Quotes from Jodi Picoult

I don't have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It's about really putting yourself in their shoes.

Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.

The world is a place where the extraordinary can sit just beside the ordinary with the thinnest of boundaries; that even in environments inhospitable to man, all sort of entities might thrive.

Leave it to a man to mess things up

Men don't traipse. We... Swagger

A man should live his life a certain way not because of some divine authority, but because of a personal moral obligation to himself and others.

How foolish it is to run away with a man who's already run away with someone else.

Many of my books come from what if questions that I can't answer, things that I'm worried about as either a woman, a wife, a mom, an American.

The right idea is the one you can't stop thinking about; the one that's in your head first thing in the morning.

Imagine a world that seemed so much bigger than you. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed.

All I know is that I carried you for nine months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid for your college education. Friending me on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return.

Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans: once you leave the litter, you server contact with your mothers.

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.

I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.

You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?... A plan.

I think once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.

parenting isn't a noun but a verb--an ongoing process instead of an accomplishment. And that no matter how many years you put into the job, the learning curve is, well, fairly flat.

I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.

You don't make peace only with G-d. You make it with people. Sin isn't global. It's personal. If you do wrong to someone, the only way to fix that is to go to that same person and do right by him.

if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will.

If you want to see God laugh, make a plan.

If God wanted us to act on instinct, we wouldn't have the power of reason.

Maybe if God gives you a handicap, he makes sure you've got a few extra doses of humor to take the edge off.

God doesn't give people burdens they can't handle.