Quotes from Jodi Picoult

What twisted deity would grant you the superpower of fatherhood to protect someone who, one day, would not need you?

I believe that there are five things we need to say to people we love before they die, and I give this advice to caregivers: I forgive you. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Goodbye. I tell them that they can interpret those prompts any way they like, and nothing will have been left unsaid.

Your mama finds you like that, she's going to pitch a fit. The only way she'd find out is if you told her I'd come out here with you, and then she'd be too angry at you to yell at me. Guess we're partners in crime, then.

Kai aš buvau vaikas, mano mama man pasak?, kad aš esu mažas gabal?lis dangaus, kuris at?jo ? pasaul?, nes mama ir t?tis j? labai myl?jo! Tik v?liau aš supratau, jog tai nebuvo tiesa.

The first time I read Gone with the Wind and Rhett walked out on Scarlett, I was fifteen and thought all that unrequited love was wildly romantic. The second time I read it, last summer, I thought she was silly and he was a selfish pig.

She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone's expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw on the outside was not what you really were getting. Deep down, she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her.

The loneliest creature on earth is a whale that has spent more than twenty years calling out for a mate, I read, but whose voice is so different from those of other whales that none of them ever respond.

Where is this going to take me? she had asked. And Caleb's answer: Where do you want it to?

We routinely deport hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens every year whose sole offense is that they overstayed a visa or came without the right paperwork—but people who were involved in crimes against humanity get to stay?

My father, a closet astronomer, has tried to explain black holes to me, how they are so heavy they absorb everything, even light, right into their center. Moments like this are the same kind of vacuum; no matter what you cling to, you wind up being sucked in.

Ms. Cormier, who has the right to judge someone else? Well, she said. That depends on whether you're judging in a moral sense or a legal sense. Morally, no one has the right to judge anyone else. But legally, its not a right-it's a responsibility.

Over the years, he's learned empathy the way I might learn Greek, translating an image or situation in the clearinghouse of his mind and trying to attach the appropriate sentiment to it, but never really fluent in the language.

Can't you hear it?' you said. 'When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.

I turn my telescope to Barnards Loop and M42, glowing in Orions sword. Stars are fires that burn for thousands of years. Some of them burn slow and long, like red dwarfs. Others-blue giants-burn their due so fast they shine across great distances, and are easy to see.As they Starr to run out of fuel,they burn helium, grow even hotter, and explode in a supernova. Supernovas, they're brighter than the brightest galaxies. They die, but everyone watches them go.

Don't go fighting my battles for me.

Mistakes are memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you're avoiding them.

The best thing is what you think should be done. The rightest thing is what needs to be done-when you think not just of you and how you feel, but also the extra stuff-who else is involved, and what's happened before, and what the rules say.

There are some weeds that are just as beautiful as flowers.

when you loved someone, you didn't want to be the one who brought their world crashing down.

I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free.

Look at that," Michael said. "My daughter's an hour old and she's already sleeping with some guy.

In my opinion, the very fact that Mark doesn't know this diagnostic criterion suggests that he's a lot closer to actual retardation than I am.

It was like a trapeze act: How could you really tell at what second the acrobat pushed away, at what moment the anchor let go? You couldn't, and that was that. You and your deductions from the outcomeL a successful landing or a spiraling fall.

In the wild, a mother elephant and her daughter will stay together until one or the other dies.