Quotes from Jodi Picoult

You know... how it feels to sit at a bar and not be judged- to just have a drink and let it all hang out. Why can't the church be more like that? Why can't you walk in and say, Oh, God, it's just you. Cool. I can be myself now. Not in a way that ignores our sins- but in a way that makes us accountable for them.

Maybe it was because I wanted to control one part of me that had been uncontrollable, so the rest of me would fall into line.

Fiction is like that, once it is released into the world: contagious, persistent. Like the contents of Pandora's box, a story that's freely given can't be contained anymore. It becomes infectious, spreading from the person who created it to the person who listens, and passes it on.

He was suffering from wanderlust, complicated by the tension of knowing that he was rooted to this town by something as simple as his name.

There's something to be said for being someone's safety zone. Even if, sometimes, it means a kick or a punch or a rush of angry words.

Finding God's grace wasn't like locating missing keys or the forgotten name of a 1940s pinup girl – it was more of a feeling: the sun breaking through an overcast morning, the softest bed sinking under your weight. And, of course, you couldn't find God's grace unless you admitted you were lost.

Most of the time, the words that were not written were the ones you needed the most.

Her best friend is me; her second-best friend is herself.

The problem with marriage - or may be its strength - was that it spanned a distance, and you were never the same person you started out being. If you were lucky, you could still recognize each other years later.

He called dreams a 'royal road' into the unconscious, made up of all forbidden wishes you had and you wished you didn't

She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her.

He knows what will upset me before it even happens and like a superhero, bends the track of the runaway train before it strikes.

At any moment, a person can start over. And that's not half a life, but simply a real one.

I am the kid who played with matches. I used to steal them from the shelf above the refrigerator, take them into my parents' bathroom. Jean Naté Bath Splash ignites, did you know that? Spill it, strike, and you can set fire to the floor. It burns blue, and when the alcohol is gone, it stops.

I guess it's just so I remember where I started.

She is not the child that mirrors me, and yet when you put us side by side, there are definite similarities. It's not in the shape of the mouth but the set of it, the sheer determination that silvers our eyes.

What people said they would do and what people actually did were two very different things.

A child who believed in fairy tales. Not the silly Disney ones your mother read to you, but the ones with blood and thorns, with girls who knew that love could kill you just as often as it could set you free.

He doesn't look people in the eye. He says that's how someone can steal your soul. Amen to that.

I tell myself that I've invited him along to add to the thrill -- one more person who knows only makes it more exciting. But it's really because there are some nights when you just want to know there's someone else besides you in this wide world.

A human heart breaks harder when it's dropped from a greater height.

they accepted any baggage that came with you and made you believe you were more than you actually were

We believe what we want to, what we need to. The corollary is that we choose not to see what we'd rather pretend doesn't exist.

You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. Anna lies down, her head pillowed against my shoulder. Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas—a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.