Background Image

...

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.

-Jodi Picoult

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Need To Learn

Jodi Picoult

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Jodi Picoult

If You Read The First Page Of One Of My Novels, I Can Guarantee That You Will Read The Last One. This Isn't Just Social Commentary. This Is Also About Writing Good Page-turners. I Want People To Keep Reading.

Guarantees That

The Answer Is That There Is No Good Answer. So As Parents, As Doctors, As Judges, And As A Society, We Fumble Through And Make Decisions That Allow Us To Sleep At Night--because Morals Are More Important Than Ethics, And Love Is More Important Than Law.

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

True Love Can Break The Most Powerful Curse

I Learn From My Own Daughter That You Don’t Have To Be Awake To Cry.

You Know Someone's Right For You When The Things They Don't Have To Say Are Even More Important Than The Things They Do.

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

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

Writing Workshop

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.

A Man Should Live His Life A Certain Way Not Because Of Some Divine Authority, But Because Of A Personal Moral Obligation To Himself And Others.

We Believe What We Want To, What We Need To. The Corollary Is That We Choose Not To See What We'd Rather Pretend Doesn't Exist.

Besides The Obvious Difference, There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Best Friend And Losing A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumphs And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside. One Moment, You'd Start To Call Her To Tell Her A Snippet Of News Or To Vent About Your Awful Day Before Realizing You Did Not Have That Right Anymore; The Next, You Could Not Remember The Digits Of Her Phone Number.

I Remember For That One Moment, I Believe I Was Hitch Hiking On One Of Those Comets, Falling So Fast That I'd Surely Burn Away Before I Ever Hit The Ground.

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.

You Have Everything. A Family, A Great Job, A Lot Of People Who Look Up To You. You've Got A Place To Go Home To. So Go.

Because Hate's Just The Flip Side Of Love. Like Heads And Tails On A Dime. If You Don't Know What It Feels Like To Love Someone, How Would You Know What Hate Is? One Can't Exist Without The Other.

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.

When You’re Hurting Deeply, You Go Inward.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 Feel I'm Able To Get Rid Of Any Demons Lurking In My Psyche Through My Writing, Which Leaves Me Free To Create All Of This And To Enjoy Our Family Life, Stepping Away From All The Fictional Traumas And The Dramas. If I Write About Family In Crisis, Then I Won't Have To Live Through It, I Guess.

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.

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

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

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

My Sisters Keeper

Anyone Can Understand Anything. You Just Have To Know How To Present Your Information.

Leave It To A Man To Mess Things Up

I Don’t Think Anyone Who Falls In Love Has A Choice. You’re Just Pulled To That Person Like True North, Whether It’s Good For You Or Bound To Break Your Heart.

Falling In Love

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.

Accidents Did Not Just Happen. From Time To Time They Were Carefully Plotted, Calculated, And Arranged To One’s Advantage-all, Of Course, Under The Cloak Of Happenstance.

Whether Or Not Belive In Fate Comes Down To One Thing: Who You Blame When Something Goes Wrong. Do You Think It's Your Fault - That If You'd Tried Better, Worked Harder, It Wouldn't Have Happened? Or Do You Just Chalk It Up To Circumstance? I Know Poeple Who'll Hear About The People Who Died, And Will Say That It Was God's Will. I Know People Who'll Say It Was Bad Luck. And Then There's My Personal Favorite: They Were Just In The Wrong Place At Hte Wrong Time. Then Again, You Could Say The Same Thing About Me, Couldn't You?

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

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

I Wondered What Happened When You Offered Yourself To Someone, And They Opened You, Only To Discover You Were Not The Gift They Expected And They Had To Smile And Nod And Say Thank You All The Same.

Saying Thank You

What Does It Feel Like?” He Asked. “what Does What Feel Like?” Peter Thought For A Moment. “being At The Top.” Josie Reached Across Him For Another Packet Of Material And Fed It Into The Stapler. She Did Three Of These, And Peter Was Certain That She Was Going To Ignore Him, But Then She Spoke. “like If You Take One Wrong Step,” She Said, “you’re Going To Fall.

But Will You Miss Me? More Importantly - Will I Miss You? Does Either One Of Us Really Want To Hear The Answer To That Question?

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.

It Was The First Time She'd Discovered Something She Really Didn't Want To Find, And She Didn't Know What To Do Once She'd Found It.

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.

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?

I Love Feeling Loved. I Don't Love Knowing That I Will Always Come In Second Place. I Love The Fact That At Least Sometimes When I Am In My Home, I'm Not Alone. I Don't Love The Fact That It's Not Always. I Love Not Having To Answer To Him. I Don't Love That He Doesn't Answer To Me. I Love The Way I Feel When I Am With Him. I Don't Love The Way I Feel When I'm Not.

Lawyers Were Notorious For Finding Cases In The Most Unlikely Places, Especially Ones With Huge Potential Damagers Awards.

Be Kind To Others Before You Take Care Of Yourself; Make Whoever You're With Feel Like They Matter.

When Was The Last Time Someone Read Aloud To You? Probably When You Were A Child, And If You Think Back, You'll Remember How Safe You Felt, Tucked Under The Covers, Or Curled In Someone's Arms, As A Story Was Spun Around You Like A Web.

So Much Of The Language Of Love Was Like That: You Devoured Someone With Your Eyes, You Drank In The Sight Of Him, You Swallowed Him Whole. Love Was Substance, Broken Down And Beating Through Your Bloodstream.

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.

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.

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

Domestic Violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Problem Was, You Couldn't Have One Without The Other. There Couldn't Be A Bad Guy Unless There Was A Good Guy To Create The Standard. And There Couldn't Be A Good Guy Until A Bad Guy Showed Just How Far Off The Path He Might Stray.

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

When You Love Someone, You Don't See Parts Of Him You Don't Like.

When You Love Someone

I Will Say Overwhelmingly What Means So Much More To Me Than The Opinion Of One Reviewer Are The Letters I Get From Fans Who Tell Me How A Particular Book Has Changed Their Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

I Imagine The Touch Of Someone Who Loves You So Much, He Cannot Bear To Watch You Sleep; And So You Wake Up With His Hand On Your Heart.

I'm Telling You, If Aliens Landed On Earth Today And Took A Good Hard Look At Why Babies Get Born, They'd Conclude That Most People Had Children By Accident, Or Because They Drink Too Much On A Certain Night, Or Because Birth Control Isn't One Hundred Percent, Or For A Thousand Other Reasons That Really Aren't Very Flattering.

Nobody, Who Looks At A Shard Of Flint Lying Beneath A Rock Ledge, Or Who Finds A Splintered Log By The Side Of The Road Would Ever Find Magic In Their Solitude. But In The Right Circumstances, If You Bring Them Together, You Can Start A Fire That Consumes The World.

But There's An Enormous Difference Between An Audience That's Watching You Because They Can't Wait To See What Comes Next And An Audience That's Watching You Because They're Waiting For You To Fail.

Religion Was Supposed To Be A Blanket Drawn Up To Your Chin To Keep You Warm, A Promise That When It Came To The End, You Wouldn't Die Alone - But It Could Just As Easily Leave You Shivering Out In The Cold, If What You Believed Became More Important Than The Fact That You Believed.

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

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.

There Was Not Much Distinction Between Losing A Friend And A Lover: It Was All About Intimacy. One Moment, You Had Someone To Share Your Biggest Triumph, And Fatal Flaws With; The Next Minute, You Had To Keep Them Bottled Inside.

That’s What Religion Does. It Points A Finger. It Causes Wars. It Breaks Apart Countries. It’s A Petri Dish For Stereotypes To Grow In. Religion’s Not About Being Holy...just Holier-than-thous.

...because He Believed That If You Wanted To Get Rid Of A Hole, You Filled It. He Had Not Realized At The Time That There Were All Sorts Of Filler That Took Up Space, But Had No Substance. That Made You Feel Just As Empty.

Something Still Exists As Long As There's Someone Around To Remember It.

I'm Weird. Everyone Says So.

I Knew That Somewhere God Was Laughing. He Had Taken The Other Half Of My Heart, The One Person Who Knew Me Better Than I Knew Myself, And He Had Done What Nothing Else Could Do. By Bringing Us Together, He Had Set Into Motion The One Thing That Could Tear Us Apart.

Just So You Know, When They Say "once Upon A Time” . . . They’re Lying

Once Upon A Time

Between The Lines

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

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.

This Is What It Always Comes Down To, I Realized. There Are The Ones Who Believe, And The Ones Who Don't, And Caught In The Space Between Them Are Guns.

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?

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

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

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.

Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It. There Is Always Another Appointment To Be Met, Another Bill To Pay, Another Symptom Presenting, Another Uneventful Day To Be Notched Onto The Wooden Wall. We Have Synchronized Our Watches, Studied Our Calendars, Existed In Minutes, And Completely Forgotten To Step Back And See What We've Accomplished.

Maybe You Expected Marriage To Be Perfect - I Guess That's Where You And I Are Different. See, I Thought It Would Be All About Making Mistakes, But Doing It With Someone Who's There To Remind You What You Learned Along The Way.

Happiness Is What You Choose To Remember.

People Ask All The Time How I'm Doing, But The Truth Is, They Don't Really Want To Know.

Let Me Tell You What Happens When You Cook Down The Syrup Of Loss Over The Open Fire Of Sorrow: It Solidfies Into Something Wlaw. Not Grief, Like You'd Expect, Or Even Regret. No, It Gets Thick As Paste, Black As Ash; Yet It Isn't Until You Dip A Finger In And Feel That Sharp Taste Dissolving On Your Tounge That You Realize This Is Angel In Its Purest Form, Unrefined; A Substance To Be Weighed And Measyred And Spread.

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.

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

Envy, After All, Comes From Wanting Something That Isn't Yours. But Grief Comes From Losing Something You've Already Had.

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.

How Do You Walk Into Someone's Life Again After Twenty-eight Years? How Do You Pick Up, When You Were Too Young To Know Where You Left Off.

There Are Millions Of People In The World, And The Spirits Will See That Most Of Them You Never Have To Meet. But There Are One Or Two You Are Tied To, And The Spirits Will Cross You Back And Forth, Threading So Many Knots Until They Catch And You Finally Get It Right.

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.

For Better Or For Worse, Music Is The Language Of Memory. It Is Also The Language Of Love.

Language Of Love

Or In Other Words, It's The Substance You've Got When You Start That Determines The Outcome.

I Am Not A Religious Man. I Have Not Attended A Service For Many Years. But I Do Believe In God. My Own Practice Of Religion, You Could Say, It A Nonpractice. I Personally Feel That It's Just As Worthy On A Weekend To Rake The Lawns Of An Elderly Neighbor Or To Climb A Mountain And Marvel At The Beauty Of This Land We Live In As It Is To Sing Hosannas Or Go To Mass. In Other Words, I Think Every Many Finds His Own Church- And Not All Of Them Have Four Walls - Judge Haig (page 399)

There Are So Many Things I Can't Believe. That People Deserve What They Get, Both Bad And Good. That One Day I'll Live In A World Where People Are Judged By What They Do Instead Of Who They Are. That Happy Endings Don't Have Contingencies And Conditions.

The English Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Casting Her Out. The Amish Judged A Person So That They'd Be Justified In Welcoming Her Back. Where I'm From, If Someone Is Accused Of Sinning, It's Not So That Others Can Place Blame. It's So That The Person Can Make Amends And Move On.

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.

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.

I Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.

Falling In Love

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

The First Time Someone I Loved Left Me Behind...i Didn't Know How My Family Would Balance. We Had Been Such A Sturdy Little End Table, Four Solid Legs. I Was Sure We Would Now Be Off-kilter, Always Unstable. Until One Day I Looked More Closely, And Realized That We Had Simply Become A Stool.

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

If You End Your Story, It's A Static Work Of Art, A Finite Circle. But If You Don't, It Belongs To Anyone's Imagination. It Stays Alive Forever.

No," He Said Calmly, Filled With Purpose. He Took Her Arms Lightly In His Hands And Shook Her. "i Am Not Giving You Up." Emily Looked At Him, And For Just A Moment He Could Read Her Thoughts. Melanie Use To Say They Were Like Twins, With Their Own Secret, Silent Language. In That Instant, Chris Felt Her Fear And Her Resignation, And The Knotty Pain Of Coming Up Against A Brick Wall Again And Again. She Glanced Away, And He Could Breathe Again. "the Thing Is, Chris" Emily Said, "it's Not Your Choice.

This Is Love, I Think. A Place Where People Who Have Been Alone May Lock Together Like Hawks And Spin In The Air, Dizzy With Surprise At The Connection. A Place You Go Willingly, And With Wonder

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

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

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.

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

Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending.

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

In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Mow The Front Lawn; Color Your Hair; Watch A Third Of A Hockey Game. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Bake Scones Or Get A Tooth Filled By A Dentist; You Can Fold Laundry For A Family Of Five. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Stop The World; Or You Can Just Jump Off It.

You Couldn't Have Strength Without Weakness, You Couldn't Have Light Without Dark, You Couldn't Have Love Without Loss

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

Finding Someone

You Okay In There?" "no, I'm Hanging From A Closet Rod.

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?

There Are So Many Ways A Family Can Unravel. All It Takes Is A Tiny Slash Of Selfishness, A Rip Of Greed, A Puncture Of Bad Luck. And Yet, Woven Tightly, Family Can Be The Strongest Bond Imaginable.

Newborns Reminded Her Of Tiny Buddhas

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?

[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.

We Could All Be Lucky. We Could All Be What We Want To Be, Instead Of Who Someone Else Told Us To Be.

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

Parenting Isn't A Noun But A Verb--an Ongoing Process Instead Of An Accomplishment. And That No Matter How Many Years You Put Into The Job, The Learning Curve Is, Well, Fairly Flat.

Dark Matter Has A Gravitation Effect On Other Objects. You Can't See It, You Can't Feel It, But You Can Watch Something Being Pulled In Its Direction.

He Rises Over Me, A Second Sun, And Fills Me With Light And Heat.

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.

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.

Just Because You Didn't Put A Name To Something Did Not Mean It Wasn't There.

The First Person You Fell In Love With Stole Your Heart. The First Person You Made Love With Stole Your Soul. And If These Were One And The Same, You Were Doomed.

Just So You Know: If This Ever Happens To You, You Will Not Be Ready.

Yes, She Is." He Looks At Me, His Face Carved In Pain. "she Is Dying, Sara. She Will Die, Either Tonight Or Tomorrow Or Maybe A Year From Now If We're Really Lucky. You Heard What Dr. Chance Said. Arsenic's Not A Cure. It Just Postpones What's Coming." My Eyes Fill Up With Tears. "but I Love Her," I Say, Because That Is Reason Enough.

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 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.

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

An Apology With A Defense Built In Isn't Much Of An Apology

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

Perfectly Normal

My Grandmother Told Me That Her Father Used To Ask Her A Riddle: What Must You Break Apart In Order To Bring A Family Close Together? Bread, Of Course.

I 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.

I Don't Know What It Is About Death That Makes It So Hard. I Suppose It's The One-sided Communication; The Fact That We Never Get To Ask Our Loved One If She Suffered, If She Is Happy Wherever She Is Now...if She Is Somewhere. It's The Question Mark That Comes With Death That We Can't Face, Not The Period.

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

Annie Turned Away, Her Eyes Glittering. 'here's What No One Tells You,' She Said. 'when You Deliver A Fetus, You Get A Death Certificate, But Not A Birth Certificate. And Afterward, Your Milk Comes In, And There's Nothing You Can Do To Stop It.' She Looked Up At Me. 'you Can't Win. Either You Have The Baby And Wear Your Pain On The Outside, Or You Don't Have The Baby, And You Keep That Ache In You Forever. I Know I Didn't Do The Wrong Thing. But I Don't Feel Like I Did The Right Thing, Either.

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

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.

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

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.

At Home I Was Raped By A Guy I Thought I Loved' Trixie Said, Because Thats What It Was To Her And Always Would Be.

You Can Believe Something Really Hard,' Faith Says, 'and Still Be Wrong.

How Foolish It Is To Run Away With A Man Who's Already Run Away With Someone Else.

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.

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.

I Don't Know What You Think Of Me. And You Certainly Would Never Picture Us Together. But Probably Peanut Butter Was Just Peanut Butter For A Long Time, Before Someone Ever Thought Of Pairing It With Jelly. And There Was Salt, But It Started To Taste Better When There Was Pepper. And What's The Point Of Butter Without Bread? (why Are All These Examples Of Foods?!!?!?!?!?!?!) Anyway By Myself I'm Nothing Special. But With You I Could Be.

Normal, In Our House, Is Like A Blanket Too Short For A Bed--sometimes It Covers You Just Fine, And Other Times It Leaves You Cold And Shaking; And Worst Of All, You Never Know Which Of The Two It's Going To Be.

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

Who Spit In Your Porridge?

He Began To Trace A Pattern On The Table With The Nail Of His Thumb. "she Kept Saying She Wanted To Keep Things Exactly The Way They Were, And That She Wished She Could Stop Everything From Changing. She Got Really Nervous, Like, Talking About The Future. She Once Told Me That She Could See Herself Now, And She Could Also See The Kind Of Life She Wanted To Have - Kids, Husband, Suburbs, You Know - But She Couldn't Figure Out How To Get From Point A To Point B.

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

Home Is Not A Place, But Rather, The People You Love

You Signed No Contract To Become A Parent, But The Responsibilities Were Written In Invisible Ink. There Was A Point When You Had To Support Your Child, Even If No One Else Would. It Was Your Job To Rebuild The Bridge, Even If Your Child Was The One Who Burned It In The First Place.

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

You Can Be Strapped To The Most Stable Chair And Still Feel The World Give Way Beneath You.

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

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?

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?

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

My Sisters Keeper

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

Life Is Not A Plot; It's In The Details.

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

Sometimes Knowing What's Right Isn't A Rational Decision, Or Even What Works On Paper. Sometimes Leaving Is The Best Course Of Action After All.

When Someone Loves You Up One Side And Down The Other Like That, You Make Every Effort To Stick Around.

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.

I Realized It Was Like Looking Into The Sun—you Shouldn't Do It, Because You'd Turn Your Face Away And Be Blind To Everything Else.

Coop Kissed Me Deeply, Drawing My Breath From Me In A Long, Sweet Ribbon. "perhaps I Haven't Mentioned It, But I'm An Expert When It Comes To First Steps." Are You," I Said. "then Tell Me How." You Close Your Eyes," Coop Answered, "and Jump.

I Think The 'new York Times' Reviews Overall Tend To Overlook Popular Fiction, Whether You're A Man, Woman, White, Black, Purple Or Pink. I Think There Are A Lot Of Readers Who Would Like To See Reviews That Belong In The Range Of Commercial Fiction Rather Than Making The Blanket Assumption That All Commercial Fiction Is Unworthy.

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.

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

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

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

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?

Polar North Can't Get Away From A Magnet; The Magnet Finds It, No Matter What.

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.

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

Until This Moment, I Had Not Realized That Someone Could Break Your Heart Twice, Along The Very Same Fault Lines.

On The Surface, We're Polar Opposites. Under The Skin, Though, We're The Same: People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.

There Are All Sorts Of Losses People Suffer - From The Small To The Large. You Can Lose Your Keys, Your Glasses, Your Virginity. You Can Lose Your Head, You Can Lose Your Heart, You Can Lose Your Mind. You Can Relinquish Your Home To Move Into Assisted Living, Or Have A Child Move Overseas, Or See A Spouse Vanish Into Dementia. Loss Is More Than Just Death, And Grief Is The Gray Shape-shifter Of Emotion.

I Drew It Over My Skin Like A Violins Bow, No One Would Ever Hear The Song Of My Shame.

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.

I Think You Can Love A Person Too Much. You Put Someone Up On A Pedestal, And All Of A Sudden, From That Perspective, You Notice What's Wrong - A Hair Out Of Place, A Run In A Stocking, A Broken Bone. You Spend All Your Time And Energy Making It Right, And All The While, You Are Falling Apart Yourself. You Don't Even Realize What You Look Like, How Far You've Deteriorated, Because You Only Have Eyes For Someone Else.

Trending Author

Maria Sharapova

Christopher Alexander

Clarence Budington Kelland

George Bernard Shaw

Category