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. Jodi Picoult More Quotes by Jodi Picoult More Quotes From Jodi Picoult At 17, the smallest crises took on tremendous proportions; someone else's thoughts could take root in the loam of your own mind; having someone accept you was as vital as oxygen. Adults, light years away from this, rolled their eyes and smirked and said, 'This too shall pass' - as if adolescence was a disease like chicken pox, something everyone recalled as a milk nuisance, completely forgetting how painful it had been at the time. Jodi Picoult oxygen light eye It's disappointing to know that someone can see right through you. Jodi Picoult disappointing knows Things had a way of working out for the best when you let them run their course. Jodi Picoult work-out running way It's choice that makes us human. Jodi Picoult choices humans What if love wasn't the act of finding what you were missing but the give-and-take that made you both match? Jodi Picoult sweet-love missing giving You can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong. Jodi Picoult hard stills believe I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own? Jodi Picoult what-matters opinion matter Whether or not you believe in Fate comes down to one thing: who do you blame when something goes wrong. Jodi Picoult blame fate believe When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there. Jodi Picoult awake needs I have never fit into this town, this marriage, this skin. I am the child who was picked last to play tag; I am the girl who laughed although she did not get the joke; I am the piecemeal part of you that you pretend doesn't exist, except it is all I am, all the time. Jodi Picoult girl play children In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn; color your hair; watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five. In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world; or you can just jump off it. Jodi Picoult hockey color hair You don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you? Jodi Picoult like-you water needs He began to trace a pattern on the table with the nail of his thumb. "She kept saying she wanted to keep things exactly the way they were, and that she wished she could stop everything from changing. She got really nervous, like, talking about the future. She once told me that she could see herself now, and she could also see the kind of life she wanted to have - kids, husband, suburbs, you know - but she couldn't figure out how to get from point A to point B. Jodi Picoult husband talking kids Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or – in this case – feared might come to pass passed by instead. Jodi Picoult what-if cases might I am Alice in Wonderland', Josie thought. 'Watch me fall. Jodi Picoult wonderland watches fall I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry. Jodi Picoult empathy cry daughter I know better than most people that a criminal isn't always a thug in a black leather jacket with a big brand on his forehead to warn us away. Criminals sit next to us on the bus. They pack our groceries and cash our paychecks for us and teach our children. They look no different from you or me. And that's why they get away with it. Jodi Picoult leather-jackets thug children Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his infant; the rapist who was sexually abused as a child; the kidnapper who truly believed he was saving a life. And just because you break the law doesn't mean you have intentionally crossed the line into evil. Sometimes the line creeps up on you, and before you know it, you're standing on the other side. Jodi Picoult law mean children How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home? Jodi Picoult rain home hair I, um, I have this problem. I broke up with my boyfriend, you see. And I'm pretty upset about it, so I wanted to talk to my best friend. [...] The thing is, they're both you. Jodi Picoult my-boyfriend upset love