Quotes by Jodi Picoult

History tells us that six million Jews disappeared during that war. If there was no Holocaust, where did they go? She shakes her head. All of that, and the world didnt learn anything. Look around. Theres still ethnic cleansing. Theres discrimination.

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.

It is a curious thing, watching a strong man fall to pieces.

I can see myself now, she said. And I can see what I want to be, ten years from now. But I dont understand how Im going to get from here to there.

If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes youve made.

Forgiving isnt something you do for someone else. Its something you do for yourself. Its saying, Youre not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. Its saying, You dont get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.

A very wise man once told me that you cant look back-you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.

In the space between yes and no, there is a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you will tell yourself in the future.

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

There are so many things I cant believe. That people deserve what they get, both bad and good. That one day Ill live in a world where people are judged by what they do instead of who they are. That happy endings dont have contingencies and conditions.

She didnt like it when religious folks looked down on her for being an atheist; but to be honest, I didnt see how this was any different from the way she looked down on people for being Christians.

I sigh. “But if you’d talked to Jules—if she could hear you . . .” My voice trails off.“Then you wouldn’t feel quite so crazy?” Oliver asks gently. “Can’t you believe in me, if I believe in you?

People believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what was right in front of their eyes.

The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark... Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas - a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.

Words, he knew, could scar.

But without a reader, a story is only half complete. Its like blueprints that never get built; like a swimming pool without water. The foundations there, but its useless. Without a reader, the words just sit on the page, waiting to come alive in someones imagination.

You dont have to say I love you to say I love you.

The only difference between a wish and a prayer is that youre at the mercy of the universe for the first, and youve got some help with the second.

Prayer is like water - something you cant imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land.

Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow-beautiful while its there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.