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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.

-Jodi Picoult

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When You Want Something

Jodi Picoult

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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.

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If You Gave Someone Your Heart And They Died, Did They Take It With Them? Did You Spend The Rest Of Forever With A Hole Inside You That Couldn't Be Filled?

Instead Of Doing The Best Thing, We Sometimes Have To Settle For The Rightest Thing.

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

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

Is It Because They Are So Comfortable, They Already Know What The Other Is Thinking? Or Is It Because After A Certain Point, There Is Simply Nothing Left To Say?

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

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Falling In Love

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People Are Always Afraid Of The Unknown - And Banding Together Against The Thing That Is Different From Us Is A Time-honoured Tradition For Rallying The Masses.

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

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What I Want, More Than Anything, Is To Turn Back Time A Little. To Become The Kid I Used To Be, Who Believed Whatever My Mother Said Was One Hundred Percent True And Right Without Looking Hard Enough To See The Hairline Crack.

Many Trees Have Died So That The Catholic Church Can Preach Against Homosexuality.

I Think You're The Only Person Who Gets Me. When I'm With You, The World Doesn't Feel Like A Problem I Can't Figure Out. Please Come To The Dance, Because You're My Music.

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

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

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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.

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

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

Maybe If You Spend Your Life Pretending You're On A Movie Set, You Don't Ever Have To Admit That The Walls Are Made Out Of Paper And The Food Is Plastic And The Words In Your Mouth Aren't Really Yours.

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A World That Was Crowded With People Could Still Be A Very Lonely Place.

Things That Look Impossible Suddenly Seem A Lot Better, Once You Get God On Board.

I Had Absolutely No Trauma In My Childhood. If Anyone Ever Assumed That My Books Were Autobiographical, They'd Be Sorely Disappointed, Because None Of These Things Happened To Me.

Imagine If You Were The Positive Pole Of A Magnet, And You Were Told That Under No Circumstances Were You Allowed To Touch That Negative Pole That Was Sucking You In Like A Black Hole. Or If You Crawled Out Of The Desert And Found A Woman Standing With A Pitcher Of Ice Water, But She Held It Out Of Your Reach. Imagine Jumping Off A Building, And Then Being Told Not To Fall. That's What It Feels Like To Want A Drink.

If You Want To Know Someone's Story, They Have To Tell It Aloud. But Every Time, The Telling Is A Little But Different. It's New, Even To Me.

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

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.

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.

You Can’t Keep Yourself From Falling In Love, But You Can Steer Yourself Away From The Wrong People.

Falling In Love

It Is A Remarkable Question- Do All The Wonderful Things Happen When We Are Not Aware Of Them?

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In The Space Between Yes And No, There's A Lifetime. It's The Difference Between The Path You Walk And The One You Leave Behind; It's The Gap Between Who You Thought You Could Be And Who You Really Are; Its The Legroom For The Lies You'll Tell Yourself In The Future.

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Helping Someone

Not Everyone Understands How You Can Spin Two Lassos At The Same Time, One Of Hope And One Of Grief.

[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.

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.

I Think That Different Things Sell In Different Countries.

Houses Are Cellular Walls; They Keep Our Problems From Bleeding Into Everyone Else's.

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.

History Could Hover, Like A Faint Perfume Or A Memory Stamped On The Back Of One's Eyelids.

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.

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

I Know What It's Like To Wake Up Thinking You Will Be Able To Cast The People Who Play The Starring Roles In Your Life, Only To Realize That You Have To Watch It From The Audience.

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

Logical Thinking Keeps You From Wasting Time Worrying, Or Hoping. It Prevents Disappointment. Imagination, On The Other Hand, Only Gets You Hyped Up Over Things That Will Never Realistically Happen.

A Girl Who Is Thirteen-which Is Hard, And Difficult, And Beautiful, And Painful, And Exhilarating.

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

Traveling Is All Very Well And Good As Long As You Knew There Is A Place Or Person You Can Call Home

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.

I Look For Places Like Me: Big, Hollow, Forgotten By Most Everyone.

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

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 Sisters Keeper

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.

Things Had A Way Of Working Out For The Best When You Let Them Run Their Course.

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.

She Shrugged. "you Can Be Happy For Someone Else's Good Fortune, But That Doesn't Mean You Forget Your Own Bad Luck.

There Is A Place In You That You Don't Even Know Exists, Where You Can Simply Stand Back And Watch Without Feeling Any Pain.

Bleeding Heart, He’d Called Her. Well. He Should Know. He’d Been The First To Rip It To Pieces.

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I Close My Eyes, Thinking That There Is Nothing Like An Embrace After An Absence, Nothing Like Fitting My Face Into The Curve Of His Shoulder And Filling My Lungs With The Scent Of Him.

Sometimes, All It Takes To Become Human Again Is Someone Who Can See You That Way, No Matter How You Present On The Surface.

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

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.

It's Choice That Makes Us Human.

The Way I Challenge Myself Is By Writing Something That Really Engages Me, That Doesn't Have An Easy Answer, And Isn't Always An Easy Book To Write.

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

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

Just Because You Had Every Right To Feel Sorry For Yourself Didn't Mean You Ever Took The Opportunity To Do So.

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.

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.

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

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

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

By Now You've Already Formed Your Own Impression. You Believe That An Act Committed A Lifetime Ago Defines A Man, Or You Believe That A Person's Past Has Nothing To Do With His Future. You Think I Am Either A Hero, Or A Monster. Maybe Knowning More About Circumstances Will Make You Think Differently About Me, But It Won't Change What Happened Twenty-eight Years Ago.

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.

If God Wanted Us To Act On Instinct, We Wouldn't Have The Power Of Reason.

For Me It's More Important That I Outline All The Facets Of A Controversial Issue And Let The Reader Make Up His Or Her Mind. I Don't Care If Readers Change Their Minds, But I Would Like Readers To Ask Themselves Why Their Opinion Is What It Is.

Can You Hate Someone For What They Have Done, But Still Love Them For Whom They Had Been?

Remember That Every Fire Will Burn Itself Out, Even Without Your Help.

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.

We'd Sit With A Big Bowl Of Popcorn, Wrapped Together In A Queen-size Blanket, And Would Escape To A Place Where Magic Was Ours For The Taking, Where Men Rescued The People They Loved Instead Of Abandoning Them. A Place Where, No Matter How Bad Things Looked At That Moment, There Would Always Be A Happy Ending.

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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Tahar Ben Jelloun

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