Quotes from Jodi Picoult

He is dark and quiet and completely different from me, which is exactly why I should put distance between us. But it is also the reason I find him so fascinating.

The adhan," the father explained. "God is great; there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." he looked up at me and smiled. "In Islam, we want the first words a child hears to be a prayer." It seemed absolutely fitting, give the miracle that every baby is. The differences between the Muslim father's request and the request made by Turk Bauer was like the difference between day and night. Between love and hate.

When you're an artist, it's because there's something inside you that you can't keep from spilling out. Maybe it comes in the form of sentences, or a grand jete, or stroke of a paintbrush. The end result can be a million different things. But the seed, it's always the same. It's the emotion there isn't a word for. The feeling that's too big for your body. To show someone your soul, you have to bleed. People who are comfortable, people who are content, they don't create art.

No matter who else is mourning, you're in your own little cell. Even when people try to comfort you, you're aware that now there is a barrier between you and them, made of the horrible thing that happened, that keeps you isolated.

never trust a man who wears a pinkie ring. . . the only jewelry a guy should wear is a wedding band or a super bowl ring

The problem was , you never heard anyone say,wow, check out the brain on that babe.

I hadn't been thinking, actually. I was just trying to get to a place where I'd be noticed.

There was, really, nothing you could use as a blueprint for your life, except your past. There was no starting over. There was only picking up the pieces someone had left behind.

Then Henry speaks again. Did he do it? I turn to him slowly. Does it matter?

He was a detective, but he didn't detect anything. It fell into his lap, already broken, every time.

Asking me to describe my son is like asking me to hold the ocean in a paper cup

I had not asked to be rescued, true, but that did not mean I didn't need saving.

How does someone go from thinking that if he cannot rescue, he must destroy? And do you blame him, or do you blame the folks who should have told him otherwise?

It was like trying to bail out an ocean of water with a teaspoon.

For the first time in my life I begin to understand how a parent my hit a child--it's because you can look into their eyes and see a reflection of yourself that you wish you hadn't.

This is when I realize that Anna has already left the table, and more importantly, that nobody noticed.

For every person you make happy, there's another one you disappoint.

Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There's only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces.

Trixie felt the sting of the skin as it split, the sweet welling rise of blood. It hurt, though not as much as everything else.

What if the one I choose to discount is one who has been truly hurt?

The thing about a mom is that she's always there. She's the one who rubs your back when you have the flu, who manages to notice you have no clean underwear and does your wash for you, who stocks the refrigerator with all the foods you love without having to ask. The thing about a mom is that you never imagine taking care of her, instead of the other way around.

We all have stories we tell ourselves, until we believe them to be true.

But even if every house looked identical-if all the furnishings were the same- it still wouldn't feel like yours. That's because home isn't where you are. It's who you're with.

It's just like nurses in a hospital tend to know more than the doctors most of the time; if you really want to get the answers to a question about court, you should spend more time buttering up the clerks than the judges.