Jodi Picoult: In the English language there are orphans and widows, bu...

I think we deserve a happily-ever-after." "If anyone ever did, it's us.

Jodi Picoult

ever-after ifs thinking

I grew up in a household where we didn't really talk about our feelings, and where the only reason you went to a doctor was because you'd accidentally cut off a limb with a chain saw.

Jodi Picoult

doctors cutting feelings

There are so many things I can't believe. That people deserve what they get, both bad and good. That one day I'll live in a world where people are judged by what they do instead of who they are. That happy endings don't have contingencies and conditions.

Jodi Picoult

one-day believe people

I am not a religious man. I have not attended a service for many years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion, you could say, it a nonpractice. I personally feel that it's just as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawns of an elderly neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass. In other words, I think every many finds his own church- and not all of them have four walls - Judge Haig (Page 399)

Jodi Picoult

wall religious believe

I know that the first person I kissed won't be nearly as important as the last person I kiss.

Jodi Picoult

kissing lasts important

Ask 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 Picoult

struggle math kids

As it turned out, though, it was a lot easier to say that someone deserved to die for what they did than it was to take the responsibility to make that happen.

Jodi Picoult

easier responsibility happens

The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can change. It's always easier to go along with the way things are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first place.

Jodi Picoult

might believe world

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

Jodi Picoult

understood fronts people

The world is a place where the extraordinary can sit just beside the ordinary with the thinnest of boundaries; that even in environments inhospitable to man, all sort of entities might thrive.

Jodi Picoult

ordinary men world

Ross was a firm believer that you could not force circumstance. You could buckle your seat belt, but still crash the car. You could throw yourself in front of an oncoming train, but somehow survive. You could wait for years to find a ghost, and then have one sneak up on you when you were too busy falling in love with a woman to pay attention. To that end, he made the conscious decision to stop waiting for Lia. When he least expected her, that was when she would show up.

Jodi Picoult

car falling-in-love years

How could you beat an enemy you couldn't see?

Jodi Picoult

beats enemy

He gently touched his mother's cheek, felt her sorrow slip over his fingertips.

Jodi Picoult

fingertips sorrow mother

Once, I asked my mom why stars shine. She said they were night-lights, so the angels could find their way around in Heaven. But when I asked my dad, he started talking about gas, and somehow I put it all together and figured that the food God served caused multiple trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Jodi Picoult

dad stars mom

Suddenly, I don't want to be this person anymore. I don't want to pretend I'm fooling the world when I'm not. I want someone else to have a plan for me, because I'm not doing a very good job myself.

Jodi Picoult

want jobs world

I wish I could tell him I understand: the higher you raise your hopes, the farther you have to fall.

Jodi Picoult

raises wish fall

He 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 Picoult

distance different dark

As anyone who's ever contracted it knows, lies are an infectious disease. They slip under the almond slivers of your fingernails and into your bloodstream.

Jodi Picoult

almonds disease lying

And in general, the residents of the town wondered why they all felt hollow just beneath the throat, the result of missing something they had never been able to name in the first place.

Jodi Picoult

able missing names

Words, for all they were flimsy and invisible, had great strength. They could be fortified as a castle wall and sharp as a foil. They could bite, slap, shock, wound. But unlike deeds, words couldn't really help you. No promise ever rescued a person; it was the carrying-through of it that brought about salvation.

Jodi Picoult

castles wall promise

In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who loses a child.