Background Image

...

You Know, Sage, Jesus Didn't Tell Us To Forgive Everyone. He Said Turn The Other Cheek, But Only If You The One Who Was Hit. Even The Lord's Prayer Says It Loud And Clear: Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us. Not Others. What Jesus Challenges Us To Do Is To Let Go Of The Wrong Done To You Personally, Not The Wrong Done To Someone Else. But Most Christians Incorrectly Assume That This Means That Being A Good Christian Means Forgiving All Sins, And The Sinners.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Know, Sage, Jesus

Jodi Picoult

...

You Know, Sage, Jesus Didn't Tell Us To Forgive Everyone. He Said Turn The Other Cheek, But Only If You The One Who Was Hit. Even The Lord's Prayer Says It Loud And Clear: Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us. Not Others. What Jesus Challenges Us To Do Is To Let Go Of The Wrong Done To You Personally, Not The Wrong Done To Someone Else. But Most Christians Incorrectly Assume That This Means That Being A Good Christian Means Forgiving All Sins, And The Sinners.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

I Could Tell Her From Personal Experience That When People We Love Make Choices We Don't Always Understand Them. But We Can Go On Loving Them, Just The Same. It Isn't A Matter Of Comprehension. It's Forgiveness. But All This Took Me A Lifetime To Discover, And Where Has It Gotten Me?... Some Lessons Can't Be Taught, They Simply Have To Be Learned.

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 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.

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

Crazy Girls Did This, Girls Who Walked Like Zombies Through Ya Novels. But. Trixie Felt The Sting Of The Skin As It Split, The Sweet Welling Rise Of Blood. It Hurt, Though Not As Much As Everything Else Idd.

I Learned A Lot That Night. For Example, That Part Of Being The Magician's Assistant Means Coming Face-to-face With Illusion. That Invisibility Is Really Just Knotting Your Body In A Certain Way And Letting The Black Curtain Fall Over You. That People Don't Vanish Into Thin Air; That When You Can't Find Someone, It's Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

If Words Had Flavors, Hers Would Be Bitter Almonds And Coffee Grounds.

The Truth Doesn't Always Set You Free; People Prefer To Believe Prettier, Neatley Wrapped Lies

She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.

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

Helping Someone

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

Domestic Violence

I Consider Myself Spiritual And I'm Married To A Man Who Is Both An Atheist And A Humanist, And My Kids Have Been Raised With The Traditions Of Different Religions, But They Do Not Go To Church Or Temple. My Feeling Is That Everyone Should Be Able To Believe What They Want Or Need To Believe.

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

Being A Teenager Isn't All That Different From Being Part Of Someone Else's Story. There's Always Someone Who Thinks They Know Better Than You Do

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

My Sisters Keeper

The World Just Feels Different For Those Of Us Who Come Alive After Dark. It's More Fragile And Unreal, A Replica Of The One Everyone Else Inhabits.

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

You Can Touch Everything And Be Connected To Nothing.

What He Did Was Wrong. He Doesn't Deserve Your Love. But He Does Deserve Your Forgiveness, Because Otherwise He Will Grow Like A Weed In Your Heart Until It's Choked And Overrun. The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Away All That Hate, Is You.

She Wanted Him To Tell Her That When You Love Someone So Hard And So Fierce, It Was All Right To Do Things That You Knew Were Wrong.

When You Love Someone

I Know Mark,' I Reply. 'and I Don't Like Him.' 'but I Do. And Part Of Being Social Means Being Civil To Someone You Don't Like.' 'that's Stupid. It's A Huge World. Why Not Just Get Up And Walk Away?' 'because That's Rude,' Jess Explains. 'i Think It's Rude To Stick A Smile On Your Face And Pretend You Like Talking To Someone When In Reality You'd Rather Be Sticking Bamboo Slivers Under Your Fingernails.

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.

I Grew Up In A Household Where We Didn't Really Talk About Our Feelings, And Where The Only Reason You Went To A Doctor Was Because You'd Accidentally Cut Off A Limb With A Chain Saw.

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

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?

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

Perfectly Normal

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

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

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

To Say There Had Been A Loss Was Ludicrous; One Lost A Shoe Or A Set Of Keys. You Did Not Suffer The Death Of A Child And Say There Was A Loss. There Was A Catastrophe. A Devastation. A Hell.

The Only Monsters I Have Ever Known Were Men.

Love Meant Jumping Off A Cliff And Trusting That A Certain Person Would Be There To Catch You At The Bottom.

I Always Wondered Why God Was Supposed To Be A Father," She Whispers. Fathers Always Want You To Measure Up To Something. Mothers Are The Ones Who Love You Unconditionally, Don't You Think?

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?

The Act Of Writing... Is The Act Of Trying To Understand Why My Opinion Is What It Is. And Ultimately, I Think That's The Same Experience The Reader Has When They Pick Up One Of My Books.

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

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

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

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.

Grief Is A Curious Thing, When It Happens Unexpectedly. It Is A Band-aid Being Ripped Away, Taking The Top Layer Off A Family. And The Underbelly Of A Household Is Never Pretty, Ours No Exception.

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

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

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

There Is No Cosmic Scale On Which You Can Weigh Your Actions; You Learn Too Late What Choices Ruin The Fragile Balance.

How Do You Tell Someone That You Weren't The Person He Thought You Were? And More Importantly, How Did You Tell Him That You'd Meant The Things You'd Said, When Everything Else About You Turned Out To Be A Lie.

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.

No One Gets To Start Where They Left Off; It Just Doesn't Work That Way.

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.

When Your Mother Is Made Out Of Your Dreams, Anything Real Is Bound To Disappoint You.

And, After All, What Is A Lie? 'tis But The Truth In Masquerade.

Everyone Still Deserves To Have Their Say.

This Isn't A Lie, Actually. I Don't Care Why Edward Left. All I Really Want To Know Is Why I Wasn't Enough To Make Him Stay.

Power Isn't About Doing Something Terrible To Someone Who's Weaker Than You, Reiner. It's Having The Strength To Do Something Terrible, And Choosing Not To.

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

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

Even Though I Don't Write About Things That Come From My Life Because I'm Lucky, And I Live In A Great Place With Great Kids And, You Know, A Great Husband, I Think You Can Find Threads Of Me In The Characters, So That's Really What Being A Writer Is, Probably.

I Haven't Run Out Of Ideas Yet. Usually While I'm Working On A Book, I'm Doing Research For The Next One!

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.

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.

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

When Feeling Came Back, In A Storm Of Color And Force And Sensation, The Most You Could Do Was Hold On To The Person Beside You And Hope You Could Weather It. Alex Closed Her Eyes And Expected The Worst-but It Wasn't A Bad Thing; It Was Just A Different Thing. A Messier One, More Complicated One. She Hesitated, And Then She Kissed Patrick Back, Willing To Concede That You Might Have To Lose Control Before You Could Find What You'd Been Missing.

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.

From That Point Of View, I Realized That My Hole Was Not Miles Deep After All. My Father, In Fact, Could Stand On The Bottom And It Only Reached Up To His Chest. Darkness, You Know, Is Relative.

Like Connor, Alex Protected Me -and He Was The Only Person I Let Close Enough To Do It. Like Connor, Alex Could Finish My Sentences Before I Did. But Unlike Connor, For Whom I Had Ultimately Come Too Late, I Was Just In Time To Take Care Of Alex.

The Lord Turned Water Into Wine. All I'm Suggesting Is A Trip To The Grocery Store.

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.

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?

When You Love Someone More Than He Loves You, You'll Do Anything To Switch The Scales. You Dress The Way You Think He'd Like You To Dress. You Pick Up His Favorite Figures Of Expression. You Tell Yourself That If You Re-create Yourself In His Image, Then He'll Crave You In The Same Way You Crave Him.

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.

A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right.

It Was One Thing To Sacrifice Your Own Life For Someone Else's. It Was Another Thing Entirely To Bring Into The Mix A Third Party - A Third Party Who Knew You, Who Trusted You Implicitly.

But It Was Like Wearing A Size Five Sneakers When Your Foot Is A Seven- You Can Get By For A Few Steps, And Then You Set Down And Pull Off The Shoes Because It Just Plain Much

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

Writing Is Grunt Work - You Need To Have Self-motivation, Perseverance, And Faith... Talent Is The Smallest Part Of It.

Risk Always Looks Different When You're Beating The System Than When You've Been Beaten.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

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.

There Are Two Ways To Be Happy: Improve Your Reality, Or Lower Your Expectations.

She Understood What It Was Like To Stand Right In Front Of People You Loved, Even Though They Could Not See You.

I Closed My Eyes And Curled My Fists Around The Things I Knew For Sure: That A Scallop Has Thirty-five Eyes, All Blue. That A Tuna Will Suffocate If It Ever Stops Swimming. That I Was Loved. That This Time, It Was Not Me Who Broke

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?

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?

You Are Only As Invincible As Your Smallest Weakness, And Those Are Tiny Indeed - The Length Of A Sleeping Baby's Eyelash, The Span Of A Child's Hand. Life Turns On A Dime, And - It Turns Out - So Does One's Conscience.

Iknew That All The Attributes He Was Teased For, At Age Five, Were Going To Work In His Favor By Thetime He Was Thirty-five...but I Couldn't Get Him There Overnight. You Can't Fast-forward Your Child'slife, No Matter How Much You Want To.

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

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

Or. I Hate That Word. It’s Two Letters Long And Stuffed To The Gills With Reasonable Doubt.

Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?

Stem Cell Research Has Become Such A Polarizing Issue In America... And I Wanted To Bring It Down To The Personal Level, Instead Of The Political.

There Is A Curious Thing That Happens With The Passage Of Time: A Calcification Of Character... Change Isn't Always For The Worst; The Shell That Forms Around A Piece Of Sand Looks To Some People Like An Irritation, And To Others, Like A Pearl.

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?

Someone Real," I Hear Myself Saying. "someone Who Never Has To Pretend, And Who I Never Have To Pretend Around. Someone Who's Smart, But Knows How To Laugh At Himself. Someone Who Would Listen To A Symphony And Start To Cry, Because He Understands Music Can Be Too Big For Words. Someone Who Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself. Someone I Want To Talk To First Thing In The Morning And Last Thing At Night. Someone I Feel Like I've Known My Whole Life, Even If I Haven't.

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

I Think I Have Sort Of Gravitated Toward Issues That I Don't Know The Answers To, Because That's What's More Interesting For Me To Write.

A Heroin-thin Boy With Enough Rings In His Eyebrows To Resemble A Shower Curtain Rod.

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

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.

We Sit For A Few More Moments, Although There's Really Nothing Left To Say. This Is New To Me, Too, An Entire Conversation That Takes Place In Silence, Because The Heart Has Its Own Language. I Will Remember What Eric Says Even Though He Doesn't Say A Word. I Will Tell It To Her.

If It's Us", She Whispered, "how Come You Get To Decide?" When He Didn't Answer - Couldn't Answer - She Turned And Stared Out The Front Window. As It Turned Out, They Were Still In The Parking Lot. They Hadn't Gotten Anywhere At All.

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.

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.

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

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

When We're Awake, We See What We Need To See. When We're Asleep, We See What Is Really There.

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

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

In Reality, You Don’t Ever Change The Hurricane. You Just Learn How To Stay Out Of Its Path.

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.

There Had Been So Many Easy Words Between Them That Daniel Was Guilty Of Nodding Every Now And Then And Tuning Out The Excess. He Hadn't Known, At The Time, That He Should Have Been Hoarding These, Like Bits Of Sea Glass Hidden In The Pocket Of A Winter Coat To Remind Him That Once It Had Been Summer.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Don't Want To Tell People What To Think. I'm The Least Qualified Person In The World For That. If I'd Go Around Pretending To Be The Expert On Everything, I'd Become Dan Brown, And I Don't Understand That. We All Do Our Research If We're Good Writers, And We All Work Hard To Get It Right, But That Doesn't Mean We're Experts In The Field. The Best We Can Do Is Challenge People To Learn The Facts Themselves.

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

I Would Tell Them That When You Look At A Person, You Never Know What The're Hiding.

I Don't Believe In Writer's Block. Most Of Writer's Block Is Having Too Much Time On Your Hands. My Mantra Is That You Can Always Edit A Bad Page; You Can't Edit A Blank Page.

Heroes Didn't Leap Tall Buildings Or Stop Bullets With An Outstretched Hand; They Didn't Wear Boots And Capes. They Bled, And They Bruised, And Their Superpowers Were As Simple As Listening, Or Loving. Heroes Were Ordinary People Who Knew That Even If Their Own Lives Were Impossibly Knotted, They Could Untangle Someone Else's. And Maybe That One Act Could Lead Someone To Rescue You Right Back.

I Started Writing When I Had Three Kids Under The Age Of 4. I Used To Write Every Ten Minutes I Got To Sit In Front Of A Computer. Now, When I Have More Time, I Function The Same Way: If It's Writing Time, I Write.

What Being Home-schooled Has Taught Me, More Than Anything, Is What A Waste Of A Life High School Is.

A Lot Of The Hallmark Behaviors Of Autism - Flat Affect, Stimming, Not Looking Someone In The Eye - Could Very Easily Be Misinterpreted As Signs Of Guilt.

Isn't It Amazing How, When You Strip Away Everything, People Are So Much Alike?

You Know How I Get Angry Sometimes? That's Because It's The Only Way I Can Still Feel. And I Need To Test Myself, To Make Sure I'm Really Here.

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.

It Was No Coincidence, That Fear Could Move A Person To Extremes, Just As Seamlessly As Love. They Were The Conjoined Twins Of Emotion: If You Didn't Know What Was At Stake To Lose, You Had Nothing To Fight For.

I Realize How Quickly Lies Compound. They Cover Like A Coat Of Paint, One On Top Of The Other, Until You Cannot Remember What Color You Started With.

Do You Know How Sometimes - When You Are Riding Your Bike And You Start Skidding Across Sand, Or When You Miss A Step And Start Tumbling Down The Stairs - You Have Those Long, Long Seconds To Know That You Are Going To Be Hurt, And Badly?

Riding Your Bike

Was It The Act Of Giving Birth That Made You A Mother? Did You Lose That Label When You Relinquished Your Child? If People Were Measured By Their Deeds, On The One Hand, I Had A Woman Who Had Chosen To Give Me Up; On The Other, I Had A Woman Who'd Sat Up With Me At Night When I Was Sick As A Child, Who'd Cried With Me Over Boyfriends, Who'd Clapped Fiercely At My Law School Graduation. Which Acts Made You More Of A Mother? Both, I Realized. Being A Parent Wasn't Just About Bearing A Child. It Was About Bearing Witness To Its Life.

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

This Is When I Realize That Anna Has Already Left The Table, And More Importantly, That Nobody Noticed.

My Sisters Keeper

If There Isn’t A Them, There Can’t Be An Us.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

That's The Strange Thing About Being A Mother: Until You Have A Baby, You Don't Even Realize How Much You Were Missing One

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

It Takes Two People To Make A Friendship Work

Maybe You Had To Leave In Order To Really Miss A Place; Maybe You Had To Travel To Figure Out How Beloved Your Starting Point Was... ...parents Aren't The People You Come From. They're The People You Want To Be, When You Grow Up. I Sat Between My Mother And My Father, Watching Strangers On Tv Carry In Shaker Rockers And Dusty Paintings And Ancient Beer Tankards And Cranberry Glass Dishes; People And Their Hidden Treasures, Who Had To Be Told By Experts That They'd Taken Something Incredibly Precious For Granted.

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

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.

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

These Days Her Entire Life Was About Making People Believe She Was Someone She Wasn't Anymore.

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

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

It's Like Picking Up An Unfamiliar Piece Of Sheet Music & Starting To Stumble Through It, Only To Realize It Is A Melody You'd Once Learned By Heart, One You Can Play Without Even Trying.

Everyone Has A Story; Everyone Hides His Past As A Means Of Self-preservation. Some Just Do It Better, And More Thoroughly, Than Others.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

There Are Some Dreams That Get Stuck Between Your Teeth When You Sleep, So That When You Open Your Mouth To Yawn Awake They Fly Right Out Of You.

Suddenly This Is All Too Hard. I Am Tired Of Putting Up Walls. I Want Someone With The Strength - And The Honesty - To Break Them Down.

All Any Of Us Wanted, Really, Was To Know That We Counted. That Someone Else's Life Would Not Have Been As Rich Without Us Here.

Asking Me To Describe My Son Is Like Asking Me To Hold The Ocean In A Paper Cup

I Believe That Having Something To Hope For - Even If It's Just A Better Tomorrow- Is The Most Powerful Drug On This Planet.

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

I Smiled At Him As Best I Could And Pushed The Paper Across The Table Before He Could Change His Mind. Because Henry Deville Was Correct - There Was An Ingredient In My Baking More Concenctrated Than Any Extract, More Pungent Than Any Spice; An Ingredient That Everyone Would Recognize And No One Was Able To Name: It Was Regret, And It Rose When One Least Expected.

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

There Are Two Reasons Not To Tell The Truth--becuase Lying Will Get You What You Want, And Because Lying Will Keep Someone From Getting Hurt.

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

The Cost Of Growth Is Always A Small Act Of Violence.

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.

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

As It Turned Out, Though, It Was A Lot Easier To Say That Someone Deserved To Die For What They Did Than It Was To Take The Responsibility To Make That Happen.

The Real Power Of A Wolf Isn't In Its Fearsome Jaws, Which Can Clench With Fifteen Hundred Pounds Of Pressure Per Square Inch. The Real Power Of A Wolf Is Having That Strength, And Knowing When Not To Use It.

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

There Are Always Sides. There Is Always A Winner And A Loser. For Every Person Who Gets, There's Someone Who Must Give.

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

Three Months Ago, If You Asked Me, I Would Have Told You That If You Really Loved Someone, You’d Let Them Go. But Now I Look At You, And I Dreamed About Maggie, And I See That I’ve Been Wrong. If You Really Love Someone, Allie, I Think You Have To Take Them Back.

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

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.

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

I Love Getting Fan Mail. Often, As A Writer, You Never Know What Your Readers Think Of A Book... You Get Critical Reviews And Sales Figures, But None Of That Is The Same As Knowing You've Made A Person Stay Up All Night Reading, Or Helped Them Have A Good Cry, Or Really Touched Their Life.

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.

Ross Held Her Face Between His Hands And Kissed Her. He Tasted Doubt On Her Tongue And Pain On The Roof Of Her Mouth. He Swallowed These, And Drank Again. Consumed, She Had No Choice But To See How Empty He Was Inside, And How, Sip By Sip, She Filled Him.

I Don't Base My Books On My Life (thank Goodness) And I Don't Pick The Topic First. In Fact, The Topic Picks Me - Via A Question I Can't Answer As A Mom, A Wife, A Woman, An American. I Find Myself Wondering "what If..." And It Blossoms Into A Whole Novel.

What Was Wrong With Me? I Had A Decent Life. I Was Healthy. I Wasn't Starving Or Maimed By A Land Mine Or Orphaned. Yet Somehow, It Wasn't Enough. I Had A Hole In Me, And Everything I Took For Granted Slipped Through It Like Sand. I Felt Like I Had Swallowed Yeast, Like Whatever Evil Was Festering Inside Me Had Doubled In Size.

I Watch Her Do The Simplest Things: Brushing Her Hair Into A Ponytail, Feeding The Dog, Tying Sophie's Shoelaces, And I Want To Tell Her What She Means To Me, But I Never Actually Say The Words. After All, To Acknowledge Delia As A Drug, I'd Have To Face The Fact That One Day I Might Have To Go Without Her And This I Can't Do.

People Always Say That, When You Love Someone, Nothing In The World Matters. But That's Not True, Is It? You Know, And I Know, That When You Love Someone, Everything In The World Matters A Little Bit More.

How Could You Beat An Enemy You Couldn't See?

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

Writing Workshop

No Matter What Joe Hoffman And Wade Preston Say, It's Not Gender That Makes A Family; It's Love. You Don't Need A Mother And A Father; You Don't Necessarily Even Need Two Parents. You Just Need Someone Who's Got Your Back.

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

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

In Half Hour My Mother Has Managed To Give Me What My Father Couldn't: My Past.

The Only Way Someone Can Leave You Is If You Let Them.

How Can You Be A Survivor, When You Can't Even Remember The War?

Beliefs Are The Roads We Take To Our Dreams. Believe You Can Do Something-or Believe You Can't-and You'll Be Right Everytime.

Trending Author

Lisa Marie Presley

Category