Quotes by Jodi Picoult

The best place to cry is on a mothers arms.

I have a sister, so I know-that relationship, its all about fairness: you want your sibling to have exactly what you have-the same amount of toys, the same number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. Its bigger than words.

When youre pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again, yet after having given birth you realize that the biggest part of you is now somehow external, subject to all sorts of dangers and disappearance, so you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to keep it close enough for comfort. Thats the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you dont even realize how much you were missing one.

Maybe a mother wasnt what she seemed to be on the surface.

She is not the child that mirrors me, and yet when you put us side by side, there are definite similarities. Its not in the shape of the mouth but the set of it, the sheer determination that silvers our eyes.

You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.

Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.

Stupid English.English isnt stupid, I say.Well, my English teacher is. He makes a face. Mr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he wont let me.Why not?He says lunch isnt a subject.I glance at him. It isnt.Well, Jacob says, its not a predicate, either. Shouldnt he know that?

There was no black or white. Someone who had been good her entire life could, in fact, do something evil. People were just as capable of committing murder, under the right circumstances, as any monster.

You, Seven pronounced, are a train wreck of sexual history.But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, Ill jump in front of the tracks. Ill even tie myself down in front of the speeding engine. Theres some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first theres got to be someone worth saving.

They dont like the thought of someone else making demands on the person whom they see as belonging entirely to them.

Listen, I would say, this is not how I thought our lives would go; and may be we cannot find our way out of this alley. But there is no one Id rather be lost with.

Neither of us, it turns out, has been the only one who lost someone she loved.

Listen, I would say, this is not how I thought our lives would go; and maybe we cannot find our way out of this alley. But there is no one Id rather be lost with.

I suddenly remember being about seven, riding beside him in the car, and asking him how grown-ups found their way to places. After all, I had never seen him pull out a map.I guess we just get used to taking the same turns, he said, but I wasnt satisfied.Then what about the first time you go somewhere?Well, he said, we get directions.But what I want to know is who got them the very first time? What if no ones ever been where youre going? Dad? I ask, is it true that you can use stars like a map?Yeah, if you understand celestial navigation.Is it hard? Im thinking maybe I should learn. A backup plan, for all those times I feel like Im just wandering in circles.Its pretty jazzy math—you have to measure the altitude of a star, figure out its position using a nautical almanac, figure out what you think the altitude should be and what direction the star should be in based on where you think you are, and compare the altitude you measured with the one you calculated. Then you plot this on a chart, as a line of position. You get several lines of position to cross, and thats where you go. My father takes one look at my face and smiles. Exactly, he laughs. Never leave home without your GPS.

Parents arent the people you come from. Theyre the people you want to be, when you grow up.

Do you have kids? Anna asks.I laugh. What do you think?Its probably a good thing, she admits. No offense, but you dont exactly look like a parent.That fascinates me. What do parents look like?She seems to think about this. You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that hes really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.

if you were quiet and blended into the background, you were less likely to make waves

Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.

In my previous life I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be- but that was before Id been handed a fistful of crushed violets from a toddler. Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art.