Jodi Picoult Quotes - Page 2

It's raining.the kind of rain that comes down so heavy it sounds like the shower's running, even when you've turned it off. The kind of rain that makes you think of dams and flash floods, arks. The kind of rain that tells you to crawl back into bed, where the sheets haven't lost your body heat, to pretend that the clock is five minutes earlier than it really is.Ask any kid who's made it past fourth grade and they can tell you: water never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The river finds it way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds. And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.
Jodi Picoult
When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.
Jodi Picoult
Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.
Jodi Picoult
They look up at me and see a rich lady in maternity clothes. They don't realize I am one of them.
Jodi Picoult
McAfee, I could try this case in my sleep and still win.""Guess that's your plan, then, since you're clearly dreaming.
Jodi Picoult
When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay.
Jodi Picoult
I love the way he smelled whenever his head dipped close to hear what I was saying—like the sun striking th cheek of a tomato, or soap drying in the hood of a car. I loved the way his hand felt on my spine. I loved.
Jodi Picoult
What I want, more than anything, is to turn back time a little. To become the kid I used to be, who believed whatever my mother said was one hundred percent true and right without looking hard enough to see the hairline cracks.
Jodi Picoult
People believe in God because they don't have any other explanation for things that happen.
Jodi Picoult
When you get down to it, though, explaining what you believe isn't all that easy. If you say that you believe something to be true, you might mean one of two things—that you're still weighing the alternatives, or that you accept it as a fact. I don't logically see how one single word can have contradictory definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand. Because there are times I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess myself every step of the way.
Jodi Picoult
Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed--comfort food for your nose.
Jodi Picoult
Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.
Jodi Picoult
If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?
Jodi Picoult
I know you love me. The question is, how much?
Jodi Picoult
My mother used to say that sometimes if you turn a tragedy over in your hand, you can see a miracle running through it, like fool's gold in the hardest shard of rock.
Jodi Picoult
All it takes is a second and your whole life can get turned upside down.
Jodi Picoult
I think there are two different oceans - the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter.
Jodi Picoult
Skin color doesn't make you different," Melody said. "We're all the same on the inside."The only people who ever say that," Raymond replied, "are white.
Jodi Picoult
Skin color doesn't make you different,' Melody said. 'We're all the same on the inside.' 'The only people who ever say that,' Raymon replied, 'are white.
Jodi Picoult
What if, ladies and gentlemen, today I told you that anyone here who was born on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday was free to leave right now? Also, they'd be given the most central parking spots in the city, and the biggest houses. They would get job interviews before others who were born later in the week, and they'd be taken first at the doctor's office, no matter how many patients were waiting in line. If you were born from Thursday to Sunday, you might try to catch up – but because you were straggling behind, the press would always point to how inefficient you are. And if you complained, you'd be dismissed for playing the birth-day card.” I shrug. “Seems silly, right? But what if on top of these arbitrary systems that inhibited your chances for success, everyone kept telling you that things were actually pretty equal?
Jodi Picoult
Did you ever think our misfortune is directly related to your good fortune? Maybe the house your parents bought was on the market because the sellers didn't want my mama in the neighborhood. Maybe the good grades that eventually led you to law school were possible because your mama didn't have to work eighteen hours a day, and was there to read to you at night, or make sure you did your homework. How often do you remind yourself how lucky you are that you own your house, because you were able to build up equity through generations in a way families of color can't? How often do you open your mouth at work and think how awesome it is that no one's thinking you're speaking for everyone with the same skin color you have? How hard is it for you to find the greeting card for your baby's birthday with a picture of a child that has the same color skin as her? How many times have you seen a painting of Jesus that looks like you? Prejudice goes both ways, you know. There are people who suffer from it, and there are people who profit from it.
Jodi Picoult
Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't blame them. It's superstition: If you give assistance to the family in need... if you throw salt over your shoulder... if you don't step on the cracks, then maybe you'll be immune. Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that this could never happen to you.
Jodi Picoult
...one half leaning in, one half pulling away.
Jodi Picoult
Repeat the same action over and over again, and eventually it will feel right. Eventually, there isn't even any guilt.
Jodi Picoult
On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.
Jodi Picoult
Our culture promotes individuality, while the Amish are deeply entrenched in community. To us, if someone stands out, it's no big deal because diversity is respected and expected. To the Amish, there's no room for deviation from the norm. It's important to fit in, because that similarity of identity is what defines the society. If you don't fit in, the consequences are psychological tragic, you stand alone when all you've ever known is being part of the group.
Jodi Picoult
When you have been burned by fire once, you don't leap into the flames again.
Jodi Picoult
See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory thatsomeone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of livingis a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one dayyou look down and see how much pain has eroded.
Jodi Picoult
Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.
Jodi Picoult
I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.
Jodi Picoult
You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.
Jodi Picoult
Whether it was power they sought, or revenge, or love-well, those were all just different forms of hunger. The bigger the hole inside you, the more desperate you became to fill it.
Jodi Picoult
When you begin a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yourself.
Jodi Picoult
Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reason you can watch him shatter a ceramic lamp, and still remember him as an angel.
Jodi Picoult
I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.
Jodi Picoult
Maybe mothers - consciously or subconsciously - repelled their daughters in different ways.
Jodi Picoult
In my previous life I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be- but that was before I'd been handed a fistful of crushed violets from a toddler. Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art.
Jodi Picoult
Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either.
Jodi Picoult
Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I'm wearing will never really fit.
Jodi Picoult
There are legions of us, I realized. The mothers who have broken babies, and spend the rest of our lives wondering if we should have spared them. And the mothers who have let their broken babies go, who look at our children and see instead the faces of the ones they never met.
Jodi Picoult
Here's what I hadn't realized: the mother you haven't seen for almost thirty-six years isn't your mother, she's a stranger. Sharing DNA doesn't make you fast friends. This wasn't a joyous reunion. It was just awkward.
Jodi Picoult
Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.
Jodi Picoult
if you were quiet and blended into the background, you were less likely to make waves
Jodi Picoult
Do you have kids?" Anna asks.I laugh. "What do you think?""It's probably a good thing," she admits. "No offense, but you don't exactly look like a parent."That fascinates me. "What do parents look like?"She seems to think about this. "You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.
Jodi Picoult
Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up.
Jodi Picoult
Listen, I would say, this is not how I thought our lives would go; and maybe we cannot find our way out of this alley. But there is no one I'd rather be lost with.
Jodi Picoult
I suddenly remember being about seven, riding beside him in the car, and asking him how grown-ups found their way to places. After all, I had never seen him pull out a map."I guess we just get used to taking the same turns," he said, but I wasn't satisfied."Then what about the first time you go somewhere?""Well," he said, "we get directions."But what I want to know is who got them the very first time? What if no one's ever been where you're going? "Dad?" I ask, "is it true that you can use stars like a map?""Yeah, if you understand celestial navigation.""Is it hard?" I'm thinking maybe I should learn. A backup plan, for all those times I feel like I'm just wandering in circles."It's pretty jazzy math—you have to measure the altitude of a star, figure out its position using a nautical almanac, figure out what you think the altitude should be and what direction the star should be in based on where you think you are, and compare the altitude you measured with the one you calculated. Then you plot this on a chart, as a line of position. You get several lines of position to cross, and that's where you go." My father takes one look at my face and smiles. "Exactly," he laughs. "Never leave home without your GPS.
Jodi Picoult
Listen, I would say, this is not how I thought our lives would go; and may be we cannot find our way out of this alley. But there is no one I'd rather be lost with.
Jodi Picoult
Neither of us, it turns out, has been the only one who lost someone she loved.
Jodi Picoult
They don't like the thought of someone else making demands on the person whom they see as belonging entirely to them.
Jodi Picoult
You," Seven pronounced, "are a train wreck of sexual history."But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, I'll jump in front of the tracks. I'll even tie myself down in front of the speeding engine. There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.
Jodi Picoult
There was no black or white. Someone who had been good her entire life could, in fact, do something evil. People were just as capable of committing murder, under the right circumstances, as any monster.
Jodi Picoult
Stupid English.""English isn't stupid," I say."Well, my English teacher is." He makes a face. "Mr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he won't let me.""Why not?""He says lunch isn't a subject."I glance at him. "It isn't.""Well," Jacob says, "it's not a predicate, either. Shouldn't he know that?
Jodi Picoult
Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.
Jodi Picoult
You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.
Jodi Picoult
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.
Jodi Picoult
I have a sister, so I know-that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want your sibling to have exactly what you have-the same amount of toys, the same number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. It's bigger than words.
Jodi Picoult
When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again, yet after having given birth you realize that the biggest part of you is now somehow external, subject to all sorts of dangers and disappearance, so you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to keep it close enough for comfort. That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one.
Jodi Picoult
Maybe a mother wasn't what she seemed to be on the surface.
Jodi Picoult
The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.
Jodi Picoult