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2b1bad6
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This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.
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Jodi Picoult |
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32ba7be
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When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes? When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle (which surely is as American a phenomenon as fireworks on the Fourth of July) and picking my breakfast food based on what the reward was: a Frisbee with the Trix rabbit's face emblazoned on the front. Holographic stickers with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. A mystery decoder wheel. I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it mean..
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Jodi Picoult |
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99c40e6
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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.
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marriage
mistakes
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Jodi Picoult |
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9244533
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Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.
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self-sacrifice
wrong
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Jodi Picoult |
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9dc2fb2
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If you were drifting with a thousand other people, could you really still say you were lost?
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Jodi Picoult |
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006f69c
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Once, in second grade, Kate drew a picture of a firefighter with a halo above his helmet. She told her class that I would only be allowed to go to Heaven, because if I went to Hell, I'd put out all the fires. ~Brian Fitzgerald
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Jodi Picoult |
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3d316da
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The moral of this story is that sometimes, you can attempt to make all the difference in the world, and it still is like trying to stem the tide with a sieve. The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it ... some stories just don't have a happy ending.
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Jodi Picoult |
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d953904
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Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.
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leave
miss
place
starting-point
travel
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Jodi Picoult |
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1ed72e5
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People changed. Even the people you thought you knew as well as you knew yourself.
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Jodi Picoult |
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4a4a886
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One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence.
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Jodi Picoult |
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304a4e2
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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7f0bcb5
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You can make it dark, but I can't make it light.
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jodi-picoult
light
my-sister-s-keeper
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Jodi Picoult |
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bb9e7a4
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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?
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Jodi Picoult |
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6c70f58
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That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?
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Jodi Picoult |
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0358a63
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If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled.
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drama
empty
fiction
filled
jodi-picoult
love
mystery
novel
okay
plain-truth
say
speak
tell
truth
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Jodi Picoult |
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55d9172
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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..
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Jodi Picoult |
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af829be
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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?
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Jodi Picoult |
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5bc59c6
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You can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong.
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Jodi Picoult |
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86527e4
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A very wise man once told me that you can't look back-you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.
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life
moving-on
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Jodi Picoult |
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3fd85c7
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It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that didn't.
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Jodi Picoult |
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13ee65d
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When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance.
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Jodi Picoult |
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8340a57
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When she wanted to escape her life, she read books
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Jodi Picoult |
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2b095db
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Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.
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inspirational
love
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Jodi Picoult |
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e898e6b
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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91e8a40
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There are stars in the night sky that look brighter than the others, and when you look at them through a telescope you realize you are looking at twins. The two stars rotate around each other, sometimes taking nearly a hundred years to do it. They create so much gravitational pull there's no room around for anything else. You might see a blue star, for example, and realize only later that it has a white dwarf as a companion - that first one..
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stars
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Jodi Picoult |
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3dcf80e
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Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself.
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Jodi Picoult |
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2d400db
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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
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love
romance
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Jodi Picoult |
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09f8b00
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Every life has a soundtrack. There is a tune that makes me think of the summer I spent rubbing baby oil on my stomach in pursuit of the perfect tan. There's another that reminds me of tagging along with my father on Sunday morning to pick up the There's the song that reminds me of using fake ID to get into a nightclub; and the one that brings back my cousin Isobel's sweet sixteen, where I played Seven Minutes in Heaven with a boy whose br..
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music
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Jodi Picoult |
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ea4a7f9
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When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires
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father
firefighting
heaven
hell
humor
kate-fitzgerald
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Jodi Picoult |
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a65685c
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The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it's a damn good start.
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music
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Jodi Picoult |
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21d3a1b
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But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.
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Jodi Picoult |
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14c32f9
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That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?
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Jodi Picoult |
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388ee0c
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Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.
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love
religion
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Jodi Picoult |
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2e8be64
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But love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone's expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them. 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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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452a961
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Did you ever wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see when you look in the mirror?" - "That's the eternal question, isn't it? Are we born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?"
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Jodi Picoult |
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c8740b5
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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c76a0a5
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If his voice hasn't been the melody of my life, it's been the bass line, so subtle you don't notice it until it's missing.
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companionship
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Jodi Picoult |
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e1bf62f
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You'll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you're still the one in control.
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life-lesson
pretend
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Jodi Picoult |
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3d3be41
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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.
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sisters
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Jodi Picoult |
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54f250e
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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.
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Jodi Picoult |
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4334e12
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Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot.
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Jodi Picoult |
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99f33e0
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I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.
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Jodi Picoult |
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4a096e8
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And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.
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inspirational
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Jodi Picoult |
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51010df
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What she hadn't realized was that sometimes when your vision was that sharp and true, it could cut you. That only if you'd felt such fullness could you really understand the ache of being empty.
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Jodi Picoult |