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With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

-Jodi Picoult

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With These Words Jake

Jodi Picoult

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With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

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Guarantees That

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Embarrassment Isn't A Just Cause Of Action.

What I Really Want To Tell Him Is To Pick Up That Baby Of His And Hold Her Tight, To Set The Moon On The Edge Of Her Crib And To Hang Her Name Up In The Stars.

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.

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

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If You Didn't Remember Something Happening, Was It Because It Never Had Happened? Or Because You Wished It Hadn't?

Remember Something

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It Was Like Trying To Bail Out An Ocean Of Water With A Teaspoon.

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Marina Sighs. "love's A Tidal Wave," She Says. "because It Sweeps You Off Your Feet?" I Ask. "no. Because It Sucks You Under And You Drown.

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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?

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.

Love Makes Life A Little Brighter

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

Change Is A Funny Thing. We Never Are Quite Sure What We Are Becoming Or Even Why. Then One Day We Look At Ourselves And Wonder Who We Are And How We Got That Way. Only One Thing About Change Remains Constant...it Is Always Painful

My First Job Was As An Assistant In The Local Library. Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

If I Have Gained Anything Over These Months, It Is The Knowledge There Is No Starting Over - Only Living With The Mistakes You've Made. But Then, Caleb Taught Me Long Ago You Can't Build Anything Without Some Sort Of Foundation. Maybe We Learn To Live Our Lives By Understanding, Firsthand, How Not To Live Them.

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

Domestic Violence

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

You Can Argue That It's A Different World Now Than The One When Matthew Shepard Was Killed, But There Is A Subtle Difference Between Tolerance And Acceptance. It's The Distance Between Moving Into The Cul-de-sac And Having Your Next Door Neighbor Trust You To Keep An Eye On Her Preschool Daughter For A Few Minutes While She Runs Out To The Post Office. It's The Chasm Between Being Invited To A Colleague's Wedding With Your Same-sex Partner And Being Able To Slow-dance Without The Other Guests Whispering.

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

Finding Someone

What Is Right, In The End, Is Not Always What It Seems To Be, And Some Rules Are Better Broken.

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.

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.

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

Inside Each Of Us Is A Monster; Inside Each Of Us Is A Saint. The Real Question Is Which One We Nurture The Most, Which One Will Smite The Other.

If You Had To Pack Your Whole Life Into A Suitcase-not Just The Practical Things, Like Clothing, But The Memories Of The People You Had Lost And The Girl You Had Once Been-what Would You Take?

Sometimes Words Are Not Big Enough To Contain All The Feelings You Are Trying To Pour Into Them.

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

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

Do You Know How, When You Are On The Verge Of A Breakdown, The World Pounds In Your Ears; A Rush Of Blood, Of Consequence? Do You Now How It Feels When The Truth Cuts Your Tongue To Ribbons, And Still You Have To Speak It?

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

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.

Love Is Not A Because, It's A No Matter What.

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

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.

She Was Forced To Consider The Startling Fact That The Love Of Her Life Might Not Actually Be Someone With Whom She Could Spend A Lifetime.

Technically I've Improved - I Might Turn A Metaphor In Five Words Now, Where Years Ago, It Would Have Taken Me A Paragraph. I Can't Say It Was Intentional - But You Know What They Say About Practice Making Perfect...!

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

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

My Sisters Keeper

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.

Sometimes I Think There's A Beast That Lives Inside Me, In The Cavern That's Where My Heart Should Be, And Every Now And Then It Fills Every Last Inch Of My Skin, So That I Can't Help But Do Something Inappropriate. Its Breath Is Full Of Lies; It Smells Of Spite.

How Do You Know That You Are Not Part Of A Book? That Someone's Not Reading Your Story Right Now?

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

Suddenly, I Don't Want To Be This Person Anymore. I Don't Want To Pretend I'm Fooling The World When I'm Not. I Want Someone Else To Have A Plan For Me, Because I'm Not Doing A Very Good Job Myself.

You Live And Let Live, Eventually That Becomes Enough.

Live And Let Live

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

On My License, It Says I'm An Organ Donor, But The Truth Is I'd Consider Being An Organ Martyr. I'm Sure I'm Worth A Lot More Dead Than Alive - The Sum Of The Parts Equal More Than The Whole. I Wonder Who Might Wind Up Walking Around With My Liver, My Lungs, Even My Eyeballs. I Wonder What Poor Asshole Would Get Stuck With Whatever It Is In Me That Passes For A Heart.

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.

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.

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

This Is What I Like About Photographs. They're Proof That Once, Even If Just For A Heartbeat, Everything Was Perfect.

Suddenly I Realize That This Is What I've Been Waiting For - A Man Who Depends Entirely On Me... I Dreamed For Years Of A Man Who Couldn't Live Without Me, A Man Who Pictured My Face When He Closed His Eyes, Who Loved Me When I Was A Mess In The Morning And When Dinner Was Late And Even When I Overloaded The Washing Machine And Burned Out The Motor. [my Son] Stares Up At Me As If I Can Do No Wrong. I Have Always Wanted Someone Who Treats Me The Way He Does; I Just Didn't Know That I'd Have To Give Birth To Him.

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

You Keep Distracting Me,” I Tell Her. “all I’m Doing Is Sitting Here Talking To You!” “exactly,” I Say, And I Smile At Her.j

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

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.

There's A Lot Of Things You Can't See If You Aren't' Looking.

In The English Language There Are Orphans And Widows, But There Is No Word For The Parents Who Loses A Child.

There Are Just As Many Stories To Be Told In The Dark Spots S There Are In The Bright Ones.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Think About It - When You Were Blocked In College And Had To Write A Paper, Didn't It Always Manage To Fix Itself The Night Before The Paper Was Due? Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands.

That,” She Says, “was Never Here Before.

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

I Know You Love Me

I Have Come To Believe That This Life I'm Wearing Will Never Really Fit.

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.

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 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

Forgiveness Is Spiritual. Punishment Is Legal," Leo Says. "they're Not Mutually Exclusive.

I, Um, I Have This Problem. I Broke Up With My Boyfriend, You See. And I'm Pretty Upset About It, So I Wanted To Talk To My Best Friend. [...] The Thing Is, They're Both You.

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.

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.

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

Here's My Question: What Age Are You When You're In Heaven?

There Was No Black Or White. Someone Who Had Been Good Her Entire Life Could, In Fact, Do Something Evil. People Were Just As Capable Of Committing Murder, Under The Right Circumstances, As Any Monster.

In My Previous Life I Was A Civil Attorney. At One Point I Truly Believed That Was What I Wanted To Be- But That Was Before I'd Been Handed A Fistful Of Crushed Violets From A Toddler. Before I Understood That The Smile Of A Child Is A Tattoo: Indelible Art.

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.

His Hand Is Cool On My Cheek As He Paints A Tear Beneath My Left Eye, Dark Blue And Swollen With Sorrow.

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.

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.

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 Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

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.

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.

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.

I Am Always Consulted About Covers, And Give Feedback, But I Am Also Aware That What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up Off A Shelf In The Uk Is Very Different From What Causes A Customer To Pick A Book Up In The Us.

Having A Fantasy Come True Doesn't Always Mean It Will Be Permanent.

There Was No Easy Switch That She Could Flip To Stem The Flow Of Feelings, No Way To Drain The Memories That Pooled Like Acid In Her Stomach Because Her Heart No Longer Knew What To Do With Them.

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.

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

Writing Workshop

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

How Could He Convey To Someone Who'd Never Even Met Her The Way She Always Smelled Like Rain, Or How His Stomach Knotted Up Every Time He Saw Her Shake Loose Her Hair From Its Braid? How Could He Describe How It Felt When She Finished His Sentences, Turnec The Mug They Were Sharing So That Her Mouth Landed Where His Had Been? How Did He Explain The Way They Could Be In A Locker Room, Or Underwater, Or In The Piney Woods Of Maine, Bus As Long As Em Was With Him, He Was At Home?

With These Words Jake Had Let Go Of Me. Which Proved That He Knew More About Why I Was Leaving Than Even I Did. I Had Believed That I Was Running Away From What Had Happened. I Did Not Know, Not Until I Met Nicholas Days Later, That The Whole Time I Was Really Running Towards What Was Yet To Be.

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