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129e37d
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Being a good mother, it seemed to me, meant you ran the risk of losing your child.
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Jodi Picoult |
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44d82f7
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No one gets to start where they left off; it just doesn't work that way.
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Jodi Picoult |
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4b31114
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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.
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story
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Jodi Picoult |
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186d46c
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When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.
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parent
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Jodi Picoult |
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120c81d
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It's just like nurses in a hospital tend to know more than the doctors most of the time; if you really want to get the answers to a question about court, you should spend more time buttering up the clerks than the judges.
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Jodi Picoult |
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1b09b4f
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He rises over me, a second sun, and fills me with light and heat.
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Jodi Picoult |
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d92adaa
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True confession: The reason we don't talk about race is because we do not speak a common language.
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racism
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Jodi Picoult |
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d2df52e
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Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive."
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Jodi Picoult |
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99bf386
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There is a reason has, at its heart, the narrative of one's life.
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Jodi Picoult |
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714fac4
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the reason we lose people we care about is so we're more grateful for the ones we still have.
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Jodi Picoult |
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99d3bad
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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6b7175a
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Here are the things I know for sure: When you think you're right, you are most likely wrong. Things that break--be they bones, hearts, or promises--can be put back together but will never really be whole. And, in spite of what I said, you can miss a person you've never known. I learn this over and over again,
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Jodi Picoult |
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fc31255
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I wonder if you've got a minute." I have many minutes, all of them used toward a common purpose."
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Jodi Picoult |
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65fb53f
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You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.
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jodi-picoult
my-sister-s-keeper
reincarnation
wit
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Jodi Picoult |
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1195314
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this was indeed some crazy world, where the waiting period to get an abortion was longer than the waiting period to get a gun.
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Jodi Picoult |
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5f07b6a
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I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.
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Jodi Picoult |
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47fa716
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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9bdaa50
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You don't have to say I love you to say I love you," you said with a shrug. "All you have to do is say my name and I know." "How?" When I looked down at you, I was struck by how much of myself I could see in the shape of your eyes, in the light of your smile. "Sa Cassidy," you instructed. "Cassidy." "Say...Ursula." "Ursula," I parroted. "Now....," and you pointed to your own chest. "Willow." "Can't you hear it?" you said. " When you love so..
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Jodi Picoult |
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610a804
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There are an endless number of people who have left a love-shaped hole in the heart of someone else. Eventually someone brave and stupid will come along and try to fill that hole. But it never works, and so instead, that selfless soul winds up with a gap in heart, too. And so on. It's a miracle that anyone survives, when so much of us is missing.
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Jodi Picoult |
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6d22c33
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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?
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revenge
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Jodi Picoult |
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3bafa97
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Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected.
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Jodi Picoult |
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da1e45d
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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.
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displays-of-kindness
food
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Jodi Picoult |
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815cec3
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The truth has teeth.
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Jodi Picoult |
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6a7c2d7
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If you think about someone you've loved and lost, you are already with them.
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Jodi Picoult |
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449a383
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Listen," she said. "I may not be what you want right now, but I'm all you've got." --
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Jodi Picoult |
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1d71dba
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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6c0c8cd
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Close a door, and you'd still feel a breeze through the window.
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Jodi Picoult |
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6804eb6
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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1f32782
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I have come to believe that this life I'm wearing will never really fit.
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Jodi Picoult |
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fa73008
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believe me, you're all I've thought about --" At this, I grin."
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Jodi Picoult |
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83d0db7
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He is dark and quiet and completely different from me, which is exactly why I should put distance between us. But it is also the reason I find him so fascinating.
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Jodi Picoult |
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2c7cdb7
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As anyone who's ever contracted it knows, lies are an infectious disease. They slip under the almond slivers of your fingernails and into your bloodstream.
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Jodi Picoult |
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a55e256
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never trust a man who wears a pinkie ring. . . the only jewelry a guy should wear is a wedding band or a super bowl ring
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Jodi Picoult |
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7ce67a3
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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 the law.
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Jodi Picoult |
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b185afd
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When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again; yet after giving birth you realize that the biggest part of you is now somehow external...
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Jodi Picoult |
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855852e
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It feels like a punch. Tears fill my eyes, and I wonder how I could be upset over losing something I never had.
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Jodi Picoult |
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9972ae1
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I had not asked to be rescued, true, but that did not mean I didn't need saving.
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Jodi Picoult |
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a65a1f2
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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81f45d3
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You want to know what I want? I'm sick of being a guinea pig. I'm sick, but I'm never f*cking sick enough for this family.
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sick
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Jodi Picoult |
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11e5c64
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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
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Jodi Picoult |
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7edcbe8
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Maybe mothers - consciously or subconsciously - repelled their daughters in different ways.
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Jodi Picoult |
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f6d8803
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Music is the language of memory
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Jodi Picoult |
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4edd2c6
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Things break all the time. Glass, and dishes, and fingernails. Cars and contracts and potato chips. You can break a record, a horse, a dollar. You can break the ice. There are coffee breaks and lunch breaks and prison breaks. Day breaks, waves break, voices break. Chains can be broken. So can silence and fever. Promises break. Hearts break. Fault lines: these are the places where the earth breaks apart, these are the spots where earthquakes..
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Jodi Picoult |
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5316c17
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The reason I am still sitting at Josef's kitchen table is the same reason traffic slows after a car wreck- you want to see the damage; you can't let yourself pass without that mental snapshot. We are drawn to horror even as we recoil from it.
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Jodi Picoult |