Jodi Picoult quote: "It feels like we are sitting on the tight bench of a bus with a stranger between us, one that neither of us is willing to admit or mention, and so we find ourselves talking around him and through him and sneaking glances when the other one isn't looking."

There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition...
JODI PICOULT

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first gla...
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I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has its own zip code...You do...
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What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on...
JODI PICOULT

You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank p...
JODI PICOULT

Embarrassment isn't a just cause of action.
JODI PICOULT

(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.
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The apple . . . came before Adam and Eve in the story of creation. It had to have been there at leas...
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Fuck them all. I ought to have that tattooed on my forehead, for all the times I've thought it. Usua...
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In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who lose ...
JODI PICOULT

I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover...
JODI PICOULT

It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened whe...
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You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone f...
JODI PICOULT

If his voice hasn't been the melody of my life, it's been the bass line, so subtle you don't notice ...
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If you didn't remember something happening, was it because it never had happened? Or because you wis...
JODI PICOULT

Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far.
JODI PICOULT

Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and ...
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I have a sister, so I know-that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want your sibling to have...
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If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even...
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Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the...
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Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.
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if there isn’t a them, there can’t be an us.
JODI PICOULT

It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that did...
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It was the first time she'd discovered something she really didn't want to find, and she didn't know...
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and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with...
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If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of ...
JODI PICOULT

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.
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Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewi...
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There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. ...
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Shooting stars are not stars at all. They re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire und...
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I didn't want to see her because it would make me feel better. I came because without her, it's hard...
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If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s be...
JODI PICOULT

There are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there's som...
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A real friend isn't capable of feeling sorry for you.
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Do you know how sometimes - when you are riding your bike and you start skidding across sand, or whe...
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You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you ...
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See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you ...
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Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.
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I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.
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It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have, we rarely get.
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It's disappointing to know that someone can see right through you.
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Until this moment, I had not realized that someone could break your heart twice, along the very same...
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There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up cr...
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It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.. A girl who may not know what she wants ri...
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true love is felonious… You take someone’s breath away… You rob them of the ability to utter a...
JODI PICOULT

Sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.
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It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.
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The bottom line is that we never fall for the people we're supposed to.
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I'm lonely. Why do you think I had to learn to act so independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I...
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Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.
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Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expe...
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Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy...
JODI PICOULT

You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your fu...
JODI PICOULT

I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but sometimes, that's the only way to find out the truth.
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When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you ar...
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Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked...
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The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.
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If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that sh...
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Gay teenagers are four times as likely to attempt suicide as straight ones. I wish they knew that th...
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The first question she was asked was What do you do? as if that were enough to define you. Nobody ev...
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They're fake bullets, so why do I feel like Im bleeding out?
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Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing somethin...
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My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to g...
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Most people in America want an easy read. I call it McFiction - books which pass right through you w...
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But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. Howev...
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As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital...
JODI PICOULT

When you begin a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yo...
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A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like ...
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You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but ther...
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And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, n...
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You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.
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There are just as many stories to be told in the dark spots s there are in the bright ones.
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This was something she would keep hidden within herself, maybe in place of the knot of pain and ange...
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God, what had we done? It didn't really matter. Piper had been the kind of friend with whom I...
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What you didn't tell someone was just as debilitating as what you did.
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I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Every...
JODI PICOULT

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn...
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Raw love, like raw heartache, could blindside you.
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Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, y...
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Suddenly this is all too hard. I am tired of putting up walls. I want someone with the strength - an...
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I can see myself now, she said. And I can see what I want to be, ten years from now. But I don't und...
JODI PICOULT

It's never the differences between people that surprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, ...
JODI PICOULT

I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they ...
JODI PICOULT

The desperate usually succeed because they have nothing to lose.
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I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why ...
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The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time u...
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She sobbed the way she did everything else- with passion and excess.
JODI PICOULT

Just because you can't see the wound doesn't mean it isn't hurting.
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In the end, though, I did not kill my sister. She did it all on her own.

Or at least thi...
JODI PICOULT

You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep d...
JODI PICOULT

There are all sorts of experiences we can't really put a name to...The birth of a child, for one. Or...
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I would tell them that when you look at a person, you never know what the're hiding.
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Three months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you’d l...
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Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, ...
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Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late that we'v...
JODI PICOULT

When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself- is that what [love is]?
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He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the...
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The bottom line is that we never fall for the person we're supposed to.
JODI PICOULT

Love is not an equation, it is not a contract, and it is not a happy ending. Love is the slate under...
JODI PICOULT

An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of command. The patients, they...
JODI PICOULT

...People do belong to each other. Once you make a sacrifice for someone, you own part of his or her...
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words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that ...
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Researching 'Lone Wolf,' I was amazed at how thoughtful and intelligent these animals are. T...
JODI PICOULT

Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or – in t...
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I consider myself spiritual and I'm married to a man who is both an atheist and a humanist, and ...
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Edward: "Wait--you were trying to hit on me?"
Susan: "Damn straight."
Edward: "The ...
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Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember.
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Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.
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You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact that ...
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What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis ...
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Love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow — beautiful while it’s there, and just as likel...
JODI PICOULT

Gay rights is not something most of us think about - because most of us happen to have been born str...
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It's a fallacy that writers have to shut themselves up in their ivory towers to write. I have al...
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You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face. "I had to," he said. "So y...
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Things that look impossible suddenly seem a lot better, once you get God on board.
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I'm the kind of person you want to kill. I had an incredibly happy childhood. I married a terrif...
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Sometimes you can see things happen right in front of your eyes and still jump to the wrong conclusi...
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See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you ...
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What if the one I choose to discount is one who has been truly hurt?
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Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just ...
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I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giv...
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You lie to convince people you are not a monster . . . not that you are one.
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Do you know what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing he...
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Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow- beautiful while it's there, and j...
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Love is the most dangerous craving of all, if you ask me. It turns us into people we aren't. It make...
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I know better than most people that a criminal isn't always a thug in a black leather jacket with a ...
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Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for it their child, so they plant seeds for what t...
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I could tell her from personal experience that when people we love make choices we don't always unde...
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When I'm with you, bells go off in my head like a moving truck that's backing up.
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That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how muc...
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Who I am, and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me.
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If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can ev...
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Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones...
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We make messes of our lives, but every now and then, we manage to do something that's exactly right....
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It's choice that makes us human.
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What if it turns out that a life isn’t defined by who you belong to or where you came from, by wha...
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When you love someone more than he loves you, you'll do anything to switch the scales. You dress the...
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The only way someone can leave you is if you let them.
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Sometimes I think my whole life has been about holding on to you.
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Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?
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If it had been easy for Romeo to get to Juliet, nobody would have cared. Same goes for Cyrano and Do...
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Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his i...
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Just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want...
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It took me a lifetime to realizethings don't get lost if they don't have value- you don't miss what ...
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You can't exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind.
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Some lessons can't be taught, they simply have to be learned.
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You make yourself strong because it's expected of you. You become confident because someone beside y...
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It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.
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How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how...
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I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as ...
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I know you love me. The question is, how much?
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What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forge...
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Nobody wants to admit to this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's beause it's all a...
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In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk a...
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Love is not a because, it's a no matter what.
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You know how sometimes, your life is so perfect you’re afraid for the next moment, because it coul...
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I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got ...
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You were in business making meth? Do you have any idea what that drug does to people?"

We...
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Campbell" Julia says "Don't do this to me"
"Do what?"
"Push me off the same cliff twice
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Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't...
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People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.
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The moral of this story is that sometimes, you can attempt to make all the difference in the world, ...
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Everyone thinks you make mistakes when you're young. But I don't think we make any fewer when we're ...
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Every life has a soundtrack.

There is a tune that makes me think of the summer I spent ru...
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You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thin...
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I feel I'm able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves m...
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Is it a crime when you love someone so much that you can't stand the thought of them changing? Is it...
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Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots ...
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On my license, it says I'm an organ donor, but the truth is I'd consider being an organ martyr. I'm ...
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I love you," he whispered, and that was the moment he knew what he was going to do. When you loved s...
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When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, t...
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Everyone knew that if you divided reality by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you...
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Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved y...
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There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations
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I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitti...
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It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that did...
JODI PICOULT

It was that she truly believed you could be fourteen when you learned how love could change the spee...
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Could you really love someone who was capable of falling in love with someone else?
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...in the blink of an eye, you might reinvent yourself...the person you were yesterday might not be ...
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I'm really proud of (
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When you read the art,
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You have to create characters who will whisk people away from their ordinary lives.
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Vengeance was a funny thing: You wanted the satisfaction of knowing it had occurred, but you never w...
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In the wake of a disaster, the last thing you needed to do was set off another bomb; instead, you wa...
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They were at different places in the same relationship and like anything that's out of alighment, th...
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She wondered how many hours it had been since she'd talked out loud. If you didn't use your voice, e...
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The truth is the truth.
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Change is a funny thing. We never are quite sure what we are becoming or even why. Then one day we l...
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High school students were cannibals; they fed off your broken heart while you watched and then shrug...
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When heaven breaks, who fixes it?
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Dante believed God punished suicides by trapping the person's spirit in a tree trunk. On Judgement D...
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newborns reminded her of tiny buddhas
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From that point of view, I realized that my hole was not miles deep after all. My father, in fact, c...
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His grandmother had taught him that there was no such thing as coincidence. There are millions of pe...
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Antony was also obsessive, judgmental, and paranoid.
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Just because you didn't put a name to something did not mean it wasn't there.
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Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.
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When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a p...
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I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere alon...
JODI PICOULT

Other people look at me and think: That poor woman; she has a child with a disability. But al...
JODI PICOULT

It feels like we are sitting on the tight bench of a bus with a stranger between us, one that neither of us is willing to admit or mention, and so we find ourselves talking around him and through him and sneaking glances when the other one isn't looking.

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Jodi Picoult

It feels like we are sitting on the tight bench of a bus with a stranger between us, one that neither of us is willing to admit or mention, and so we find ourselves talking around him and through him and sneaking glances when the other one isn't looking.

Jodi Picoult

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