I can get 400 pages down the road and still not know the answer. What I do know is that I have really examined every facet of the situation, and I may not have changed my opinion but I have definitely forced myself to explore why it's my opinion.
Jodi PicoultHe is dark and quiet and completely different from me, which is exactly why I should put distance between us. But it is also the reason I find him so fascinating.
Jodi PicoultWitness testimony is always flawed. It's better than circumstantial evidence, sure, but people aren't camcorders; they don't record every action and reaction, and the very act of remembering involves chosing words, actions and images. In other words, any witness who was supposed to be giving a court facts is really just giving them a version of fiction.
Jodi PicoultI believe that having something to hope for - even if it's just a better tomorrow- is the most powerful drug on this planet.
Jodi PicoultDr. Keller begins pacing. "I don't think we've been hearing Faith just right. Her guard...the words..they sound alike." What do you mean?" Your daughter," Dr. Keller says flatly. "I think she's seeing God.
Jodi PicoultIt took me a lifetime to realizethings don't get lost if they don't have value- you don't miss what you don't care about.
Jodi PicoultChicken,' Josie said. 'Have you ever been in love?' Peter looked at Josie, and thought of how they had once tied a note with their addresses to a helium balloon and let it go in her backyard, certain it would reach Mars. Instead, they had received a letter from a widow who lived two blocks away. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I think so.
Jodi PicoultIn the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.
Jodi PicoultKid says to me, "You play baseball? What position? Left out?" and gets a big laugh from the rest of the class. Kid is only one person out of 6.792 billion humans on this planet. This planet is only one-eighth of the solar system, whose sun is one of two billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Put it that way, the comment loses it's importance.
Jodi PicoultThere were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?
Jodi PicoultShe stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.
Jodi PicoultOnce upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn't.' You looked at me. 'Your turn.' I rolled my eyes. 'The strong sister went outside into the rain and realized the reason she was strong was because she was made out of iron, but it was raining and she rusted. The end.' No, because the sister who wasn't strong went outside into the rain when it was raining, and hugged her really tight until the sun came out again.
Jodi PicoultYou 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?
Jodi PicoultDon't pay back in kind, pay back in kindness. If someone does wrong by you, do right by them.
Jodi PicoultAsk a kid who's struggling in math if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he feels like a moron. Ask the math genius if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he's sick of doing all the work during group projects. Sometimes, it's better to sort like with like.
Jodi PicoultHere'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 PicoultThe nurses, I have already learned, are the ones who give us the answers we’re desperate for. Unlike the doctors, who fidget like they need to be somewhere else, the nurses patiently answer us as if we are the first set of parents to ever have this kind of meeting with them, instead of the thousandth.
Jodi PicoultOnce you call something a story, it's set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can't be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it's not the same story anymore
Jodi PicoultThere had been so many easy words between them that Daniel was guilty of nodding every now and then and tuning out the excess. He hadn't known, at the time, that he should have been hoarding these, like bits of sea glass hidden in the pocket of a winter coat to remind him that once it had been summer.
Jodi PicoultYou would be surprised at the lengths you will go to believe the best about someone if you truly love him
Jodi PicoultHow do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?
Jodi PicoultYou came back fighting and furious at me. You told me you'd been looking for mermaids, and I interrupted you. [...] I said that next time, you had to take me with you." "Was there a next time?" "Well, you tell me, you don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you?
Jodi PicoultShe suddenly remembered studying the brain in science class- how a steel rod pierced a man's skull, and he opened his mouth to speak Portuguese, a language he'd never studied. Maybe it would be like this, now, for Josie. Maybe her native tongue, from here on in, would be a string of lies.
Jodi PicoultEverytime I look at a zebra, I can't figure out whether it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and that frustrates me.
Jodi PicoultI consider myself spiritual and I'm married to a man who is both an atheist and a humanist, and my kids have been raised with the traditions of different religions, but they do not go to church or temple. My feeling is that everyone should be able to believe what they want or need to believe.
Jodi Picoultif you think of a relationship as a living entity, I guess it's one thing if the missing two percent is, like, a fingernail. But when it's the heart, that's a whole different ball of wax.
Jodi PicoultI have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.
Jodi PicoultEvery year I tell myself that I’m not going to read any reviews and then I do. We’re all human and when I read something negative it hurts. I think when you write it’s part of the game, you’re going to get some good reviews and some bad reviews and that’s how it goes. I don’t write for the reviews.
Jodi PicoultThere's a cliff at the end point of a person's life; most us of peer over the edge of it, hanging on. That's why, when someone chooses to let go, it's so dramatically visible. The body will seem almost transparent. The eys will be looking at something the rest of us can't see.
Jodi PicoultAll teenagers knew this was true. The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face. For years, parents tell you that you can be anything, have anything, do anything. That was why she'd been so eager to grow up-until she got to adolescence and hit a big fat wall ofreality. As it turned out, she couldn't have anything she wanted. You didn't get to be pretty or smart or popular just because you wanted it. You didn't control your own destiny, you were too busy trying to fit in.
Jodi PicoultCan 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?
Jodi Picoult