01c. 1966 ADThe 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 / quote ↗
03c. 1966 ADBut without a reader, a story is only half complete. It's like blueprints that never get built; like a swimming pool without water. The foundation's there, but it's useless. Without a reader, the words just sit on the page, waiting to come alive in someone's imagination.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
05c. 1966 ADThe only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you're at the mercy of the universe for the first, and you've got some help with the second.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
06c. 1966 ADPrayer is like water - something you can't imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
07c. 1966 ADThe ability to find sparks may be buried so deep in you that you stop believing there's a God. Until someone comes along, with so much light in her that you can't help but see your own, and when you're together,that light grows even brighter.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
08c. 1966 ADIt was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
09c. 1966 ADIt 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 / quote ↗
10c. 1966 ADFor God's sake, if I learned anything during this damn trial it's that the only way someone can leave you is if you let them. And I'm not doing that, Dee. It may look like that today, or tomorrow, or even a month from now, but one day you're going to wake up and see that this whole time you've been gone, you've only been headed back to where you started. And I'll be there, waiting." He leans forward and kisses me once, feather-light, on the lips. "It's not like I'm not letting you go," he murmurs. "I'm just trusting you enough to come back.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
11c. 1966 ADTo be fair, I am not the same man. The one who listened. The one who believed her.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
12c. 1966 ADYou figured that the only way I'd be happy is if I did the things you thought would be best for me.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
13c. 1966 ADIn the past, even Alex's promises hadn't prevented a reoccurence. She didn't have a choice. She wished he could see that as clearly as she did.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
14c. 1966 ADHow come love sounds so violent? You fall head over heels. You’re struck by Cupid’s arrow. You take the risk of having your heart broken. From an outside perspective, it sounds impossibly painful, not worth the trouble. And yet we do it every day. We keep coming back for more. Why? If it weren’t so perilous, maybe we wouldn’t crave it so much. Maybe it has to be brutal, in order to work. People come in so many shapes and sizes that it takes a bit of force in order to fit together perfectly. But you know what they say about a break that heals: it’s always stronger than before.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
15c. 1966 ADWhat was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
16c. 1966 ADThree months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you’d let them go. But now I look at you, and I dreamed about Maggie, and I see that I’ve been wrong. If you really love someone, Allie, I think you have to take them back.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
17c. 1966 ADBut if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
18c. 1966 ADYou know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not others. What Jesus challenges us to do is to let go of the wrong done to you personally, not the wrong done to someone else. But most Christians incorrectly assume that this means that being a good christian means forgiving all sins, and the sinners.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
19c. 1966 ADWhat he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
20c. 1966 ADIn the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who lose a child.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
21c. 1966 ADI knew that somewhere God was laughing. He had taken the other half of my heart, the one person who knew me better than I knew myself, and He had done what nothing else could do. By bringing us together, He had set into motion the one thing that could tear us apart.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
22c. 1966 ADI knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got through it.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
23c. 1966 ADWas there a language of loss? Did everyone who suffered speak a different dialect?Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
24c. 1966 ADGoldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.Jodi Picoult / quote ↗
