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 The woman who opens the door has a blue stain on her shirt and dark hair wound into a messy knot and the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. They're pale, like a lioness's, nearly golden, but they also look like they've done their fair share of crying, and we all know that a sky with clouds in it is much more interesting than one that doesn't have any. Jodi Picoult eye dark beautiful Yes, she is." He looks at me, his face carved in pain. "She is dying, Sara. She will die, either tonight or tomorrow or maybe a year from now if we're really lucky. You heard what Dr. Chance said. Arsenic's not a cure. It just postpones what's coming." My eyes fill up with tears. "But I love her," I say, because that is reason enough. Jodi Picoult pain eye years How can you be a survivor, when you can't even remember the war? Jodi Picoult survivor remember war Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I'm wearing will never really fit. Jodi Picoult rip motherhood believe The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark... Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas - a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak. Jodi Picoult rip rain fall Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either. Jodi Picoult pain eye baby I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer. Jodi Picoult sin suffering want There are legions of us, I realized. The mothers who have broken babies, and spend the rest of our lives wondering if we should have spared them. And the mothers who have let their broken babies go, who look at our children and see instead the faces of the ones they never met. Jodi Picoult mother baby children Identification is not the same as knowing someone through and through. Jodi Picoult knowing-someone identification knowing It was one thing to sacrifice your own life for someone else's. It was another thing entirely to bring into the mix a third party - a third party who knew you, who trusted you implicitly. Jodi Picoult third-parties sacrifice party It was always easier for me to show love than to say it. The word reminded me of pralines: small, precious, almost unbearable sweet. I would light up in his presence; I felt like a sun in the constellation of his embrace. But trying to put what I felt for him into words diminished it somehow, like pinning a butterfly under glass, or videotaping a comet. Jodi Picoult butterfly glasses sweet When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were what everyone used; simple syllables couldn't contain something as rare as what I felt for Sean. I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted. Jodi Picoult simple expectations comfort Houses are cellular walls; they keep our problems from bleeding into everyone else's. Jodi Picoult bleeding wall house Maybe I was naïve to think that silence was implicit complacence, instead of a festering question. Maybe I was silly to believe that friends owed each other anything. Jodi Picoult silly believe thinking I felt a splinter of guilt wedge into my heart. Charlotte had hurt me; in return, I'd hurt Rob. Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late we've wounded the people we're trying to protect. Jodi Picoult hurt dark heart Maybe mothers - consciously or subconsciously - repelled their daughters in different ways. Jodi Picoult daughter different mother Sometimes, mothers say and do things that seem like they don't want their kids... but when you look more closely, you realize that they're doing those kids a favor. They're just trying to give them a better life. Jodi Picoult mom mother kids It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from? Jodi Picoult glimpse moments sky Lawyers were notorious for finding cases in the most unlikely places, especially ones with huge potential damagers awards. Jodi Picoult notorious lawyer awards I wondered why the head could move so swiftly while the heart dragged its feet. Jodi Picoult feet heart moving