Quotes from Jodi Picoult

you never forget your first fall.

But it was like wearing a size five sneakers when your foot is a seven- you can get by for a few steps, and then you set down and pull off the shoes because it just plain much

she didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surplus jacket and combat bots, she did this without apology. It was a great irony that the very fact of a relationship with her would diminish her appeal, that the moment she came to love me back and depend on me as much as I depended on her, she would no longer be a truly independent spirit. No way in hell was I going to be the one to take that quality away from her.

I can give or take elephants; I never can find the cheetah-but the zebras captivate me. They'd be one of the few things that would fit if we were lucky enough to live in a world that's black or white.

She thought of death like the seam of a hem: each time you lose someone close, it unraveled a little. You could still go along with your life, but you'd be forever tripping over something you previously took for granted.

Bleeding heart, he'd called her. Well. He should know. He'd been the first to rip it to pieces.

one day, you turn around, and your baby is a man. One day, you look in the mirror, and see gray hair. One day, you realize there is less of your life left than what you've already lived.

However, no child really chooses his religion; it is just the luck of the draw which blanket of beliefs you are wrapped in.

It is amazing, what you can make yourself believe, when you have to, Josef says. If you keep telling yourself you are a certain kind of person, eventually you will become that person.

History could hover, like a faint perfume or a memory stamped on the back of one's eyelids.

Only the liar knows he's lying

the reason we lose people we care about is so we're more grateful for the ones we still have.

Do you know what it's like to give your whole self to a person, and your whole heart to boot, until you've got nothing left to give-and then realize that it still isn't what they need?

Shelby believed that love was like a solar eclipse - breathtakingly beautiful, absorbing, and capable of rendering you blind. She had not necessarily gone out of her way to avoid a relationship, but she hadn't wanted on either. It was called falling in love for a reason - because, inevitably, you crashed at the bottom.

Edward: Wait--you were trying to hit on me? Susan: Damn straight. Edward: The thing is, I'm not. Straight, I mean.

You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.

If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it

the letters are mixed up. U and I should be together.

it it strange, suddenly having a memory come back out of nowhere. you think you're going crazy; you wonder where this recollection has been hiding all your life. you try to push it away, because you think you've hammered out the whole timeline of your life, but then you see that one extra moment, and suddendly you are breaking apart what you though was a solid segment, and seeing it for what it is: just a string of events, shoulder to shoulder, and a gap where there is room for one more.

Love isn't a perfect match, but an imperfect one. You are rocks in a tumbler. At first you bump, you scrape, you snag. But each time that happens, you smooth each other's edges, until you wear each other down. And if you are lucky, at the end of all that, you fit.

Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected.

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

After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.

Dylan Jerome, the lawyer admits, wanted to sue God for not caring enough about him.