Quotes from Jodi Picoult

I think that when you live in a world with limits... when you've met everyone and seem everything you're going to see - you lose the hope that something extraordinary will happen in your life

There are kinds of pain that you can't speak out loud.

The bottom line in both cases is that people don't change; that no matter how charming you are and how fiercely you love, you cannot turn a person into something she's not.

The only monsters I have ever known were men.

This was the reason there was music, he realized. There were some feelings that didn't have words big enough to describe them.

We all know that a sky with clouds in it is much more interesting than one that doesn't have any.

she told me she'd be a phoenix. The image of the mythical creature rising from the ashes glitters in my mind. They don't really exist. She said that depends on whether or not there's someone who can see them.

I don't belong to a religion. Religion's the reason the world's falling apart... That's what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It's a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion's not about being holy, Shay said. Just holier-than-thou.

What makes a treasure a treasure. Marine replied, is how rare a find it is, when you need it the most.

Was there a language of loss? Did everyone who suffered speak a different dialect?

Maybe I was naïve to think that silence was implicit complacence, instead of a festering question. Maybe I was silly to believe that friends owed each other anything.

something is always falling apart in me.

When you showed someone how you felt, it was fesh and honest. Whe you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation.

The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.

Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't blame them. It's superstition: If you give assistance to the family in need... if you throw salt over your shoulder... if you don't step on the cracks, then maybe you'll be immune. Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that this could never happen to you.

I wonder if the conversations you've never had with someone count, if you've been over them a thousand times in your mind.

Princes don't come around everyday, and happy endings don't grow on trees

Once the world was pulled out from beneath your feet, did you ever get to stand on firm ground again?

Like the teens I worked with, I understood the need for miracles--they kept reality from paralyzing you

Just so you know, when they say Once upon a time" . . . they're lying

The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over.

I know Mark,' I reply. 'And I don't like him.' 'But I do. And part of being social means being civil to someone you don't like.' 'That's stupid. It's a huge world. why not just get up and walk away?' 'Because that's rude,' Jess explains. 'I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails.

You did really great up there," I tell her, because I don't know how to say what I really want to: that the people you love can surprise you every day. That maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.

A jewel's just a rock put under enourmous heat and pressure. Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.