Quotes from Jodi Picoult

You've seen those pictures of couples kissing in front of a Christmas tree, or clasping hands on their wedding day, or holding a newborn baby between them-a snapshot of joy. But what do you really know about them? Just that at the second the shutter clicked, they loved each other. You have no idea what trials came before, or after. You don't know if one of them cheated, if they grew apart, if a divorce loomed on the horizon. You simply see that in one static moment, they were happy.

A mother has nine months to get used to sharing the space where her heart is; for a father it comes on sudden, like a storm that changes the landscape forever.

You want to know what I want? I'm sick of being a guinea pig. I'm sick, but I'm never f*cking sick enough for this family.

and another claimed it was inherited through a parent who was a carrier of the defective gene. I had always assumed the latter was the case with Claire. After all, surely a child who grew out of grief would be born with a heavy heart.

People had figured out all sorts of ways to make things seem different than they truly were.

a guardian ad litem... GAL is appointed by a court to be a child's advocate during legal proceedings that involve a minor. You don't have to be a lawyer to be trained as a GAL, but you have to have a moral compass and a heart. Which, actually probably renders most lawyers unqualified for the job.

When I was little, the great mystery to me was not how babies were made, but why?

So you see, this is why I never told my story. If you lived through it, you already know there are no words that will ever come close to describing it. And if you didn't, you will never understand.

I believe in love. I think it just hits you and pulls the rug out from underneath you and, like a baby, demands your attention every minute of the day.

I'm afraid that, if I let myself feel ecstatic about being with you, then when you leave me, I won't be able to pull myself back together..

When someone loves you up one side and down the other like that, you make every effort to stick around.

I look for places like me: big, hollow, forgotten by most everyone.

I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere.

I think there are crossroads in our lives when we make grand, sweeping decisions without even realizing it.

In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.

When you are singled out for torture because of your faith, can religion still be a beacon?

Lawyers were notorious for finding cases in the most unlikely places, especially ones with huge potential damagers awards.

The problem is that I'm Josef Weber's friend. but Reiner Hartmann is my enemy. So what do I do, now that they are the same man?

When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own.No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces.

But what if-- I realize that I don't want him to disappear. I may not fully believe he's real; I may not understand why I can hear him speaking to me--but I sort of like it. I like knowing that of all the people in the world, I'm the only one listening to what he has to say. It makes me feel like we've been destined for each other.

If you say the same words over and over, do they become so bleached that there's no color left in them?

I imagine having that sixth sense, the certainty that what I'm looking for is within reach, even if it's still hidden.

To say there had been a loss was ludicrous; one lost a shoe or a set of keys. You did not suffer the death of a child and say there was a loss. There was a catastrophe. A devastation. A hell.

Her voice was caught in the shell of my ear, as if it were the ocean.