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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Jodi Picoult Quotes

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not - Jodi Picoult

You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.

– Jodi Picoult

My Sister’s Keeper.

Researching ‘Lone Wolf,’ I was amazed at how thoughtful and intelligent these animals are. There has never been a documented attack against a human by a wolf that wasn’t provoked by the human.

– Jodi Picoult

I consider myself spiritual and I’m married to a man who is both an atheist and a humanist, and my kids have been raised with the traditions of different religions, but they do not go to church or temple. My feeling is that everyone should be able to believe what they want or need to believe.

– Jodi Picoult

People are always afraid of the unknown – and banding together against the Thing That Is Different From Us is a time-honoured tradition for rallying the masses.

– Jodi Picoult

There’s that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success.

– Jodi Picoult

I have several writer friends, but I don’t involve them in my work process. I’m more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.

– Jodi Picoult

As an American I wanted to explore… why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we’re too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?

– Jodi Picoult

I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Everyone has a role, and if you act within the parameters of your role, the whole pack succeeds, and when that falls apart, so does the pack.

– Jodi Picoult

On a shelf above my computer are five letters that spell out W-R-I-T-E. Just in case I forget why I’m there. I also have ‘Wonder Woman’ paraphernalia from when I wrote five issues of the comic, and pictures of my husband and kids.

– Jodi Picoult

You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

– Jodi Picoult

Every year I tell myself that I’m not going to read any reviews and then I do. We’re all human and when I read something negative it hurts. I think when you write it’s part of the game, you’re going to get some good reviews and some bad reviews and that’s how it goes. I don’t write for the reviews.

– Jodi Picoult

If you read a book that’s fiction and you get caught in the characters and the plot, and swept away, really, by the fiction of it – by the non-reality – you sometimes wind up changing your reality as well. Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you.

– Jodi Picoult

For me it’s more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don’t care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.

– Jodi Picoult

It’s certainly my honor to be able to, hopefully, change the world a tiny bit, one mind at a time.

– Jodi Picoult

I think the reason these readers come back to me is because I represent their points of view. It may not be my point of view, but that’s OK. Everyone still deserves to have their say.

– Jodi Picoult

I think the ‘New York Times’ reviews overall tend to overlook popular fiction, whether you’re a man, woman, white, black, purple or pink. I think there are a lot of readers who would like to see reviews that belong in the range of commercial fiction.

– Jodi Picoult

Gay teenagers are four times as likely to attempt suicide as straight ones. I wish they knew that there’s nothing wrong with them; that they are just a different shade of normal.

– Jodi Picoult

Gay rights is not something most of us think about – because most of us happen to have been born straight.

– Jodi Picoult

The act of writing… is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately, I think that’s the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

– Jodi Picoult

Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch ‘American Idol’ and video their children’s concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do.

– Jodi Picoult

I’m not going to tell a person how to think, don’t believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don’t be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let’s see if you can still find the footing.

– Jodi Picoult

I don’t believe in writer’s block. Think about it – when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn’t it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer’s block is having too much time on your hands.

– Jodi Picoult

I think there are readers out there and I don’t think the book is dead. And more importantly I don’t think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.

– Jodi Picoult

I think I have sort of gravitated toward issues that I don’t know the answers to, because that’s what’s more interesting for me to write.

– Jodi Picoult

I think many of my books, including ‘Handle with Care,’ including ‘My Sister’s Keeper,’ circle back to how far are we willing to go for the people we love? I think love changes the way we think. It’s the thing that takes you out of what your normal set of beliefs would be.

– Jodi Picoult

Even though I don’t write about things that come from my life because I’m lucky, and I live in a great place with great kids and, you know, a great husband, I think you can find threads of me in the characters, so that’s really what being a writer is, probably.

– Jodi Picoult

I feel I’m able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves me free to create all of this and to enjoy our family life, stepping away from all the fictional traumas and the dramas. If I write about family in crisis, then I won’t have to live through it, I guess.

– Jodi Picoult