Jodi Picoult Quotes

I’d much rather pretend I’m somewhere else, and any time I open the pages of a book, that happens.

But will you miss me? More importantly - will I miss you? Does either one of us really want to hear the answer to that question?

My favorite part of any event is a Q&A. I do get asked a lot of the same questions but every now and then someone surprises me - and I LOVE that.

You fell in love with someone because of the tilt of his smile, or because he could make you laugh, or in this case, because he made you believe that you were the only one who could save him.

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

They're fake bullets, so why do I feel like Im bleeding out?

I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them. Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children.

Did you ever walk through a room that's packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?

If you've lived through it, you already know there are no words that will ever come close to describing it, and if you didn't - you will never understand.

remember that every fire will burn itself out, even without your help.

It doesn't matter what it is that leaves a hole inside you. It just matters that it’s there.

Logical thinking keeps you from wasting time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.

Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive.

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right.

Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face. It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.

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

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.

He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable

The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.

Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception.

I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.

I ...understand how a parent might hit a child- it's because you can look into their eyes and see a reflection of yourself that you wish you hadn't.

What if love wasn't the act of finding what you were missing but the give-and-take that made you both match?

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.

Raw love, like raw heartache, could blindside you.

Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

Suddenly this is all too hard. I am tired of putting up walls. I want someone with the strength - and the honesty - to break them down.

My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.

Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions.

There are just as many stories to be told in the dark spots s there are in the bright ones.

No, honestly, my mouth shouldn't be able to function unless my brain's engaged.

My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.

We're [parents]) always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we won't screw up too badly.

If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled.

What we all want, really, is to be loved. That craving drives our worst behavior.

This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder

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.

My brother believed in all sorts of mythical creatures: pixies, dragons, werewolves, honest men.

What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.

Was there a language of loss? Did everyone who suffered speak a different dialect?

Instead of doing the best thing, we sometimes have to settle for the rightest thing.

I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but sometimes, that's the only way to find out the truth.

Even the most beautiful things can be toxic.

Can you hate someone for what they have done, but still love them for whom they had been?

Your hand fits mine like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle

When you showed someone how you felt, it was fesh and honest. Whe you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation.

It is strange to think that we might have crossed paths, and still not have known what we were missing.

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

After a certain point, a heart with so many stress fractures can never be anything but broken.