“She understood what it was like to stand right in front of people you loved, even though they could not see you.”

“Until I understood why you didn't cry, even though it hurt: there are kinds of pain you couldn't speak out loud.”

“You can feel people staring: it's like heat that rise from the pavement during summer, like a poker in the small of your back. You don’t have to hear a whisper, either, to know that it’s about you. I use to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they are staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn’t tell. I mean, I was just me. Then one day. When I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did. That was the day I started to believe they might be right.jodi picoult”

“Fumbling in the dark, Josie reached underneath the frame of her bed for the plastic bag she’dstashed-her supply of sleeping pills. She was no better than any of the other stupid people in thisworld who thought if they pretended hard enough, they could make it so. She’d thought that deathcould be an answer, because she was too immature to realize it was the biggest question of all.Yesterday, she hadn’t known what patterns blood could make when it sprayed on a whitewashedwall. She hadn’t understood that life left a person’s lungs first, and their eyes last. She had picturedsuicide as a final statement, a fuck you to the people who hadn’t understood how hard it was for herto be the Josie they wanted her to be. She’d somehow thought that if she killed herself, she’d beable to watch everyone else’s reaction; that she’d get the last laugh. Until yesterday, she hadn’treally understood. Dead was dead. When you died, you did not get to come back and see what youwere missing. You didn’t get to apologize. You didn’t get a second chance.Death wasn’t something you could control. In fact, it would always have the upper hand.”

“People believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what was right in front of their eyes.”

“I used to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they were staring at. I wanted toknow what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first Icouldn’t tell. I mean, I was just me.Then one day, when I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hatedmyself, maybe as much as all of them did.That was the day I started to believe they might be right.”

“It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over. Had I ever really told her that?”