Quotes by Jodi Picoult

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

My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn’t find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday. She was a chameleon, slipping into the personae of a privileged young girl, a frightened teen, a dreamy novelist, a proud prisoner, an army wife, a mother hen. She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her. By anyone’s account, her existence had been full, rich, important—even if she chose not to shout about her past, but rather to keep it hidden. It had been nobody’s business but her own; it was still nobody’s business.

When your mother is made out of your dreams, anything real is bound to disappoint you.

Memory is like plaster: peel it back and you just might find a completely different picture.

If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase--not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been--what would you take? The last photograph you had of your mother? A birthday gift from your best friend--a bookmark embroidered by her? A ticket stub from the traveling circus that had come through town two years ago, where you and your father held your breath as jeweled ladies flew through the air, and a brave man stuck his head in the mouth of a lion? Would you take them to make wherever you were going feel like home, or because you needed to remember where you had come from?

Thats the life, she said to me, as we watched a puppy chase its own tail. Thats what I want to be next.I had laughed. you would wind up as a cat, I told her. They dont need anyone else.I need you, she replied.Well, I said. Maybe Ill come back as catnip.

Where you come from does matter -- but not nearly as much as where you are headed.

What I mean is that those thoughts, theyre human. And just because you turn out differently than everyones imagined you would doesnt mean that youve failed in some way. A kid who gets teased in one school might move to a different one, and be the most popular girl there, just because no one has any other expectations of her. Or a person who goes to med school because his entire family is full of doctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead.

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, its not because they enjoy solitude. Its because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.

What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasnt starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasnt enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size.

She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone.

The cost of growth is always a small act of violence.

When youre different, sometimes you dont see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesnt.

My first strike was marrying a guy without a college degree. My second and third were getting pregnant. I suppose that when I didnt go on to become the next Gloria Allred, she was justified in counting me a failure. And I suppose that until now, I was justified in thinking that I wasnt one.

I dont know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.

by now youve already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a persons past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it wont change what happened twenty-eight years ago.

In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldnt: my past.

Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others.

I dont understand why its a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.

Suffering so someone else didnt have to suffer. Sacrificing your body for someone elses well being.