Quotes from Jodi Picoult

I don't know why it's called getting lost. Even when you turn down the wrong street, when you find yourself at the dead end of a chain-link fence or a road that turnd to sand, you are somewhere. It just isn't where you expected to be.

Do you remember the summer we signed you up for camp? And the night before you left, you said you've changed your mind and wanted to stay home? I told you to to get a seat on the left side of the bus, so when you pulled away, you'd be able to look back and see me there waiting for you. I press her hand against my cheek, hard enough to leave a mark. You get that same seat in Heaven. One where you can watch me, watching you.

I realize then that we never have children, we receive them. And sometimes it's not for quite as long as we would have expected or hoped. But it is still far better than never having had those children at all.

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.

It's never the differences between people that surprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, we have in common.

She belonged to me, He said simply. She was , you know, all the things I wasn't. And I was all the things she wasn't. She could paint circles around anyone; I can't even draw a straight line. She was never into sports; I've always been. He lifted his outstretched palm and curled his fingers. Her hand, he said. It fit mine.

In the wild, an elephant mother and daughter stay in close proximity their whole lives; I hope I am that lucky.

People change, but only if you give them room to do it.

The nurses, I have already learned, are the ones who give us the answers we're desperate for. Unlike the doctors, who fidget like they need to be somewhere else, the nurses patiently answer us as if we are the first set of parents to ever have this kind of meeting with them, instead of the thousandth.

Accidents did not just happen. From time to time they were carefully plotted, calculated, and arranged to one's advantage-all, of course, under the cloak of happenstance.

There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.

No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it's not gender that makes a family; it's love. You don't need a mother and a father; you don't necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who's got your back.

If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase-not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been-what would you take?

Memories are like a still life painted by ten different student artists: some will be blue-based; others red; some will be as stark as Picasso and others as rich as Rembrandt; some will be foreshortened and others distant. Recollections are in the eye of the beholder; no two held up side by side will ever quite match.

I understand better than she'd imagine that history is indelible. You can mask it; you can patch it smooth and clear; but you always know what's hidden underneath.

By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them.

If you choose to be looking for something, you'd better be ready for whatever it is you are find. Because it may not be what you've been expecting.

Betrayal was a stone beneath a mattress of thr bed you shared, something you felt digging into you no matter how you shifted position. What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

You always knew after shitty things happened, who your friends really were.

When you can not find someone, it is because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere

I know what it's like when the things you believe make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.

I'm weird. Everyone says so.

When she smiles, it feels like the first warm day of March-- after an eternity of snow, when you suddenly remember how summer feels on the backs of your bare calves & in the part of your hair.

You figured that the only way I'd be happy is if I did the things you thought would be best for me.