Larger Than Life

by Jodi Picoult

When the matriarch is gone, so is the herd’s collective memory.

I wonder, when women who buy beautiful ivory jewelry fasten those elaborate pendants around their throats, if they are choked by sadness.

I began to regard the world differently. Simply because I couldn’t see something didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

What we could not see clearly, we didn’t have to pretend to understand.

In Tswana, there are two ways to say goodbye. Tsamaya sentle means “go well.” Sala sentle means “stay well.” It depends on whether you are the one leaving or the one being left behind.

You’re a fixer, Grant mused. You’re also a colossal pain in the ass. The thing is, it’s the pains in the ass that change the world.

I’m crying for all the things we lose that we cannot get back.

“For someone who knows so much about the brain,” my mother says, “you know absolutely nothing about the heart.”

I had to learn how to be a mother before I realized how lucky I am to be a child.