Quotes by Jodi Picoult

My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isnt a social construct but an instinct.

The bottom line is that we never fall for the person were supposed to.

All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone elses life would not have been as rich without us here.

If you didnt remember something happening, was it because it never had happened? Or because you wished it hadnt?

What we all want, really, is to be loved. That craving drives our worst behavior.

Heres a news flash for the ladies: for every one of you who thinks we all want a girl like Angelina Jolie, all skinny elbows and angles, the truth is, wed rather curl up with someone like Charlotte - a woman whos soft when a guy wraps his arms around her; a woman who might have a smear of flour on her shirt the whole day and not notice or care, not even when she goes out to meet with the PTA; a woman who doesnt feel like an exotic vacation but is the home we cant wait to come back to.

You dont have to say I love you to say I love you, you said with a shrug. All you have to do is say my name and I know....Cant you hear it? you said. When you love someone, you say their name different. Like its safe inside your mouth.

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.

Sometimes I think my whole life has been about holding on to you.

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

She puts her hands on either side of my face, and the room falls away. I have never gotten so lost in a kiss before. And then, the space between us explodes. My heart keeps missing beats and my hands cannot bring her close enough to me. I taste her and realize I have been starving. I have loved before, but it didnt feel like this.I have kissed before, but it didnt burn me alive. Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe its an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever.

I dont know what you think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together. But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste better when there was pepper. And whats the point of butter without bread? (Why are all these examples of FOODS?!!?!?!?!?!?!) Anyway by myself Im nothing special. But with you I could be.

Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as youd been before the fall.

If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didnt, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didnt tell them, though, was that in the daytime, theyd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldnt fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.

If youre afraid of everyone leaving you, what do you do?Make them stay.And if you cant do that, or dont know how to?Ellie shrugged. I dont know.Yes, you do. In fact, youve done it. You leave first, Coop said, so you dont have to watch them walk away.

See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded.

Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, your mind tumbling? When you think that no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life, you will remember every last detail of that one minute forever?

Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isnt yours. But grief comes from losing something youve already had.

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

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?