Quotes by Jodi Picoult

Did you ever think our misfortune is directly related to your good fortune? Maybe the house your parents bought was on the market because the sellers didnt want my mama in the neighborhood. Maybe the good grades that eventually led you to law school were possible because your mama didnt have to work eighteen hours a day, and was there to read to you at night, or make sure you did your homework. How often do you remind yourself how lucky you are that you own your house, because you were able to build up equity through generations in a way families of color cant? How often do you open your mouth at work and think how awesome it is that no ones thinking youre speaking for everyone with the same skin color you have? How hard is it for you to find the greeting card for your babys birthday with a picture of a child that has the same color skin as her? How many times have you seen a painting of Jesus that looks like you? Prejudice goes both ways, you know. There are people who suffer from it, and there are people who profit from it.

Skin color doesnt make you different, Melody said. Were all the same on the inside. The only people who ever say that, Raymon replied, are white.

Skin color doesnt make you different, Melody said. Were all the same on the inside.The only people who ever say that, Raymond replied, are white.

I think there are two different oceans - the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter.

All it takes is a second and your whole life can get turned upside down.

My mother used to say that sometimes if you turn a tragedy over in your hand, you can see a miracle running through it, like fools gold in the hardest shard of rock.

I know you love me. The question is, how much?

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?

Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.

Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? Its like a rainy Sunday when you dont have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your fathers just mowed--comfort food for your nose.

When you get down to it, though, explaining what you believe isnt all that easy. If you say that you believe something to be true, you might mean one of two things—that youre still weighing the alternatives, or that you accept it as a fact. I dont logically see how one single word can have contradictory definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand. Because there are times I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess myself every step of the way.

People believe in God because they dont have any other explanation for things that happen.

I love the way he smelled whenever his head dipped close to hear what I was saying—like the sun striking th cheek of a tomato, or soap drying in the hood of a car. I loved the way his hand felt on my spine. I loved.

What I want, more than anything, is to turn back time a little. To become the kid I used to be, who believed whatever my mother said was one hundred percent true and right without looking hard enough to see the hairline cracks.

When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. I cant wait for the next Twilight movie, I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. My favorite song on the CD is If We Were a Movie. And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up.Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, I think your boyfriend is gay.

McAfee, I could try this case in my sleep and still win.Guess thats your plan, then, since youre clearly dreaming.

They look up at me and see a rich lady in maternity clothes. They dont realize I am one of them.

When youre a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.

Being a parent wasnt just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

Its raining.the kind of rain that comes down so heavy it sounds like the showers running, even when youve turned it off. The kind of rain that makes you think of dams and flash floods, arks. The kind of rain that tells you to crawl back into bed, where the sheets havent lost your body heat, to pretend that the clock is five minutes earlier than it really is.Ask any kid whos made it past fourth grade and they can tell you: water never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The river finds it way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds. And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.