Jodi Picoult Mean Quotations

Most people in America want an easy read. I call it McFiction - books which pass right through you without you even digesting them. I don't mean a book that has two-syllable words. I mean chapters you can read in a toilet break. Happy endings. We are more of a TV culture.

I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.

Just because a person didn't admit that something had changed didn't mean it hadn't happened.

I don't want to tell people what to think. I'm the least qualified person in the world for that. If I'd go around pretending to be the expert on everything, I'd become Dan Brown, and I don't understand that. We all do our research if we're good writers, and we all work hard to get it right, but that doesn't mean we're experts in the field. The best we can do is challenge people to learn the facts themselves.

I know Mark,' I reply. 'And I don't like him.' 'But I do. And part of being social means being civil to someone you don't like.' 'That's stupid. It's a huge world. why not just get up and walk away?' 'Because that's rude,' Jess explains. 'I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails.

I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?)

Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.

Just because you had every right to feel sorry for yourself didn't mean you ever took the opportunity to do so.

I watch her do the simplest things: brushing her hair into a ponytail, feeding the dog, tying Sophie's shoelaces, and I want to tell her what she means to me, but I never actually say the words. After all, to acknowledge Delia as a drug, I'd have to face the fact that one day I might have to go without her and this I can't do.

She shrugged. "You can be happy for someone else's good fortune, but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.

A sacrament--like marriage--means living a life better than your natural instincts, so that you're modeling God. And God never gives up.

I have no idea what Andrew might have done, and I do not ask. She believes that I can fix this, and like always, that's enough to make me think that I can. "I'll take care of it,: I say, when what I really mean is: I'll take care of you.

Dr. Keller begins pacing. "I don't think we've been hearing Faith just right. Her guard...the words..they sound alike." What do you mean?" Your daughter," Dr. Keller says flatly. "I think she's seeing God.

Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his infant; the rapist who was sexually abused as a child; the kidnapper who truly believed he was saving a life. And just because you break the law doesn't mean you have intentionally crossed the line into evil. Sometimes the line creeps up on you, and before you know it, you're standing on the other side.

Having a fantasy come true doesn't always mean it will be permanent.

Just because fate had thrown another obstacle in my way didn't mean I had to give up my dreams.

But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?

The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story

You know why I think we still execute people? Because, even if we don't want to say it out loud-for the really heinous crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring society closer together-huddle and circle our wagons-and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify those people? And what if, God forbid, they got it wrong?

Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's any less true.

Just 'cause you can't see me don't mean I gone away.

No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.

I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However, I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship may be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one of these is better that the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together. Your love, I mean, and your life.

The jury is supposed to be twelve peers, but technically that would mean every single person on the jury should have Asperger's syndrome, because then they'd really understand me.

You know, the mind is a remarkable thing. Just because you can't see the wound doesn't mean it isn't hurting. It scars all the time, but it heals.

I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere.

Just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true.

The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.

It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.

I don't know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You'd be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.

Just because you didn't put a name to something did not mean it wasn't there.

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.

Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others.