Jodi Picoult: The legal system works really well, if you communicate a...

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.

Jodi Picoult

grew-up way thinking

I have never understood why it is called losing a child. No parent is that careless. We all know exactly where our sons and daughters are; we just don't necessarily want them to be there

Jodi Picoult

daughter children son

Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.

Jodi Picoult

beats expectations way

I used to pretend that I was just passing through this family on my way to my real one.

Jodi Picoult

used real way

I look for places like me: big, hollow, forgotten by most everyone.

Jodi Picoult

bigs forgotten looks

After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.

Jodi Picoult

communicate forgiving way

Is it because they are so comfortable, they already know what the other is thinking? Or is it because after a certain point, there is simply nothing left to say?

Jodi Picoult

certain knows thinking

In my family, we seem to have a tortured history of not saying what we ought to and not meaning what we do.

Jodi Picoult

my-sisters-keeper ought my-family

This is when I realize that Anna has already left the table, and more importantly, that nobody noticed.

Jodi Picoult

my-sisters-keeper realizing tables

It is so easy to presume that while your own world has ground to an absolute halt, so has everyone else's.

Jodi Picoult

halt easy world

There is nothing worse than silence, strung like heavy beads on too delicate a conversation.

Jodi Picoult

beads heavy silence

You okay in there?" "No, I'm hanging from a closet rod.

Jodi Picoult

closets okay

My mother walks forward. She's crying, but there's a smile on her face. For God's sake, is it any wonder I can't ever understand what you people are feeling?

Jodi Picoult

mother feelings people

The bottom line in both cases is that people don't change; that no matter how charming you are and how fiercely you love, you cannot turn a person into something she's not.

Jodi Picoult

lines love-you people

I tell you this as a cautionary tale: beware of getting what you want. It's bound to disappoint you.

Jodi Picoult

disappoint cautionary-tales getting-what-you-want

There'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 Picoult

peers body letting-go

It is so strange, to encounter an ex. It's as if you're in a foreign film, and what you're saying face-to-face has nothing to do with the subtitles flowing beneath you. We are so careful not to touch, although once upon a time, I slept plastered to him in our bed, like lichen on a rock. We are two strangers who knows every shameful secret, every hidden freckle, every fatal flaw in each other.

Jodi Picoult

rocks once-upon-a-time two

But there's an enormous difference between an audience that's watching you because they can't wait to see what comes next and an audience that's watching you because they're waiting for you to fail.

Jodi Picoult

next differences waiting

I imagine having that sixth sense, the certainty that what I'm looking for is within reach, even if it's still hidden.

Jodi Picoult

sixth-sense imagine certainty

A world that was crowded with people could still be a very lonely place.

Jodi Picoult

lonely people world

The legal system works really well, if you communicate a certain way. But if you don't, it all goes to Hell in a handbasket really quickly.