?

But Katie Knew It Was A Sin, Had Known From The Moment She Made The Decision To Lie With Adam. However, The Transgression Wasn't Making Love Without The Sanction Of Marriage. It Was That For The First Time In Her Life, Katie Had Put Herself First. Put Her Own Wants And Needs Above Everything And Everyone Else.

When You're Different, Sometimes You Don't See The Millions Of People Who Accept You For What You Are. All You Notice Is The Person Who Doesn't.

If You Loved Someone, Really Loved Them, Would You Let Them Go?

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

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

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.

She Had Loved Him. He Knew This; He Had Never Doubted It. But She Had Also Asked Him To Kill Her. If You Love Someone That Much, You Did Not Lay That Sort Of Burden On Him For The Rest Of His Life.

If You Love Someone

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

I’d Much Rather Pretend I’m Somewhere Else, And Any Time I Open The Pages Of A Book, That Happens.

I Start By Mulling A Question And Before I Know It, A Whole Drama Is Unfolding In My Head. Often, An Idea Sticks Before I Know What I'm Going To Do With It.

If He Says Jump, She Doesn't Even Ask "how High?" She Goes Out And Buys A Pogo Stick.

Loneliness Is A Mirror, And Recognizes Itself.

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

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.

Extraordinary Things Are Always Hiding In Places People Never Think To Look.

All It Takes Is A Second And Your Whole Life Can Get Turned Upside Down.

I Would Figure Out, Later, How To Explain To My Boss That, For Me, Delia Will Never Be A Story, But A Happy Ending.

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.

Newborns Reminded Her Of Tiny Buddhas

A Woman Isn't All That Different From A Bonfire. A Fire's A Beautiful Thing, Right? Something You Can't Take Your Eyes Off, When It's Burning. If You Can Keep It Contained, It'll Throw Light And Heat For You. It's Only When It Gets Out Of Control That You Have To Go On The Offensive.

You Can Widen The Feet Of A Compass, But They Are Still Attached At The Top; You Can Spin Them Away From Each Other, But You Always Wind Up Where You Started.

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.

I Think Many Of My Books, Including "handle With Care," Including "my Sister's Keeper" Circle Back To How Far Are We Willing To Go For The People We Love? I Think Love Changes The Way We Think. It's The Thing That Takes You Out Of What Your Normal Set Of Beliefs Would Be.

I Am Alice In Wonderland', Josie Thought. 'watch Me Fall.

I'm Not Saying You Did The Wrong Thing. I'm Not Even Saying It Wasn't Something I'd Thought Of Doing, Myself. But Even If It Was The Just Thing To Do, Or The Fitting Thing, It Still Wasn't The Right Thing.

What Made You Happy Once Might Not Make You Happy Now.

It Takes Two People To Make A Lie Work: The Person Who Tells It, And The One Who Believes It.

Torn Between Fear And Something That Resembled Love, She Wrestled With Questions She Never Dreamed She Would Face: How Could She Leave? Then Again, How Could She Stay?

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 Think Her Flaws Make Me Love Her Even More. She's Not Perfect, But She's Perfect To Me

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

I'm Always Writing, Even When I'm Not At My Desk. I Write On My Hands. I Used To Write On My Kids' Hands, Too, But They Don't Let Me Any More. When I'm Driving I Sometimes Write All The Way Up My Arms.

Love Is Not An Equation, It Is Not A Contract, And It Is Not A Happy Ending. Love Is The Slate Under The Chalk, The Ground That Buildings Rise, And The Oxygen In The Air. It Is The Place You Come Back To, No Matter Where Your Headed

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.

This Must Be What An Addict Feels Like, I Think, Trying To Fight The Pull Of One Last, Quick Read. My Fingers Itch Toward The Binding, And Finally, With A Sigh Of Regret, I Just Grab The Book And Open It, Hungrily Reading The Story.

I Know You Love Me. The Question Is, How Much?

I Know You Love Me

Just 'cause You Can't See Me Don't Mean I Gone Away.

When You Look Into Your Baby’s Eyes,” Lacy Said Softly, “you See Everything You Hope They Can Be…not Everything You Wish They Won’t Become.

Remember When You Were A Little Kid And You'd Fall Asleep In The Car? And Someone Would Carry You Out And Put You Into Bed, So That When You Woke Up In The Morning, You Knew Automatically You Were Home Again? That's What I Think It's Like To Die.

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.

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.

Perhaps He D Always Known That The Truth Of A Person Lies In The Heart.

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

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.

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?

You Know How The Tightrope Guy At The Circus Wants Everyone To Believe His Act Is An Art, But Deep Down You Can See That He's Really Just Hoping He Makes It All The Way Across?

As Lacy Waited For Her Turn To Speak On Peter's Behalf, She Thought Back To The First Time She Realized She Could Hate Her Own Child.

When You Begin A Journey Of Revenge, Start By Digging Two Graves: One For Your Enemy, And One For Yourself.

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?

Hope And Reality Lie In Inverse Proportions, Inside The Walls Of A Hospital... Doubt Is Like Dye. Once Is Spreads Into The Fabric Of Excuses You've Woven, You'll Never Get Rid Of The Stain.

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.

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

Changing 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

There's A Cliff At The End Point Of A Person's Life; Most Us Of Peer Over The Edge Of It, Hanging On. That's Why, When Someone Chooses To Let Go, It's So Dramatically Visible. The Body Will Seem Almost Transparent. The Eys Will Be Looking At Something The Rest Of Us Can't See.

Do You Know How There Are Moments When The World Moves So Slowly You Can Feel Your Bones Shifting, Your Mind Tumbling? When You Think That No Matter What Happens To You For The Rest Of Your Life, You Will Remember Every Last Detail Of That One Minute Forever?

On A Really Dark Night, You Can See Between 1,000 And 1,500 Stars, And There Are Millions More That Haven't Been Discovered. It Is So Easy To Think That The World Revolves Around You, But All You Have To Do Is Stare Up At The Sky To Realize It Isn't That Way At All. -brian Fitzgerald

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

But If You Seek Forgiveness, Doesn't That Automatically Mean You Cannot Be A Monster? By Definition, Doesn't That Desperation Make You Human Again?

The Bottom Line Is That We Never Fall For The People We're Supposed To.

Falling In Love

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

I Know Better Than Most People That A Criminal Isn't Always A Thug In A Black Leather Jacket With A Big Brand On His Forehead To Warn Us Away. Criminals Sit Next To Us On The Bus. They Pack Our Groceries And Cash Our Paychecks For Us And Teach Our Children. They Look No Different From You Or Me. And That's Why They Get Away With It.

Leather Jackets

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

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.

My Mother Walks Forward. She's Crying, But There's A Smile On Her Face. For God's Sake, Is It Any Wonder I Can't Ever Understand What You People Are Feeling?

I Had The Heart Of The Relationship, And No Body To Grow It In... It Broke.

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

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.

Life Could Take On Any Number Of Shapes While You Were Busy Fighting Your Own Demons. But If You Were Changing At The Same Rate As The Person Beside You, Nothing Else Really Mattered. You Became Each Other's Constant.

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.

When You Finally Start To Write Something, Do Not Let Yourself Stop...even When You Are Convinced It's The Worst Garbage Ever. This Is The Biggest Caveat For Beginning Writers. Instead, Force Yourself To Finish What You Began, And Then Go Back And Edit It.

Once You Call Something A Story, It's Set In Stone. It Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End That Can't Be Transformed, Because By Definition, If You Do That, It's Not The Same Story Anymore

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.

It Makes Faith Think Of A Hammock In Their Yard, A Web Of Rope That She Thought Would Unravel The First Time She Leaned Back On It, But That Managed To Support Her All The Same.

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.

Sometimes I Think My Whole Life Has Been About Holding On To You.

I Think We Deserve A Happily-ever-after." "if Anyone Ever Did, It's Us.

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.

There's Some Illogical Part Of Me That Still Believes If You Want Superman To Show Up, First There's Got To Be Someone Worth Saving.

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

Things Break All The Time. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Promises Break. Hearts Break.

Good People Are Good People; Religion Has Nothing To Do With It.

Your Problem Is That You Have Been Too Honest For Too Long. Once You Start Doing It, Lying Is Simpler Than Breathing.

When She Smiles, It Feels Like The First Warm Day Of March-- After An Eternity Of Snow, When You Suddenly Remember How Summer Feels On The Backs Of Your Bare Calves & In The Part Of Your Hair.

May I Ask You Something?" I Say. "why Do You Read Books, When You Could Be Outside, Living A Million Different Adventures Every Day?" "because You Can Always Count On A Book To Stay The Same. Everything Else Changes When You Least Expect It," She Replies, Bitter. "families Split Apart, And Nothing's Forever. In Books, You Always Know What's Coming Next. There Are No Surprises.

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.

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.

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.

The Doctors May Be Mapping Out The War Games, But It Is The Nurses Who Make The Conflict Bearable.

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

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?

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

I Don't Know What I Was Thinking, Coming Out Here. There Are No Silver Bullets In Life, There's Just The Long, Messy Climb Out Of The Pit You've Dug Youself.

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

It's Because Of Libraries That Books Like Mine Get Recommended To Book Clubs And Avid Readers, Who In Turn Pass Them Onto Others Looking To Be Whisked Away From The World For A Little While...and Perhaps To Learn A Bit About Themselves In The Process.

The Bottom Line In Both Cases Is That People Don't Change; That No Matter How Charming You Are And How Fiercely You Love, You Cannot Turn A Person Into Something She's Not.

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

When You Don't Know Where You're Headed, You Find Places No One Else Would Ever Explore.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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 Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That Before I Was A Writer, I Was A Teacher. I Still Am. My Classroom's Just Gotten A Little Bigger.

When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.

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

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.

You Know, Michael, I Used To Sit Around Looking For A Way To Make Sense Of What Happened, Like There Was Some Kind Of Answer I Could Find If I Just Looked Hard Enough. Then One Day I Realized That If There Had Been One, Dave Would Still Be Here. And I Wondered If This...this Feeling That I Couldn't Figure It All Out...was What Dave Had Been Feeling, Too.

They're Fake Bullets, So Why Do I Feel Like Im Bleeding Out?

In This New Place We've Found, Sometimes There Aren't Words, Because The Truth Can Be Even More Difficult Than The Lies.

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.

I Don't Know The First Thing About Holding Together A Family, Especially One That Resembles An Heirloom Vase, Shattered But Glued Back Together For Its Beauty, And No One Mentions That You Can See The Cracks As Plain As Day.

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.

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

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

Protect Yourself

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.

You Know How Hind-sight Is 20/20? Love Is When You Look Back And Wouldn't Change Anything.

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.

What’s The Difference Between Spending Your Life Trying To Be Invisible, Or Pretending To Be The Person You Think Everyone Wants You To Be? Either Way, You’re Faking.

A Place Like This Wears Down Everything, And Tolerance Is No Exception. In Here, Coexistence Passes For Forgiveness. You Do Not Learn To Like Something You Abhor; You Come To Live With It...you Live And Let Live, And Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

If You Want Something To Be True Badly Enough, You Can Rewrite It That Way, In Your Head. You Can Even Start To Believe It.

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.

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

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

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

You Can Tell Yourself That You Would Be Willing To Lose Everything You Have In Order To Get Something You Want. But It's A Catch-22: All Of Those Things You're Willing To Lose Are What Make You Recognizable. Lose Them, And You've Lost Yourself.

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.

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.

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

Her Mouth Is Always On The Verge Of A Smile. It Makes Her Look Like There's Always Something Amazing She Needs To Tell Me, Even When It's Just Hello.

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?

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

I Woke Up One Morning Thinking About Wolves And Realized That Wolf Packs Function As Families. Everyone Has A Role, And If You Act Within The Parameters Of Your Role, The Whole Pack Succeeds, And When That Falls Apart, So Does The Pack.

When This Is Over...we Will Got To The Rainforest, Or A Beach As White As Bone. We Will Eat Grapes From The Vine, We Will Swim With Sea Turtles, We Will Walk Miles On Cobblestone Streets. We Will Laugh And Talk And Confess. We Will.

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

Happiness Is What You Choose To Remember.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If You've Lived Through It, You Already Know There Are No Words That Will Ever Come Close To Describing It, And If You Didn't - You Will Never Understand.

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.

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

How Do You Tell An Adult That Maybe Everything Wrong In The World Stems From The Fact That She's Stopped Believing The Impossible Can Happen?

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.

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.

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.

But I Didn't Frame It; I Put Into An Envelope And Sealed It And Stuffed It Far Back Into A Corner Drawer Of A Filing Cabinet. It's There, Just In Case One Of These Days I Start To Lose Her. There Might Be A Morning When I Wake Up And Her Face Isn't The First Thing I See. Or A Lazy August Afternoon When I Can't Quite Recall Anymore Where The Freckles Were On Her Right Shoulders. Maybe One Of These Days, I Will Not Be Able To Listen To The Sound Of Snow Falling And Hear Her Footsteps.

I Didn't Want To See Her Because It Would Make Me Feel Better. I Came Because Without Her, It's Hard To Remember Who I Am.

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

If It Had Been Easy For Romeo To Get To Juliet, Nobody Would Have Cared. Same Goes For Cyrano And Don Quixote And Gatsby And Their Respective Paramours. What Captures The Imagination Is Watching Men Throw Themselves At A Brick Wall Over And Over Again, And Wondering If This Is The Time That They Won't Be Able To Get Back Up.

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.

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

Finding Someone

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

Write A Living Will. And Become An Organ Donor!

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

Writing Workshop

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

My Sisters Keeper

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.

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

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.

And In General, The Residents Of The Town Wondered Why They All Felt Hollow Just Beneath The Throat, The Result Of Missing Something They Had Never Been Able To Name In The First Place.

You Know What I Noticed When I Was With Jacob? In Your World, People Can Reach Each Other In An Instant. There's The Telephone, And The Fax - And On The Computer You Can Talk To Someone All The Way Around The World. You've Got People Telling Their Secrets On Tv Talk Shows, And Magazines That Publish Pictures Of Movie Stars Trying To Hide Their Homes. All Those Connections, But Everyone There Seems So Lonely.

Jacob's Room Is The Place Entropy Goes To Die.

Chicken,' Josie Said. 'have You Ever Been In Love?' Peter Looked At Josie, And Thought Of How They Had Once Tied A Note With Their Addresses To A Helium Balloon And Let It Go In Her Backyard, Certain It Would Reach Mars. Instead, They Had Received A Letter From A Widow Who Lived Two Blocks Away. 'yeah,' He Said. 'i Think So.

I Used To Believe Everything My Brother Told Me, Because He Was Older And I Figured He Knew More About The World. But As It Turns Out, Being A Grown-up Doesn’t Mean You’re Fearless. It Just Means You Fear Different Things.

Why Do Some Memories Bleed Out Of Nowhere And Others Stay Locked Behind Doors?

Things Don't Always Look As They Seem.

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

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

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

I've Always Sort Of Wondered: If Everyone Else's Opinion Is What Matters, Then Do You Ever Really Have One Of Your Own?

People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

My Sisters Keeper

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.

I Never Said I Do Not Remember, My Grandmother Corrects. I Said I Prefer To Forget.

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

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

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

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.

Nowadays, I Dont Have Expectations, And This Way She Beats Them All.

I Think That Ordinary People Who Are Placed In Extraordinary Circumstances Find Themselves Pushed Beyond Their Limits, And Learn New Truths About Themselves.

You'd Think Someone Who'd Been To Medical School Would Be Able To Hear Through A Stethoscope That Somebody Was Empty Inside.

The Best Way To Prevent A Heartache Was To Cushion The Coming Blow.

Lie To Yourself Until It's True.

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

If You're Afraid Of Everyone Leaving You, What Do You Do?" Make Them Stay." And If You Can't Do That, Or Don't Know How To?" Ellie Shrugged. "i Don't Know." Yes, You Do. In Fact, You've Done It. You Leave First," Coop Said, "so You Don't Have To Watch Them Walk Away.

Nathaniel Closes His Eyes And Jumps, His Arms Glued To His Sides Like That Fly's. He Doesn't Try To Break His Fall, Just Hits Hard, Because It Hurts Less Than Everything Else.

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

I Don't Understand Why People Never Say What They Mean. It's Like The Immigrants Who Come To A Country And Learn The Language But Are Completely Baffled By Idioms. (seriously, How Could Anyone Who Isn't A Native English Speaker 'get The Picture,' So To Speak, And Not Assume It Has Something To Do With A Photo Or A Painting?)

I Write Adult Fiction, But A Good 40 To 50 Per Cent Of My Readers Are Teenagers. I Love That If They Have To Grow Up And Move Past Jk Rowling They Can Move To Me. From Jo To Jodi!

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.

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.

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