Quotes from Jodi Picoult

If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?

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

Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.

I, um, I have this problem. I broke up with my boyfriend, you see. And I'm pretty upset about it, so I wanted to talk to my best friend. [...] The thing is, they're both you.

It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out.

You know someone's right for you when the things they don't have to say are even more important than the things they do.

I was one of the first authors to have an active website. I'm totally obsessed with technology. I'm always looking for ways to connect with my readers. I answer all my fan mail.

I have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.

words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.

How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?

People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.

I know that books I have written will still resonate in 50 years - particularly 'My Sister's Keeper.' It has sold three million copies in the States alone. I strongly feel that, as a novelist, you have a platform and the ability to change people's minds.

Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch 'American Idol' and video their children's concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do.

Everyone thinks you make mistakes when you're young. But I don't think we make any fewer when we're grown up

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately, I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?

There's that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success.

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

She was all the things I wasn't. And i was all the things she wasn't. she could paint circles around anyone; I couldn't even draw a straight line. She was never into sports; I've always been. Her hand, it fit mine.

and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.

When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.

He laughs, in the way that I have come to admire–as if there are no fences holding him back, as if pure glee could paint all the walls of the world in a single coat.

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.