1,824 Quotes by Jodi Picoult

Imagine if you were the positive pole of a magnet, and you were told that under no circumstances were you allowed to touch that negative pole that was sucking you in like a black hole. Or if you crawled out of the desert and found a woman standing with a pitcher of ice water, but she held it out of your reach. Imagine jumping off a building, and then being told not to fall. That's what it feels like to want a drink.

I think there are readers out there and I don't think the book is dead. And more importantly I don't think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.

On a shelf above my computer are five letters that spell out W-R-I-T-E. Just in case I forget why I'm there. I also have 'Wonder Woman' paraphernalia from when I wrote five issues of the comic, and pictures of my husband and kids.

It just goes to show you: you can put nine insane miles between you and another person. You can make a vow to never speak his name. You can surgically remove someone from your life. And still, he'll haunt you.

Asking me to describe my son is like asking me to hold the ocean in a paper cup

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

Vengeance was a funny thing: You wanted the satisfaction of knowing it had occurred, but you never wanted to actually hear the words out loud, because then you'd have to admit to yourself that you'd wanted proof, and that somehow made you baser, less civilized.

There's no way to convince her that just because you put half. planet between you and someone else, you can't drive that person out of your thoughts. Believe me. I've tried.

She wondered how many hours it had been since she'd talked out loud. If you didn't use your voice, ever, would it eventually shrivel up and dry away? Was there a natural selection involved in not speaking up?