Jodi Picoult

“All I’m saying is that the past is nothing but a springboard for the future.”

“A jewel's just a rock put under enormous heat and pressure.”

“Inside each of us is a monster; inside each of us is a saint. The real question is which one we nurture the most, which one will smite the other.”

“I don't believe in God. But sitting there, in a room full of those who feel otherwise, I realize that I do believe in people. In their strength to help each other, and to thrive in spite of the odds, I believe that the extraordinary trumps the ordinary, any day. I believe that having something to hope for -- even if it's just a better tomorrow -- is the most powerful drug on this planet.”

“If history has a habit of repeating itself, doesn't someone have to stay behind to shout out a warning?”

“I believe in Hell...but it's here on earth." He shakes his head. "Good people and bad people. As if it were this easy. Everyone is both of these at once.”

“Each memory is like a paper flower stowed up a magician's sleeve: invisible one moment and then so substantial and florid the next I cannot imagine how it stayed hidden all this time. And like those paper flowers, once they've been let loose in the world, the memories are impossible to tuck away again.”

“People have to experience things that terrify them. If they don't, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?”

“I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now...if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.”

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

“It turns out that sharing the past with someone is different from reliving it when you’re alone. It feels less like a wound, more like a poultice.”

“It doesn't matter what it is that leaves a hole inside you. It just matters that it’s there.”

“If you've lived through it, you already know there are no words that will ever come close to describing it, and if you didn't - you will never understand.”

“Her voice was caught in the shell of my ear, as if it were the ocean.”

“The ability to find sparks may be buried so deep in you that you stop believing there's a God. Until someone comes along, with so much light in her that you can't help but see your own, and when you're together,that light grows even brighter.”

“She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting.”

“The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over.”

“She knows the truth can cause a sharp pain behind your eyes and that love sometimes feels like a fist around your throat.”

“Мълчанието е просто по-тих начин да се лъже.”

“I eat kung pao chicken like it's going out of style, but I'm pretty sure I don't have an Asian cell in my body. I love Toni Morrison novels although I'm not black. I'm straight and I'm happily married. The reason I work here is because I think you deserve that, too.”

“He couldn't live a life worth saving, and he couldn't save a life worth living.”

“Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.”

“Tutoring a four year old to get into an exclusive preschool made as much sense as hiring a swim coach for a guppy.”

“You don't make peace only with G-d. You make it with people. Sin isn't global. It's personal. If you do wrong to someone, the only way to fix that is to go to that same person and do right by him.”

“Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We all tell them. Sometimes,because we hope to entertain. Sometimes,because we need to distract. And sometimes, because we have to.”

“It does'nt matter who forgives you, if you're the one who can't forget.”

“The only person who suffers, when you squirrel alway all that hate, is you.”

“Nobody, who looks at a shard of flint lying beneath a rock ledge, or who finds a splintered log by the side of the road would ever find magic in their solitude. But in the right circumstances, if you bring them together, you can start a fire that consumes the world.”

“I realize i do believe in people. In their strength to help each other, and to thrive in spite of the odds. I believe that the extraordinary trumps the ordinary,any day. I believe that having something to hope for-even if its just a better tomorrow-is the most powerful drug on this planet.”

“The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.”

“History isn't about dates and places and wars. It's about the people who fill the spaces between them.”

“Daddy, you would say, look at my braids. Look at the worst bug bite ever. Look at my handstand, my eggroll dive, my finger painting. Look at my splinter, my spelling list, my somersault, the toad I found. Look at the present I made you, the grade I got, the acceptance letter. Look at the diploma, the ultrasound, your granddaughter. I couldn’t possibly remember all the things you’ve asked me to look at. I just remember that you asked.”

“So you see, the real question isn't how I left this world to go to the woods.It's how I made myself come back.”

“The crisis might be what sticks in my mind, but the in-between moments are the ones I would not have missed for the world.”

“I pick up a pen and start to unscrew the whole thing, pull out the skinny little tube of blue ink. It would be so cool to have one of these built inside you, like a squid; you could point your finger and leave your mark on anything you wanted.”

“With my heart racing, I ran in the other direction; leaving the rest of this rescue to people who actually want to be heroes.”

“I hadn't been thinking, actually. I was just trying to get to a place where I'd be noticed.”

“My father looked right at me, but he didn't answer. And his eyes were dazed and staring through me, like I was made out of smoke.That was the first time I thought that maybe I was.”

“There are some nights when you just want to know there's someone else besides you in this wide world.”

“Don't say it. Don't say nobody's going to stare at me, because they will. Don't tell me it doesn't matter because it does. And don't tell me I look fine because that's a lie. I'm a freak, Mom. Look at me.”

“Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas--a whole grammar made of light, for words to hard to speak.”

“I'd try to stuff myself into one of these scenarios, but it's like wearing a size five sneaker when your foot is a seven--you can get by for a few steps, and then you sit down and pull off the shoe because it just plain hurts too much.”

“I find myself staring at the goldfish. Bright as a penny, he swims in circles, happy to be going nowhere.”

“Just so you know," I begin, "when they say 'Once upon a time'... they're lying. It's not once upon a time. It's not even twice upon a time. It's hundreds of times, over and over, every time someone opens up the pages of this dusty old book.”

“She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me?”

“Who spit in your porridge?”

“Maybe the reason I've never died in this story is that I've never had something worth dying for before.”

“Talking out loud to fictional characters is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“You may be real, but you're still stuck in a book.”

“In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.”