Jodi Picoult Quotes

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

“Things break all the time.
Day breaks, waves break, voices break.
Promises break.
Hearts break.”

“You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.”

“What if it turns out that a life isn't defined by who you belong to, or where you came from, by what you wished for or whom you've lost, but instead by the moments you spend getting from each of these places to the next?”

“On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.”

“They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again.”

“if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will.”

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

“If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were?”

“It is a remarkable question- Do all the wonderful things happen when we are not aware of them?”

“It's choice that makes us human.”

“My chest feels full of glitter and helium, the way it used to when I was little and riding my father's shoulders at twilight, when I knew that if I held up my hands and spread my fingers like a net, I could catch the coming stars.”

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

“I think you're the only person who gets me. When I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like a problem I can't figure out. Please come to the dance, because you're my music.”

“Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember.”

“The act of reading is a partnership. The author builds a house, but the reader makes it a home.”

“I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got through it.”

“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.”

“All I know is that I carried you for nine months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid for your college education. Friending me on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return.”

“Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's any less true.”

“She felt a cage coming down around her; too late she realized that he had her trapped by the heart. And like any unwilling animal that was well and truly caught, she could escape only by leaving a piece of herself behind.”

“Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or – in this case – feared might come to pass passed by instead.”

“Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.”

“If you were drifting with a thousand other people, could you really still say you were lost?”

“Once, in second grade, Kate drew a picture of a firefighter with a halo above his helmet. She told her class that I would only be allowed to go to Heaven, because if I went to Hell, I'd put out all the fires.
~Brian Fitzgerald”

“Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.”

“Torn between fear and something that resembled love, she wrestled with questions she never dreamed she would face: How could she leave? Then again, how could she stay?”

“I am Alice in Wonderland', Josie thought. 'Watch me fall.”

“People changed. Even the people you thought you knew as well as you knew yourself.”

“This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.”

“You can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong.”

“One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence.”

“You can make it dark, but I can't make it light.”

“Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.”

“We make messes of our lives, but every now and then, we manage to do something that's exactly right. The challenge is figuring out which is which.”

“There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?”

“Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.”

“Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself.”

“It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that didn’t.”

“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”

“When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance.”

“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.”

“When she wanted to escape her life, she read books”

“That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?”

“When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires”

“But then again, maybe bad things happen because it’s the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.”

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see when you look in the mirror?" - "That's the eternal question, isn't it? Are we born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?”

“That’s what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It’s a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion’s not about being holy… Just holier-than-thous.”

“I imagine the touch of someone who loves you so much, he cannot bear to watch you sleep; and so you wake up with his hand on your heart.”