Quotes from Jodi Picoult

We are so lucky to have our children, even for a little while, but we take them for granted. We make the stupid assumption that as long as we are here, they will be, too, though that's never been part of the contract.

Is it because they are so comfortable, they already know what the other is thinking? Or is it because after a certain point, there is simply nothing left to say?

Keeping a secret isn't always lying. Sometimes it's the only way to protect the person you love.

And I think, not for the first time, that what is immoral is not always wrong.

Does fate ever play by the rules?

There are an endless number of people who have left a love-shaped hole in the heart of someone else. Eventually someone brave and stupid will come along and try to fill that hole. But it never works, and so instead, that selfless soul winds up with a gap in his heart, too. And so on. It's a miracle that anyone survives, when so much of us is missing.

But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?

What's stronger-the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

There was no easy switch that she could flip to stem the flow of feelings, no way to drain the memories that pooled like acid in her stomach because her heart no longer knew what to do with them.

I think...she said finally, that all of us have got our ghosts.

Embarrassment isn't a just cause of action.

Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it.

Turn around, and the people you thought you knew might change. Your little boy might now live half a world away. Your beautiful daughter might be sneaking out at night. Your ex-husband might by dying by degrees. This is the reason that dancers learn, early on, how to spot while doing pirouettes: we all want to be able to find the place where we started.

After fifteen years, love isn't just a feeling," he says. "It's a choice.

Repeat the same action over and over again, and eventually it will feel right. Eventually, there isn't even any guilt.

When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.

I have no idea what Andrew might have done, and I do not ask. She believes that I can fix this, and like always, that's enough to make me think that I can. I'll take care of it,: I say, when what I really mean is: I'll take care of you.

i know what it's like to wake up thinking you will be able to cast the people who play the starring roles in your life, only to realize that you have to watch it from the audience.

The truth has teeth.

Go fuck yourself Judge. Motion denied. answers the judge dryly.

What if what you know isn't what people want to hear?

Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.

Listen," she said. "I may not be what you want right now, but I'm all you've got.

if i have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over - only living with the mistakes you've made. but then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them.