“It 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 from Handle with Care
“When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“People always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. But that's not true, is it? You know, and I know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“I think you can love a person too much.
You put someone up on a pedestal, and all of a sudden, from that perspective, you notice what's wrong - a hair out of place, a run in a stocking, a broken bone. You spend all your time and energy making it right, and all the while, you are falling apart yourself. You don't even realize what you look like, how far you've deteriorated, because you only have eyes for someone else.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“That's what happens to dreams, life gets in the way.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“You know how sometimes, your life is so perfect you’re afraid for the next moment, because it couldn’t possibly be quite as good? That’s what it felt like.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“People always want to know what it feels like, so I’ll tell you: there’s a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, and yet you’ve gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling—that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And—God—the sweet release, that’s the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that’s tied to a little kid’s hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don’t belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights.
When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don’t ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it’s a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you’ve let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it were really that easy.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises - can be put back together but will never really be whole.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“What we all want, really, is to be loved. That craving drives our worst behavior.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.
I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Here's a news flash for the ladies: for every one of you who thinks we all want a girl like Angelina Jolie, all skinny elbows and angles, the truth is, we'd rather curl up with someone like Charlotte - a woman who's soft when a guy wraps his arms around her; a woman who might have a smear of flour on her shirt the whole day and not notice or care, not even when she goes out to meet with the PTA; a woman who doesn't feel like an exotic vacation but is the home we can't wait to come back to.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother?
Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“People changed. Even the people you thought you knew as well as you knew yourself.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“But love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone's expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them. All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“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, quote from Handle with Care
“What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Things break all the time. Glass and dishes and fingernails. Cars and contracts and potato chips. You can break a record, a horse, a dollar. You can break the ice. There are coffee breaks and lunch breaks and prison breaks. Day breaks, waves break, voices break. Chains can be broken. So can silence, and fever... promises break. Hearts break.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“I know what it's like to start something and have it suddenly grow out of control. And you want to get rid of it, because it's hurting you and everyone else around you, but every time you try to do that, it consumes you again.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
“Just because you didn't put a name to something did not mean it wasn't there.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Handle with Care
Jodi Picoult
Born place: in Nesconset, Long Island, New York,, The United States
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“As I stood there, looking into the eyes of the Travelers, something happened. For each one of those brief moments, I reconnected with a true friend. Though no words were exchanged, they were each telling me the same thing. They were with me. I truly believed that if I had asked any one of them to follow me through the gates of hell, I'd have to hold them back from going in first.”
― D.J. MacHale, quote from Raven Rise
“She murmured, "You're unfinished."
"Aye, precisely."
"I need to go."
When she moved to get up, he shoved her against his side and slapped her arse to keep her there. "You stay with me."
She snapped, "What do you want from me, Chase?"
He drew his head back in confusion. "I want everything. You're mine, Regin.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from Dreams of a Dark Warrior
“A commander in battle has three means of influencing the action: Fire support, now pouring down in torrents; his personal presence on the battlefield; and the use of his reserve.”
― Harold G. Moore, quote from We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam
“Straight up, this is the man in your bed. I want in there, Faye, and when I get in there, I'm gonna dig in deep so when I share my shit that's so dark you'll be blinded by it and you'll wanna run to the light, you can't because I'm so deep, you can't let go.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Breathe
“There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane -- as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout -- there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans.
Faith-based violence was present long before Osama bin Laden, and it ill be with us long after his demise. Religious zealots like bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Dan Lafferty are common to every age, just as zealots of other stripes are. In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that's irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on the matters of the spirit.
The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end -- wealth, fame, eternal salvation -- but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic's worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.
Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God...”
― Jon Krakauer, quote from Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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