Jodi Picoult

"I have only known her for two years. But if you took every memory, every moment, if you stretched them end to end-they'd reach forever."

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

"You don't have to say I love you to say I love you," you said with a shrug. "All you have to do is say my name and I know."

"Can't you hear it?" you said. "When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.""

"Sometimes I think my whole life has been about holding on to you."

"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."

"When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself- is that what [love is]?"

"They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again."

"... Remember that every fire will burn itself out, even without your help. "

"... People think they know what they're getting, and they're always wrong. "

"What she hadn't realized was that sometimes when your vision was that sharp and true, it could cut you. That only if you'd felt such fullness could you really understand the ache of being empty."

"The Inuit say that the stars are holes in heaven. And every time we see the people we loved shining through, we know they're happy. "

"There should be a statue of limitation on grief. A rule book that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after forty-two days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. that there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass- if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it is okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays. "

"I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names."

'I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has its own zip code. Plus, I get certifiably crazy when I've got PMS. You don't love someone because they're perfect,' she says. 'You love them in spite of the fact that they're not.' "

"If you focus on sandbagging the beachhead, you can ignore the tsunami that's approaching. Try it any other way and you'll go crazy.""

"You signed no contract to become a parent, but the responsibilities were written in invisible ink. There was a point when you had to support your child, even if no one else would. It was your job to rebuild the bridge, even if your child was the one who burned it in the first place. "

"Well I talk a little about that, but I don't admit that from the beginning I knew we were not meant to be together."

"There are some dreams that get stuck between your teeth when you sleep, so that when you open your mouth to yawn awake they fly right out of you."

Jodi Picoult