1,824 Quotes by Jodi Picoult

Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception.

If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?

If you live in each other's pockets long enough, you're related.

No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it's not gender that makes a family; it's love. You don't need a mother and a father; you don't necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who's got your back.

Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.

You didn't get past something like that, you go through it -- and for that reason alone, I understood more about her than she ever would have guessed.

Turn around, and the people you thought you knew might change. Your little boy might now live half a world away. Your beautiful daughter might be sneaking out at night. Your ex-husband might by dying by degrees. This is the reason that dancers learn, early on, how to spot while doing pirouettes: we all want to be able to find the place where we started.

But even if every house looked identical-if all the furnishings were the same- it still wouldn't feel like yours.That's because home isn't where you are. It's who you're with.

Then Henry speaks again. "Did he do it?"I turn to him slowly. "Does it matter?