My Sister's Keeper

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.

Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.

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.

Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.

I'm lonely. Why do you think I had to learn to act so independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has it's own zip code. Plus, I get certifiably crazy when I've got PMS. You don't love someone because they're perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they're not.

The bottom line is that we never fall for the people we're supposed to.

It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.

Sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.

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.

It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out.

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.

Until this moment, I had not realized that someone could break your heart twice, along the very same fault lines.

It's disappointing to know that someone can see right through you.

It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have, we rarely get.

I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.

Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.

In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who lose a child.

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 know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake.

A real friend isn't capable of feeling sorry for you.

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?

There are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there's someone who must give.

If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.

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...

Shooting stars are not stars at all. They re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on when we see one is only a trail of debris.

There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth.

Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.

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.