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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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When You Are A

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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More From Jodi Picoult

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

I Want To Live," He Said, "so I Have To Die.

The Thing That Most People Didn't Understand, If They Weren't In His Line If Work, Was That A Rape Victim And A Victim Of A Fatal Accident Were Both Gone Forever. The Difference Was That The Rape Victim Still Had To Go Through The Motions Of Being Alive.

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.

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.

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

You Build A Wall To Keep Something Unwanted Out … Or To Hold Something Precious In.

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.

Once Upon A Time There Was A Girl Who Wanted To Put Her Fist Through A Mirror. She Would Tell Everyone It Was So That She Could See What Was On The Other Side, But Really, It Was So That She Wouldn't Have To Look At Herself. That, And Because She Thought She Might Be Able To Steal A Piece Of Glass When No One Was Looking, And Use It To Carve Her Heart Out Of Her Chest.

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

Falling In Love

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

When You Showed Someone How You Felt, It Was Fesh And Honest. Whe You Told Someone How You Felt, There Might Be Nothing Behind The Words But Habit Or Expectation.

Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It.

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.

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 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

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

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 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

Would You Give Up Your Vengeance Against Someone You Hate If It Meant Saving Someone You Love? Would You Want Your Dreams To Come True If It Meant Granting Your Enemy's Dying Wish?

Do You Remember The Summer We Signed You Up For Camp? And The Night Before You Left, You Said You've Changed Your Mind And Wanted To Stay Home? I Told You To To Get A Seat On The Left Side Of The Bus, So When You Pulled Away, You'd Be Able To Look Back And See Me There Waiting For You." I Press Her Hand Against My Cheek, Hard Enough To Leave A Mark. "you Get That Same Seat In Heaven. One Where You Can Watch Me, Watching You.

What Is The Point Of Trying To Put Down On Paper Emotions That Are Too Complex, Too Huge, Too Overwhelming To Be Confined By An Alphabet? Love Isn't The Only Word That Fails. Hate Does, Too.

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.

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.

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.

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

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.

A Sacrament--like Marriage--means Living A Life Better Than Your Natural Instincts, So That You're Modeling God. And God Never Gives Up.

If You Have A Sister And She Dies, Do You Stop Saying You Have One? Or Are You Always A Sister, Even When The Other Half Of The Equation Is Gone?

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 Have Only Known Her For Two Years. But If You Took Every Memory, Every Moment, If You Stretched Them End To End-they'd Reach Forever.

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.

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?

There's That Unwritten Schism That Literary Writers Get All The Awards And Commericals Writers Get All The Success.

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

Motherhood Is A Sisyphean Task. You Finish Sewing One Seam Shut, And Another Rips Open. I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

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?

The World Is A Place Where The Extraordinary Can Sit Just Beside The Ordinary With The Thinnest Of Boundaries; That Even In Environments Inhospitable To Man, All Sort Of Entities Might Thrive.

Whether It Was Power They Sought, Or Revenge, Or Love-well, Those Were All Just Different Forms Of Hunger. The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.

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

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

You Need To Learn To Write On Demand, And To Get Critiqued Without Flinching. When Someone Can Rip Your Work To Shreds Without It Feeling As Though Your Arm Has Been Hacked Off, You're Ready To Send Your Novel Off To An Agent.

What If Instead Of Focusing On What You Don't Have, You Concentrate On What You've Got?

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

The 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.

She Was All The Things I Wasn't. And I Was All The Things She Wasn't. She Could Paint Circles Around Anyone; I Couldn't Even Draw A Straight Line. She Was Never Into Sports; I've Always Been. Her Hand, It Fit Mine.

What Could You Give Me," I Ask, My Voice Shaking, "to Make Me Forget ... That You Forgot About Me?

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

My Friends Say I Have Two Speeds: Fast And Blistering.

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

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

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

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

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

We Have Been Naive Enough To Believe That We Were Invincible; That We Could Run Blind Through The Hairpin Turns Of Life At Treacherous Speeds And Never Crash.

Then They Scrambled Through The Window And Into The Darkness, Determined To Turn Themselves Into What They Were Not.

Someone Once Told Me That When You Give Birth To A Daughter, You've Just Met The Person Whose Hand You'll Be Holding The Day You Die.

They Ask, How Could This Happen Here? Well. How Could It Not Happen Here?

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

It Doesn't Matter What It Is That Leaves A Hole Inside You. It Just Matters That It’s There.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Did You Ever Walk Through A Room That's Packed With People, And Feel So Lonely You Can Hardly Take The Next Step?

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

I Have Always Envied People Who Believe Strongly In Religion, People Who Could Face A Tragedy By Praying And Know That It Would Be All Right. As Unscientific As It Seems, Well, It Would Be Nice To Lay The Responsibilities And Pain On Someone Else's Larger Shoulders.

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.

The Scariest Thing In The World Is Thinking Someone You Love Is Going To Die.

Someone You Love

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

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.

My Whole Life Was About Her, What If Her Whole Life Wasn’t All About Me?

If You Want To Love A Parent You Have To Understand The Incredible Investment He Or She Has In You. If You Are A Parent, And You Want To Be Loved, You Have To Deserve It.

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.

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

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.

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

All Teenagers Knew This Was True. The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face. For Years, Parents Tell You That You Can Be Anything, Have Anything, Do Anything. That Was Why She'd Been So Eager To Grow Up-until She Got To Adolescence And Hit A Big Fat Wall Ofreality. As It Turned Out, She Couldn't Have Anything She Wanted. You Didn't Get To Be Pretty Or Smart Or Popular Just Because You Wanted It. You Didn't Control Your Own Destiny, You Were Too Busy Trying To Fit In.

A Dutiful Mother Is Someone Who Follows Every Step Her Child Makes...and A Good Mother Is Someone Whose Child Wants To Follow Her.

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.

A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right, Like When You Pop A Piece Of Fancy Chocolate Into Your Mouth Expecting Toffee Filling And You Get Lemon Zest Instead.

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

The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face.

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

But This Is Inaccurate. A Runaway Train Is An Accident. Me, I'll Jump In Front Of The Tracks. I'll Even Tie Myself Down In Front Of The Speeding Engine. There's Some Illogical Part Of Me Hat Still Believes If You Want Superman To Show Up, First There's Got To Be Someone Worth Saving.

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 Felt A Splinter Of Guilt Wedge Into My Heart. Charlotte Had Hurt Me; In Return, I'd Hurt Rob. Maybe That's What We Do To The People We Love: Take Shots In The Dark And Realize Too Late We've Wounded The People We're Trying To Protect.

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.

Here I Am, Wasting Away Inside A Book I Wish I Could Escape, And All She Wants To Do Is Stay In The Story. If I Could Talk To This Girl Delilah, I’d Ask Her Why On Earth She Would Ever Trade A Single Second Of The World She’s In For The One In Which I’m Stuck

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

My Mother Used To Tell Me That When Push Comes To Shove, You Always Know Who To Turn To. That Being A Family Isn't A Social Construct But An Instinct.

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

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.

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

Here Are The Things I Know For Sure: When You Think You're Right, You Are Most Likely Wrong. Things That Break - Be They Bones, Hearts, Or Promises - Can Be Put Back Together But Will Never Really Be Whole. And, In Spite Of What I Said, You Can Miss A Person You've Never Known. I Learn This Over And Over Again.

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.

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?

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

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.

[jules] Slides Into A Seat Beside Me With Her Hot Lunch Tray, Sighing. “four Hours, Thirty-six Minutes, And Twelve Seconds Till We’re Out Of Purgatory For The Weekend.” “maybe Later,” I Murmur, Still Distracted By The Day’s Previous Events. “so, Let Me Show You How A Conversation Works. I Say Something, And Then You Say Something Back That Actually Relates To What I Was Talking About, As If You Were Even The Least Bit Interested.” “huh?” I Say.

This Was The Reason There Was Music, He Realized. There Were Some Feelings That Didn't Have Words Big Enough To Describe Them.

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

You Can Run But You Can't Hide... But I Can Try. I Feel Air Catch In My Lungs And I Get A Cramp In My Side And This Pain, This Wonderful Physical Pain That I Can Place, Reminds Me That After All I Am Still Alive.

Everyone Has A Book Inside Of Them - But It Doesn't Do Any Good Until You Pry It Out.

Does Fate Ever Play By The Rules?

My Teacher In First Grade Said That Long Ago People Used To Believe All Kinds Of Things, Because They Didn't Know Any Better. Like You Shouldn't Take A Bath, Because It Could Make You Sick. And Then Someone Saw Germs Under A Microscope And Started To Think Differently. You Can Believe Something Really Hard, And Still Be Wrong. (faith White)

Tradionally, Parents Made Decisions For A Child, Because Presumably They Are Looking Out For His Or Her Best Interests. But If They Are Blinded, Instead, By The Best Interests Of Another One Of Their Children, The System Breaks Down.

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?

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

It Seems To Me That No Matter What Religion You Subscribe To, Acts Of Kindness Are The Stepping-stones To Making The World A Better Place--because We Become Better People In It.

He Insisted That Stars Were People So Well Loved, They Were Traced In Constellations, To Live Forever

Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't Stand The Thought Of Them Changing? Is It A Crime When You Love Someone So Much That You Can't See Clearly?

When You Love Someone

I Thought Lightning Wasn't Supposed To Strike In The Same Place Twice....sure It Does...but Only If You're Too Dumb To Move.

She Felt A Cage Coming Down Around Her; Too Late She Realized That He Had Her Trapped By The Heart. And Like Any Unwilling Animal That Was Well And Truly Caught, She Could Escape Only By Leaving A Piece Of Herself Behind.

Don't Pay Back In Kind, Pay Back In Kindness. If Someone Does Wrong By You, Do Right By Them.

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

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.

I Think...she Said Finally, "that All Of Us Have Got Our Ghosts.

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.

But Rules Only Work When Everyone Plays By Them. What Happens When Someone Doesn't, And The Fallout Bleeds Right Into His Life? Whats Stronger- The Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?

Forgiving Isn't Something You Do For Someone Else. It's Something You Do For Yourself. It's Saying, 'you're Not Important Enough To Have A Stranglehold On Me.' It's Saying, 'you Don't Get To Trap Me In The Past. I Am Worthy Of A Future.

Saying Goodbye To The People You Love Isn't Easy

Maybe Knowing Where You Belong Is Not Equal To Knowing Who You Are.

Knowing Who You Are

Where You Belong

Frankly, I Wonder Who Frank Was, And Why He Has An Adverb All To Himself.

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

When It's All Over, You're Remembered For What You Did, Not What You Said You Were Going To Do.

Imagine A World That Seemed So Much Bigger Than You. Imagine Waking Up One Morning And Finding A Piece Of Yourself You Didn't Even Know Existed.

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

I Found Plain Truth Very Interesting.

Very Interesting

I Suddenly Remember Being Very Little And Being Embraced By My Father. I Would Try To Put My Arms Around My Father's Waist, Hug Him Back. I Could Never Reach The Whole Way Around The Equator Of His Body; He Was That Much Larger Than Life. Then One Day, I Could Do It. I Held Him, Instead Of Him Holding Me, And All I Wanted At That Moment Was To Have It Back The Other Way.

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

But Still, It Looked Completely Natural, As If We Had Been Kissing At The Ends Of Sentences For Ages, While The Rest Of The World Was Still Hung Up On Punctuation.

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

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.

The Joke's On Them. One Little Hypodermic Wont' Be Enough. Split A Piece Of Wood, And They'll Find Me. Lift Up A Stone, And They'll Find Me. Look In The Mirror, And They'll Find Me...if You Really Want To Know What Makes Someone A Killer, Ask Yourself What Would Make You Do It.

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

I Learned A Long Time Ago With You That Folks Who Were Trying To Be Kind Would Rather Do It With A Macaroni-and-cheese Bake Than Any Personal Involvement. You Hand Off A Serving Dish And You've Done Your Job - No Need To Get Personally Involved, And Your Conscience Is Clean. Food Is The Currency Of Aid.

Life, It Turns Out, Goes On. There Is No Cosmic Rule That Grants You Immunity From The Details Just Because You Have Come Face-to-face With A Catastrophe. The Garbage Can Still Overflow, The Bills Arrive In The Mail, Telemarketers, Interrupt Dinner.

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.

I Have Never Fit Into This Town, This Marriage, This Skin. I Am The Child Who Was Picked Last To Play Tag; I Am The Girl Who Laughed Although She Did Not Get The Joke; I Am The Piecemeal Part Of You That You Pretend Doesn't Exist, Except It Is All I Am, All The Time.

Happiness Is What You Choose To Remember.

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.

Sometimes The Key To Happiness Is Just Expecting A Little Bit Less

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

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.

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.

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.

There's No Way To Explain To A Child That The Line Between Good And Evil Isn't Nearly As Black And White As A Fairy Tale Would Lead You To Believe. That An Ordinary Person Can Turn Into A Villain, Under The Right Circumstances. That Sometimes We Dragon Slayers Do Things We Aren't Proud Of.

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.

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

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

You Never Forget Your First Fall.

Whether Or Not You Believe In Fate Comes Down To One Thing: Who Do You Blame When Something Goes Wrong.

The Damage Was Permanent; There Would Always Be Scars. But Even The Angriest Scars Faded Over Time Until It Was Difficult To See Them Written On The Skin At All, And The Only Thing That Remained Was The Memory Of How Painful It Had Been.

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.

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.

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

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 Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

A Lie Took Two Parties - The Weaver Of The Tale And The Sucker Who So Badly Wanted To Believe It.

She Wondered If This Was True Of Every Parent: If, Prior To Having Children, They All Used To Be Someone Else.

Shelby Believed That Love Was Like A Solar Eclipse - Breathtakingly Beautiful, Absorbing, And Capable Of Rendering You Blind. She Had Not Necessarily Gone Out Of Her Way To Avoid A Relationship, But She Hadn't Wanted On Either. It Was Called Falling In Love For A Reason - Because, Inevitably, You Crashed At The Bottom.

Falling In Love

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

My Sisters Keeper

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?

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

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

Optical Illusions

That's The Paradox Of Loss: How Can Something That's Gone Weigh Us Down So Much?

Choices Are Funny Things-ask A Native Tribe That's Eaten Grubs And Roots Forever If They're Unhappy, And They'll Shrug. But Give Them Filet Mignon And Truffle Sauce And Then Ask Them To Go Back To Living Off The Land, And They Will Always Be Thinking Of That Gourmet Meal. If You Don't Know There's An Alternative, You Can't Miss It.

I Think A Persons Life Is Supposed To Be Like A Dvd. You Can See The Version Everyone Else Sees, Or You Can Choose The Directors Cut-the Way He Wanted You To See It, Before Everything Else Got In The Way. There Are Menus, Probably, So That You Can Start At The Good Spots And Not Have To Relive The Bad Ones. You Can Measure Your Life By The Number Of Scenes You’ve Survived, Or The Minutes You’ve Been Stuck There. Probably, Though, Life Is More Like One Of Those Dumb Video Surveillance Tapes. Grainy, No Matter How Hard You Stare At It. And Looped: The Same Thing, Over And Over.

I Don't Know What He Means By That, But I Nod And Smile At Him. You'd Be Surprised At How Far That Response Can Get You In A Conversation Where You Are Completely Confused.

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.

My Mother Moves So Fast I Do Not Even See It Coming. But She Slaps My Face Hard Enough To Make My Head Snap Backward. She Leaves A Print That Stains Me Long After It’s Faded. Just So You Know: Shame Is Five-fingered.

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.

Sometimes, Mothers Say And Do Things That Seem Like They Don't Want Their Kids... But When You Look More Closely, You Realize That They're Doing Those Kids A Favor. They're Just Trying To Give Them A Better Life.

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

The Thinnest Slice Would Be Teeming With Memories Of A Love So Strong It Turned You Inside Out And Left You Gasping, And Would Be An Identical Match To A Slice Stored In The Heart Of A Soul Mate.

[i] Don't Think I Was Trying To Kill Myself. I Just Wanted To Hurt, And Understand Exactly Whay I Was Hurting. This Made Sense: You Cut, You Felt Pain, Period.

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

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.

I'd Like To Say That This Time I'd Kill Myself Too..but I've Never Had That Kind Of Courage.

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.

Just Because Fate Had Thrown Another Obstacle In My Way Didn't Mean I Had To Give Up My Dreams.

It Was Possible That A Miracle Was Not Something That Happened To You, But Rather Something That Didn’t.

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.

There Is Nothing Worse Than Silence, Strung Like Heavy Beads On Too Delicate A Conversation.

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

Kid Says To Me, "you Play Baseball? What Position? Left Out?" And Gets A Big Laugh From The Rest Of The Class. Kid Is Only One Person Out Of 6.792 Billion Humans On This Planet. This Planet Is Only One-eighth Of The Solar System, Whose Sun Is One Of Two Billion Stars In The Milky Way Galaxy. Put It That Way, The Comment Loses It's Importance.

Peter Was, Simply, What A Person Would Look Like If You Boiled Down The Most Raw Emotions And Filtered Them Of Any Social Contract. If You Hurt, Cry. If You Rage, Strike Out. If You Hope, Get Ready For A Disappointment.

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

My Sisters Keeper

Well I Talk A Little About That, But I Don't Admit That From The Beginning I Knew We Were Not Meant To Be Together.

Were Not Meant To Be

No Matter How Much You Consumed, You Would Not Have Your Fill.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

What Could It Be Like To Find Out, In A Matter Of Minutes, That The Person You Believed The Sun Rose And Set On Was Not The Person You'd Thought?

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