Quotes from Jodi Picoult

There is a place in you that you don't even know exists, where you can simply stand back and watch without feeling any pain.

No matter who you are, there is always some part of you that wishes you were someone else, and when, for a millisecond, you get that wish, it's a miracle.

If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.

I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere.

What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't 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.

On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.

When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself- is that what [love is]?

You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

Relationships always sounded so physically painful: you fell in love, you broke a heart, you lost your head. Was it any wonder that people came through the experience with battle scars?

I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.

the people you love can surprise you every day... maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.

People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else.

There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.

Superheroes were born in the minds of people desperate to be rescued.

My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.

remember that every fire will burn itself out, even without your help.

The only way someone can leave you is if you let them.

When you love someone more than he loves you, you'll do anything to switch the scales. You dress the way you think he'd like you to dress. You pick up his favorite figures of expression. You tell yourself that if you re-create yourself in his image, then he'll crave you in the same way you crave him.

If you're afraid of everyone leaving you, what do you do? Make them stay. And if you can't do that, or don't know how to? Ellie shrugged. I don't know. Yes, you do. In fact, you've done it. You leave first, Coop said, so you don't have to watch them walk away.

Inside each of us is a monster; inside each of us is a saint. The real question is which one we nurture the most, which one will smite the other.

Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember.

My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.

You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.

What if it turns out that a life isn't defined by who you belong to or where you came from, by what you wished for or whom you've lost, but instead by the moments you spend getting from each of these places to the next?