Quotes from Jodi Picoult

I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people had children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.

But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.

She understood what it was like to stand right in front of people you loved, even though they could not see you.

What would you do if you only had one day left in this world? Spend it with the people you love? Travel to the far corners of the earth to see as many wonders as possible? Eat nothing but chocolate? Would you apologize for all your mistakes? Would you stand up to those you'd never had the courage to face? Would you tell your secret crush that you loved him or her? Why is it that we wait till the last minute to do the things we should be doing all along?

I am not a religious man. I have not attended a service for many years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion, you could say, it a nonpractice. I personally feel that it's just as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawns of an elderly neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass. In other words, I think every many finds his own church- and not all of them have four walls - Judge Haig (Page 399)

When you love someone, you don't see parts of him you don't like.

I think that you can love more than one person in a lifetime. There's the one who teaches you what love is, even if it doesn't last. … And then there's the one who makes you a better human than you were, even as you do the same form him. … And then there's the last one ... The one that you never get enough time with. But who sees you through to the end.

eskimos maybe? believed stars were holes in the sky where people who died could peek through at you

You can't be real, Delilah murmurs. Says who? I ask. Did you really think that a story exists only when you're reading it?

But once you throw a stone, there are ripples in the pond, even if you remove the rock.

Coal, with time and heat and pressure, will always become a diamond. But if you were freezing to death, which would you consider the gem?

Being gay or straight," says Elizabeth, "is about who you want to go to bed with. Being trans—or cis—is about who you want to go to bed as.

Envy comes from wanting something that isn't yours, but grief comes from losing something you've already had.

There is no cosmic scale on which you can weigh your actions; you learn too late what choices ruin the fragile balance.

She was forced to consider the startling fact that the love of her life might not actually be someone with whom she could spend a lifetime.

He knew that there was a difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn't make you unhappy. The trick was convincing yourself these were one and the same.

An apology with a defense built in isn't much of an apology

That's the crazy thing about lies. You start to fall for them, yourself.

newborns reminded her of tiny buddhas

I have loved before, but it didn't feel like this. I have kissed before, but it didn't burn me alive. Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it's an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that, even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever.

It was nice not having to be the one in control, for a little while. It was nice to be the one who was protected, instead of the one who'd been protecting eveyone else.

As Lacy waited for her turn to speak on Peter's behalf, she thought back to the first time she realized she could hate her own child.

Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your life was just going to be a series of days that were all the same, that were do-overs?

If it is possible to die of grief then why on earth can't someone be healed by happiness?