Mad Honey

by Jodi Picoult

The judge sounds bored. Tired. As if his entire life has not suddenly come apart at the seams, the way ours have. If you do this long enough, I wonder, do you even notice that the people in front of you are falling to pieces?

usually avoided looking at my wrist, at my scars, but this time, I focused on them and realized my body was more than something I was trapped in. I saw a strong backbone, a big heart, hands that made this cello sing.

I love lily a lot

Like I’m a one-of-a-kind wonder meant just for him. I tear my eyes away. I look down at myself and, for the first time in my life, I am able to see what Asher sees. Yes, I think, a miracle. That’s what I am.

Howeasy it is to discount love when people are young but there maybe isnt ever anything deeper

Sometimes it’s like my legs have been bound with anchor chains, and I’ve been thrown off a ship into the cruel ocean, and all I can do is sink.

keep trying to be an atheist, but it just won’t take. In spite of how much garbage there is in the Bible—like all the instructions on how to treat your slaves, and how women should pretty much accept that we’re destined to be the property of men—there is still something about faith that I cannot let go of. I do not know what this world is, but I know that it contains miracles that I cannot explain, and the love that people have for each other is the biggest mystery of all.

whole pyramid of bigotry, with people who most resemble the dominant culture at the top, and people whose difference makes them stand out at the bottom.

you want to understand something, you first need to accept the fact of your own ignorance. And then, you need to talk to people who know more than you do, people who have not just thought about the facts, but lived them.

Something in me wants to tell these people, I am like Elizabeth. I am like Lily. I am like a lot of women in the world who choose to conceal something; who live in fear of what might happen, if the exact wrong person ever found out.

“This example is a really great way to understand what it means to be transgender. Everyone has a dominant gender identity. It’s not a preference, it’s not something you can change just because you feel like it—it’s just how you’re wired. Most people who are assigned male or female at birth feel their gender identity matches that label—they’re called cisgender. But transgender people know that being in the body they are in feels not quite right. Some know this when they’re very young. Some spend years feeling uncomfortable without really knowing why. Some avoid talking about gender identity because they’re ashamed, or afraid.”