Shirty, the slightly aggressive bearHouse Rules

I know what love is. When you find the person you are supposed to love, bells ring and fireworks go off in your head and you can’t find words to speak and you think about her all the time. When you find the person you are supposed to love, you will know by staring deeply into her eyes.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞06:00 am, by lostinthesounds ∩32

I was lonely. I felt it deeply and permanently, that this state of being on my own might never disappear. But I welcomed the loneliness, which had everything to do with being anonymous. It’s never loneliness that nibbles away at a person’s insides, but not having room inside themselves to be comfortably alone.

House Rules by Rachel Sontag

∞09:00 pm, by lostinthesounds ∩37

[Quote] [Book Quote] [2008] [House Rules] [Rachel Sontag]

The best way I can describe it is like being in the path of a flash flood. You might be able to sense that a catastrophe is imminent; you might feel the faintest mist on your face. But even when you see that wall of water rushing toward you, you know you are powerless to budge an inch.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞07:25 am, by lostinthesounds ∩19

[Quote] [Book Quote] [House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [2010]

A void in my chest was beginning to fill with anger. Quiet, defeated anger that guaranteed me the right to my hurt, that believed no one could possibly understand that hurt.

House Rules by Rachel Sontag

∞04:45 am, by lostinthesounds ∩15

[Quote] [Book Quote] [House Rules] [Rachel Sontag] [2008]

I personally subscribe to the belief that normal is just a setting on the dryer.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞02:48 am, by lostinthesounds ∩44

[Quote] [Book Quote] [House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [2010]

I don’t like breaking promises; I leave that to my ex.
I’m not a bitter guy; I’m not. It’s just that, in my profession, it’s a lot easier to see actions as either right or wrong, without shades of explanation between them. I didn’t really need to know how Hannah realized her soul mate was not the guy she’d married but instead the one who serviced the coffee machines in the teachers’ room. “He started bringing hazelnut for me,” she said, and somehow I was supposed to be able to understand that meant I don’t love you anymore.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞08:09 pm, by lostinthesounds ∩9

[Book Quote] [House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [Quote] [2010]

I don’t know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You’d be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞10:58 am, by lostinthesounds ∩20

[Book Quote] [House Rules] [Quote] [Jodi Picoult] [2010]

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

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∞12:31 pm, by lostinthesounds ∩8

[House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [Picture] [Picture Quote] [lostinthesounds] [2010]

I don’t get into trouble because rules are what keep me sane. Rules mean that the day is going to go exactly the way I am predicting it to be. I do what I’m told; I just wish everyone else would do it, too.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞09:15 am, by lostinthesounds ∩23

[Book Quote] [House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [Quote] [2010]

I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.
Here’s a secret: those mothers don’t exist. Most of us - even if we’d never confess - are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring.
I look very good on paper. I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone.
Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping-and, dare I say it, the Burlington Free Press-seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood.
Real mothers don’t just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady’s car, and say, “Great. Maybe YOU can do a better job.”
Real mothers know that it’s okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.
Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.
If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt.
Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they’d chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal.
Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they’ll be looking and looking for ages.
Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

∞11:26 am, by lostinthesounds ∩12

[Book Quote] [House Rules] [Jodi Picoult] [Quote] [2010]