I realize that I quite like this girl. It’s not just that she’s so pretty the words fly out of my mind before they can leave my mouth—it’s that when we’re chatting, I feel like I’ve known her all my life.
~ Jodi Picoult
It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?
Hope is what makes you look outside the window to see if it's stopped raining. Hope is what makes you believe he'll text you back. Hope is why you buy your jeans a little tight... Hope is why you get out of bed in the morning, and why you dream at night. Hope is what makes us believe that things can only get better. Hope is what keeps us going.
Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions, inside the walls of a hospital... Doubt is like dye. Once is spreads into the fabric of excuses you've woven, you'll never get rid of the stain.
Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions.
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?
Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?
The scariest thing in the world is thinking someone you love is going to die.
Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.
I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.
Losing Chloe had been like reading a wonderfulook only to realize that all the pages past a certain point were blank.
They go on to this better place, you know, which is what they wanted all along. But you and me, we're still left behind with all the questions they couldn't answer.
Wenn jemand starb, dem du dein Herz geschenkt hattest, nahm er es dann mit?
You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.
It seems to me that no matter what religion you subscribe to, acts of kindness are the stepping-stones to making the world a better place--because we become better people in it.
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)
Somewhere along the line, organized religion stopped being about faith, and started being about who had the power to keep the faith. You said that the purpose of religion was to bring people together. But does it, really? Or does it-knowingly, purposefully, and intentionally--break them apart?
I may not have a degree, but I certainly got an education.
You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but there is a subtle difference between tolerance and acceptance. It's the distance between moving into the cul-de-sac and having your next door neighbor trust you to keep an eye on her preschool daughter for a few minutes while she runs out to the post office. It's the chasm between being invited to a colleague's wedding with your same-sex partner and being able to slow-dance without the other guests whispering.
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.
males conspicuously leaving their mark to let others know where they weren't welcome.
because in the past words have only driven them apart.
We make messes of our lives, but every now and then, we manage to do something that's exactly right. The challenge is figuring out which is which.
The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story
be a good listener, don't judge and don't put boundaries on someone else's grief.
Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.
There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.
And if you don't find what you're looking for?At Roy's question Addie looked up.Then all I've lost is time.
Objection! Metz shouts.Grounds? the judge asks.Well...he's my witness!
She'd been in labor for nineteen hours; I completely understood why she wanted to pass the buck. 'You are so beautiful,' her husband crooned, holding up her shoulders.'You are so full of shit,' Lila snarled, but as a contraction settled over her like a net, she bore down and pushed.
Lawyers were notorious for finding cases in the most unlikely places, especially ones with huge potential damagers awards.
The Lord turned water into wine. All I'm suggesting is a trip to the grocery store.
A robber? In the trash bins? Honestly, Wes. This is Salem Falls, not the set of Law and Order.
You'd be surprised. Charlie said.You go to bed one night singing her a lullaby, and she wakes up listening to Limp Bizkit.What the hell is Limp Bizkit?
If I tell you another seven hundred times, maybe one of these days you might turn your clothes right side out when you put them in the hamper, eh?
This must be what an addict feels like, I think, trying to fight the pull of one last, quick read. My fingers itch toward the binding, and finally, with a sigh of regret, I just grab the book and open it, hungrily reading the story.
Although you hadn't asked why, it had less to do with you not noticing than with you not wanting to hear the answer.
He kissed her so gently she wondered if she had imagined it
A real friend isn't capable of feeling sorry for you.
Maybe I was naïve to think that silence was implicit complacence, instead of a festering question. Maybe I was silly to believe that friends owed each other anything.
