Jodi Picoult

“Everything you said, Ellie, it's true. I should be very angry. I was, for a time, but now I'm not. Now I've gotten past my own selfishness to where I've got to help her. See, when you're Plain, you don't put yourself forward. You just don't do it, because that would be Hochmut–puffing yourself up–and the truth is there's always others more important than you. So Katie, when she hears others telling lies about her and this baby, she won’t want to fight back, or stand up for herself. I am here to stand up for her.”

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

“...cool and nonchalant, like none of this mattered anyway. Is that what guys really wanted? Or was it just what the girls thought the guys wanted?”

“Add love, and a person might do something crazy. Add love, and all the lines between right and wrong were bound to disappear.”

“I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However, I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship may be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one of these is better that the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together. Your love, I mean, and your life.”

“Can't you hear it?" you said. "When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.”

“It’s funny how when you are dying, you still fight for the upper hand. You want to pick the terms; you want to choose the date. You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.”

“Your problem is that you have been too honest for too long. Once you start doing it, lying is simpler than breathing.”

“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.”

“There's a problem with wounded birds. Either they fly away from you one day, or else they never get better. They stay hurt no matter what you do”

“There are kinds of pain that you can't speak out loud.”

“She thought of death like the seam of a hem: each time you lose someone close, it unraveled a little. You could still go along with your life, but you'd be forever tripping over something you previously took for granted.”

“It's also worth noting that, when you meet someone, you never ask if he's right- or left-handed. After all: Does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?”

“never trust a man who wears a pinkie ring. . . the only jewelry a guy should wear is a wedding band or a super bowl ring”

“I'm the kind of person you want to kill.”

“I asked her sister for a cell number, at least, but something tells me that 401-GO2-HELL is out of service.”

“I used to have pink hair," I told Seven."I used to have a real job," he answered."What happened?"He shrugged. "I dyed my hair pink. What happened to you?”

“You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied.Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.”

“The jury is supposed to be twelve peers, but technically that would mean every single person on the jury should have Asperger's syndrome, because then they'd really understand me.”

“You want to know what I want? I'm sick of being a guinea pig. I'm sick, but I'm never f*cking sick enough for this family.”

“I think about following her, but I want to give Zoe a minute alone with her mother. I want them to have the shift and redistribution of their relationship that I never got to have with my own mom, that acrobatic feat of love where everything is turned upside down and yet they are both still able to keep their balance.”

“An item that looks perfectly normal on the surface might only be disguised.”

“Love is not an equation, as your father once wanted me to believe. It's not a contract, and it's not a happy ending. It is the slate under the chalk and the ground buildings rise from and the oxygen in the air. It is the place I come back to, no matter where I've been headed.”

“Life could take on any number of shapes while you were busy fighting your own demons. But if you were changing at the same rate as the person beside you, nothing else really mattered. You became each other's constant.”

“She wondered how trees became petrified, if the same process worked with a human heart.”

“I mean, who the hell has a turret on their house, besides Rapunzel?”

“Can you tell me what it means to waive your rights?"I hold my breath as Jacob hesitates. And then slowly, beautifully, the right fist he's been banging against the wooden railing unfurls and is raised over his head, moving back and forth like a metronome.”

“Jacob’s concept: The concept of Asperger’s is like a flavoring added to a person and although my concentration is higher than those of others, if tested everyone would have traces of this condition too.”

“Las cosas existen mientras haya quien que las recuerde.”

“Cuando eres adolescente no eres intocable. Eres estúpido.”

“Si le das el corazón a alguien y luego muere, ¿se lo lleva consigo?”

“un arma no era nada si no había una persona detrás.”

“con su visión recuperada, bajaba los ojos para no tener que ver.”

“tal vez las cosas malas suceden porque es la única forma de que sigamos recordando cómo deberían ser las buenas.”

“Si no corregimos la dirección en la que vamos, acabaremos en el lugar de donde venimos.”

“It’s the Lord’s will,” she said quietly. “You get through it. You just never get over it.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Brianna says.“I’m gonna miss you too, baby,” Angelo murmurs.For Pete’s sake. It’s not like she’s leaving on a trip around the world. She’s only headed to homeroom.”

“This must be what an addict feels like, I think, trying to fight the pull of one last, quick read. My fingers itch toward the binding, and finally, with a sigh of regret, I just grab the book and open it, hungrily reading the story.”

“He’s not your typical prince, more like a square peg in a round hole, kind of like me. He’s the sort of guy who wouldn’t mind reading side by side on a date.”

“I’d much rather pretend I’m somewhere else, and any time I open the pages of a book, that happens.”

“I'm weird.Everyone says so.”

“That,” she says, “was never here before.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your life was just going to be a series of days that were all the same, that were do-overs?”

“Here I am, wasting away inside a book I wish I could escape, and all she wants to do is stay in the story. If I could talk to this girl Delilah, I’d ask her why on earth she would ever trade a single second of the world she’s in for the one in which I’m stuck”

“Just so you know, when they say "Once upona time” . . . they’re lying”

“If it is possible to die of grief then why on earth can't someone be healed by happiness?”

“Your mama finds you like that, she's going to pitch a fit." "The only way she'd find out is if you told her I'd come out here with you, and then she'd be too angry at you to yell at me." "Guess we're partners in crime, then.”

“I want her to be safe. I want her to be mine.”

“Campbell" Julia says "Don't do this to me""Do what?""Push me off the same cliff twice”

“I remember my mother telling me that, when she was a little girl in Catholic school, the nuns used to hit her left hand every time she wrote with it. Nowadays, if a teacher did that, she'd probably be arrested for child abuse. The optimist in me wants to believe sexuality will eventually be like handwriting: there's no right or wrong way to do it. We're all just wired differently. It's also worth noting that, when you meet someone, you never bother to ask if he's right or left handed. After all, does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?”