“When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“After all, how many of us had tried to forget something traumatic...only to find it printed on the back of our eyelids, tattooed on our tongues?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“There are all sorts of experiences we can't really put a name to...The birth of a child, for one. Or the death of a parent. Falling in love. Words are like nets--we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, grief, or wonder. Finding God is like that, too. If it's happened to you, you know what it feels like. But try to describe it to someone else--and language only takes you so far.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“I 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 from Change of Heart
“Did you ever wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see when you look in the mirror?" - "That's the eternal question, isn't it? Are we born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“That’s what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It’s a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion’s not about being holy...Just holier-than-thous.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“I imagine the touch of someone who loves you so much, he cannot bear to watch you sleep; and so you wake up with his hand on your heart.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“You didn't get past something like that, you go through it -- and for that reason alone, I understood more about her than she ever would have guessed.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“It was so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate someone who could make you feel that there was a reason you'd been put on this earth. A child, I imagined, was the purest form of that. A child was the love you didn't have to look for, didn't have to prove anything to, didn't have to worry about losing. Which is why, when it happened, it hurt so badly.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“I don't belong to a religion. Religion's the reason the world's falling apart..." That's what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It's a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion's not about being holy," Shay said. "Just holier-than-thou.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“Like the teens I worked with, I understood the need for miracles--they kept reality from paralyzing you”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“You know how I see it? There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing--light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light...I guess from my point of view, we can choose to be in the dark, or we can light a candle. And for me, Christ is that candle.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can change. It's always easier to go along with the way things are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first place.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“I want to live," he said, "So I have to die.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth--from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far easier to tell yourself your daughter is still a little girl than to see her in a bikini and realize she has the curves of a young woman; it's safer to say you're a good parent who has all the right conversations about drugs and sex than to acknowledge there are a thousand things she would never tell you.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“You live and let live, eventually that becomes enough.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“I know what it's like when the things you believe make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“Words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder. Like falling in love or finding god, if it ha...ppens to you, you know what it feels like. But try to describe it to someone else - and language only takes you so far.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“The joke's on them. One little hypodermic wont' be enough. Split a piece of wood, and they'll find me. Lift up a stone, and they'll find me. Look in the mirror, and they'll find me...If you really want to know what makes someone a killer, ask yourself what would make you do it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“This is what it always comes down to, I realized. There are the ones who believe, and the ones who don't, and caught in the space between them are guns.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“A place like this wears down everything, and tolerance is no exception. In here, coexistence passes for forgiveness. You do not learn to like something you abhor; you come to live with it...You live and let live, and eventually that becomes enough.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Change of Heart
“The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom. He did not use the notion of the Procrustean bed, but he outlined it perfectly. His argument is that they repress children's natural biophilia, their love of living things. But the problem is more general; soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from children's lives, move them away from the ecological and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (soccer-mom-compatible) maps of reality. Good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers except slower. Further, they are now totally untrained to handle ambiguity. As a child of civil war, I disbelieve in structured learning . . . . Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living, compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quote from Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
“Confucius, who had said it was better not to know about ghosts and gods, but rather to focus on the world we lived in.”
― Yangsze Choo, quote from The Ghost Bride
“Do you love him?”
I jumped out of my skin. She was standing right beside me. “Who?”
Her eyes widened.
“Seth?” I peered over my shoulder at his retreating back. “Um, we’ve been going together for a long time. A year.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t risk her seeing through me, reading me.
“Do you hear bells?” she asked.
I had to smile at that. “Bells?”
“You know, bells. Music, fireworks.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
I let out a short laugh. It sounded strangled, same way I felt. “Only in my dreams.”
“Oh, yeah?” She arched an eyebrow.
Why did I say that? God.
Cece said softly, “Maybe you should listen to your dreams.”
My stomach suffered a major eruption.
She pushed off the locker she’d been balancing against with the sole of her shoe and said, “Think about it.”
Like I haven’t been. “Do you think about it?” I asked at her back.
She stopped and turned around. “I don’t have to. I know.” (Chapter13)”
― Julie Anne Peters, quote from Keeping You a Secret
“And the moment you care that much, a man has you. He owns a little piece of your soul, and he can beat you to death with it.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from Micah
“If people knew who the angels were, they would be very nice when they saw one and would still do their same evil garbage when they thought none were around. Knowing who they are defeats the purpose.”
― Carol Plum-Ucci, quote from What Happened to Lani Garver
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.