Quotes from Jodi Picoult

whatever does happen the way it's supposed to? You don't plan life, you just do it.

I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture.

There was blood, so much blood that it painted his face and stained his hair. There was blood, so much blood that several moments passed before I recognized my father.

She did not understand this but then there was much in the world she did not understand. Raw love, like raw heartache could blindside you. It could make you forget what you did not know to focus exclusively on those few pieces you could commit to heart.

I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people have children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.

I've got a Don Baylor, J.T. said. California sucks this year. Ralph snickered. I wouldn't use a Baylor card to scrape dog shit off the street.

What if, when I get home, Nicholas is standing on the porch with open arms, willing to pick up where we left off? Can I let myself make the same mistakes all over again?

It seemed to him that if you planted the seed of doubt in people's minds, they were more likely to take a look at new growth and yank it out by its roots as a potential weed, when it could very well have turned into something as harmless as a daisy.

I tell them that there is nothing more selfish than trying to change someone's mind because they don't think like you. Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected. I

I know I told you to go to hell, I say, but I'm glad you ignored me. Delia, that newspaper story-- You know what? I say, trying to keep my voice from breaking. Right now, I don't need a journalist. But I sure could use a friend. He hunches his shoulders. I have references. I offer up the smallest smile, a bridge between us. Actually, I confess, you're the only one who applied.

Could you love someone so much that, even without meaning to, you hurt them?

Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus. —WALLACE STEGNER, THE SPECTATOR BIRD

Jack could feel the fissures beginning even now, the hard shell he'd promised to keep in place so that no one, ever, would get close enough to hurt him again.

It was hard to separate the fact from the fiction...

When was the last time he'd been swallowed whole by love?

The terrible thing about falling in love is that real life always gets in the way.

Words, he knew, could scar.

I was living alone before, Campbell, if that's what you're asking. She looks at me over the edge of her wine glass. How about you? I have six wives, fifteen children, and an assortment of sheep. Her lips curve. People like you always make me feel like I'm underachieving.

I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store—ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-headed babies on their sibling's knees—people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family. Maybe it's not so different from real photos, after all.

Why didn't you tell me? Delia says, stung. Why don't any of us tell you anything? I respond. We love you.

Or in other words: There are no fairy tales in the wild, no Cinderella stories. The lowly wolf that seems to rise to the top of the pack was really an alpha all along.

I meant I like feeling you're mine.

The baby's body lay in a bassinet. He was the size of a half loaf of bread, his bones light as a bird's and stretched with thin skin.

Shooting stars are not stars at all. They're just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on, when we see one, is only a trail of debris.