Jodi Picoult

“It struck Lacy that she didn’t really know what color a chameleon was before it started changing”

“Listen,” she said. “I may not bewhat you want right now, but I’m all you’ve got.”

“what made you happy once might not make you happy now.”

“Happiness was relative”

“Lacy truly believed that when you asked a patient How do you feel?, what was wrong wasn’t nearly asimportant as what was right.”

“When the truth came out, and no one wanted tobe around her anymore, it stood to reason Josie wouldn’t want to be around herself either.”

“A trial was a stupid word, consideringthat an attempt was never good enough: you were supposed to toe the line, period.”

“He was a detective, but he didn’t detect anything. It fell into his lap, already broken,every time.”

“Hope, Patrick knew, was the exact measure of distancebetween himself and the person who’d come for help.”

“But there was a part of her that wondered what would happen if she let them all in on the secretthatsome mornings, it was hard to get out of bed and put on someone else’s smile; that she wasstanding on air, a fake who laughed at all the right jokes and whispered all the right gossip andattracted the right guy, a fake who had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real…and who, whenyou got right down to it, didn’t want to remember, because it hurt even more than this.”

“Sometimes Josie thought of her life as a room with no doors and no windows. It was a sumptuousroom, sure-a room half the kids in Sterling High would have given their right arm to enter-but itwas also a room from which there really wasn’t an escape. Either Josie was someone she didn’twant to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted.”

“You can’t undo something that’s happened; you can’t take back a word that’s already been said out loud.”

“Hope was a pathological part of puberty, like acne and surging hormones. You might sound cynical to the world, but that was just a defense mechanism, cover up coating a zit, because it was too embarrassing to admit that in spite of the bum deals you kept getting you hadn't completely given up.”

“His biggest fear was that if and when he did find his missing daughter, she would no longer recognize who he had become in order to save her.”

“The catch was this: Power always involved loss of humanity.”

“The problem was, you couldn't have one without the other. There couldn't be a bad guy unless there was a good guy to create the standard. And there couldn't be a good guy until a bad guy showed just how far off the path he might stray.”

“A villain let your creativity out of its cage.”

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

“Given anything negative or uncertain, there were rules that had to be followed.”

“These days her entire life was about making people believe she was someone she wasn't anymore.”

“Imagine a world that seemed so much bigger than you. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed.”

“A child who suffers from PTSD has made unsuccessful attempts to get help, and as the victimization continues, he stops asking for it. He withdraws socially, because he’s never quite sure when interaction is going to lead to another incident of bullying….Different people have different responses to stress. In Peter’s case, I saw an extreme emotional vulnerability, which, in fact, was the reason he was teased. Peter didn’t play by the codes of boys. He wasn’t a big athlete. He wasn’t tough. He was sensitive. And difference is not always respected – particularly when you’re a teenager. Adolescence is about fitting in, not standing out.”

“After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.”

“And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.”

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

“So you tell me... did this execution really make you feel safer? Did it bring us all closer together? Or did it drive us further apart?”

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

“I used to pretend that I was just passing through this family on my way to my real one.”

“Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.”

“I have never understood why it is called losing a child. No parent is that careless. We all know exactly where our sons and daughters are; we just don't necessarily want them to be there”

“May be there are entire worlds where there are no fences, where feeling bears you like a tide.”

“See, I get a round, hollow spot in my belly knowing I could tell him what's coming, but also knowing it would come out sounding like a warning.”

“I can't answer a single one of these, which is how I know that whether I'm ready or not, I'm growing up.”

“It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.”

“I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.”

“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.”

“Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation., and to others, like a pearl.”

“Knowledge was power, but a good librarian did not hoard the gift. She taught others how to find, where to look, how to see.”

“Because hate's just the flip side of love. Like heads and tails on a dime. If you don't know what it feels like to love someone, how would you know what hate is? One can't exist without the other.”

“You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?... A plan.”

“This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.”

“When I was younger, my brother told me that he had the power to shrink me to the size of an ant. In fact, he said, he used to have another sister, but he shrank her down and stepped on her.He also told me that when you became a grown-up, you were admitted into a private party that was full of monsters and horror movie characters. There was Chucky, drinking a cup of coffee. And the mummy on the cover of the Hardy Boys book that used to freak me out, except he was doing the twist while Jason from 'Friday the 13th' played the alto sax. He told me you stayed at the party as long as you had to, making conversation with these creatures, and that was why adults were never afraid of anything.I used to believe everything my brother told me, because he was older and I figured he knew more about the world. But as it turns out, being a grown-up doesn't mean you're fearless.It just means you fear different things.”

“I wonder if the conversations you've never had with someone count, if you've been over them a thousand times in your mind.”

“When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round. He put me up on one of the wooden horses and he told me the horse was magic, and might turn real right underneath me, but only if I didn't look down. So I didn't. I stared out at the pinwheeling crowd and searched for him. Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of finding Edward.I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over.”

“I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.”

“There's no point in being able to know everything about wolves if you can't teach it to the people who need to learn.”

“There's an honesty to the wolf world that is liberating. There's no diplomacy, no decorum. You tell your enemy you hate him; you show your admiration by confessing the truth. That directness doesn't work with humans, who are masters of subterfuge. Does this dress make me look fat? Do you really love me? Did you miss me? When a person asks this, she doesn't want to know the real answer. She wants you to lie to her. After two years of living with wolves, I had forgotten how many lies it takes to build a relationship.”

“It's like a telescope. My dad, no matter what he's doing, zooms right in so he can't see anything except what's right there with him at that minute. My mom, she's always on wide angle.”

“I didn't think i could possibly love another baby as much as I loved the one I'd already had," I continue. "But the strangest thing happened when I held you for the first time. It was like my heart suddenly unfolded. Like there was this secret space I didn't even know existed, and there was room for both of you." I stare at her. "Once my feelings were stretched like that, there was no going back. Without you, it just would have felt empty.”

“From time to time you'll see documentaries about low-ranked wolves who somehow rise to the top of the pack - an omega that earns a position as an alpha. Frankly, I don't buy it. I think that, in actuality, those documentary makers have misidentified the wolf in the first place. For example, an alpha personality, to the man on the street, is usually considered bold and take-charge and forceful. In the wolf world, though that describes the beta rank. Likewise, an omega wolf - a bottom-ranking, timid, nervous animal - can often be confused with a wolf who hangs behind the others, wary, protecting himself, trying to figure out the Big Picture.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.”