One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence. Jodi Picoult More Quotes by Jodi Picoult More Quotes From Jodi Picoult No, honestly, my mouth shouldn't be able to function unless my brain's engaged. Jodi Picoult able mouths brain Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life. Jodi Picoult adoption inspirational children Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions. Jodi Picoult hope lying reality 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. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to come home to a house that felt too big for us. Jodi Picoult grief mother father Believe me, Being gay is not a choice. Noone would choose to make life harder than it has to be. Jodi Picoult gay choices believe An apology with a defense built in isn't much of an apology Jodi Picoult built apology defense The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers. Jodi Picoult example writing mean It does'nt matter who forgives you, if you're the one who can't forget. Jodi Picoult forgiving matter doe I 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 Picoult publishing process You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride. Jodi Picoult marriage inspirational love Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut. Jodi Picoult growing-up kids thinking Did you ever walk through a room that's packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step? Jodi Picoult next-steps lonely people If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it? Jodi Picoult what-if expectations world Shooting stars are not stars at all. They re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on when we see one is only a trail of debris. Jodi Picoult rocks stars fire When you love someone more than he loves you, you'll do anything to switch the scales. You dress the way you think he'd like you to dress. You pick up his favorite figures of expression. You tell yourself that if you re-create yourself in his image, then he'll crave you in the same way you crave him. Jodi Picoult expression love-you thinking Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always another appointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to be notched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes, and completely forgotten to step back and see what we've accomplished. Jodi Picoult details wall life Relationships always sounded so physically painful: you fell in love, you broke a heart, you lost your head. Was it any wonder that people came through the experience with battle scars? Jodi Picoult love-you heart people A place like this wears down everything, and tolerance is no exception. In here, coexistence passes for forgiveness. You do not learn to like something you abhor; you come to live with it...You live and let live, and eventually that becomes enough. Jodi Picoult live-and-let-live tolerance enough I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people had children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering. Jodi Picoult baby night children I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be. Jodi Picoult mom mother children