Quotes from Leaving Time

Jodi Picoult ·  398 pages

Rating: (104.9K votes)


“The moral of this story is that sometimes, you can attempt to make all the difference in the world, and it still is like trying to stem the tide with a sieve. The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it … some stories just don’t have a happy ending.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“I think grief is like a really ugly couch. It never goes away. You can decorate around it; you can slap a doily on top of it; you can push it to the corner of the room—but eventually, you learn to live with it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“When someone leaves you once, you expect it to happen again. Eventually you stop getting close enough to people to let them become important to you, because then you don't notice when they drop out of your world.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“If you think about someone you've loved and lost, you are already with them. The rest is just details.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you’ve got, instead of what you don’t.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



“You can’t blame someone if they honestly don’t understand that their reality isn’t the same as yours.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“A bruise is how the body remembers it’s been wronged.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“In the wild, an elephant mother and daughter stay in close proximity their whole lives; I hope I am that lucky.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“I’m the princess in an ivory tower, except every brick is made of history, and I built this prison myself.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



“I wonder if, as you get older, you stop missing people so fiercely. Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you've got, instead of what you don't.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Grandmothers in Botswana tell their children that if you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, you must go together.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“You can have the best intentions, but the moment there’s a hairline crack, it is only a matter of time before you go to pieces.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Engaging with haters is like rearranging pictures on the Titanic. What’s the point?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Could it be as simple as that? Could love be not grand gestures or empty vows, not promises meant to be broken, but instead a paper trail of forgiveness? A line of crumbs made of memories, to lead you back to the person who was waiting?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



“memory is linked to strong emotion, and that negative moments are like scribbling with permanent marker on the wall of the brain. But there’s a fine line between a negative moment and a traumatic one. Negative moments get remembered. Traumatic ones get forgotten, or so warped that they are unrecognizable,”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Dreaming is the closest the average human gets to the paranormal plane; it’s the time when the mind lets down its guard and the walls get thin enough for there to be glimpses to the other side. That’s why, after sleeping, so many people report a visit from someone who’s passed.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“I don't get to rewrite my story; I just have to stumble to the end of it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it … some stories just don’t have a happy ending.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“the universe wants from us is two things: don’t do any intentional harm to yourself or anyone else, and get happy.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



“Keeping a secret isn't always lying. Sometimes it's the only way to protect the person you love.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“It was almost as if there was a tear in the fabric I was made of, and he was the only color thread that would match to stitch it back up.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“It's not that he doesn't love you enough to tell you the truth," she said. "It's that he loves you too much to risk it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“One of the most amazing things about elephants mourning in the wild is their ability to grieve hard, but then truly, unequivocally, let go. Humans can't seem to do that. I've always thought it's because of religion. We expect to see our loved ones again in the next life, whatever that might be. Elephants don't have that hope, only the memories of this life. Maybe that's why it is easier for them to move on.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“If you think about someone you’ve loved and lost, you are already with them.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



“There are an endless number of people who have left a love-shaped hole in the heart of someone else. Eventually someone brave and stupid will come along and try to fill that hole. But it never works, and so instead, that selfless soul winds up with a gap in his heart, too. And so on. It's a miracle that anyone survives, when so much of us is missing.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“I had not asked to be rescued, true, but that did not mean I didn't need saving.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“My whole life, this is how I've defined the paranormal: can't understand it, can't explain it, can't deny it.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Children are the anchors of a mother’s life. —SOPHOCLES, Phaedra, fragment 612”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time


“Reality is frigid; I have to dip one toe at a time and grow accustomed to the shock before wading in further.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Leaving Time



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About the author

Jodi Picoult
Born place: in Nesconset, Long Island, New York,, The United States
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