"You dont love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not"
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they're also what tear you apart."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

"Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"I, um, I have this problem. I broke up with my boyfriend, you see. And I'm pretty upset about it, so I wanted to talk to my best friend. [...] The thing is, they're both you."
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time."
— Haruki Murakami

"But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives."
— Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)

"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."
— Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)

"Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him."
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?"
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
— Haruki Murakami

"I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

""I love you," he whispered, and that was the moment he knew what he was going to do. When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces."
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything."
— Haruki Murakami

"It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have, we rarely get."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

"The bottom line is that we never fall for the people we're supposed to. "
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all."
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

"In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment."
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

"It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Do you know what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing her? Or what it's like to touch someone, and feel like you've come home? What we had wasn't about sex, or about being with someone just to show off what you've got, the way it was for other kids our age. We were, well, meant to be together. Some people spend their whole lives looking for that one person. I was lucky enough to have her all along."
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"For both of us, it had simply been too enormous an experience. We shared it by not talking about it. Does this make any sense?"
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

"In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."
— Haruki Murakami

""I don't think we get a choice in who we fall for," Ian whispers. "I think we just do.""
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"'Your can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong.'"
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"There are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there's someone who must give. "
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you. "
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"… true love is felonious… You take someone’s breath away… You rob them of the ability to utter a single word… You steal a heart. "
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"That’s what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It’s a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion’s not about being holy...Just holier-than-thous."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"A man should live his life a certain way not because of some divine authority, but because of a personal moral obligation to himself and others."
— Jodi Picoult

"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."
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"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."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"Sometimes there aren't words. The silence between us is flung wide as an ocean. But I manage to reach across it, to wrap my arms around him."
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?"
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"No matter who you are, there is always some part of you that wishes you were someone else, and when, for a millisecond, you get that wish, it's a miracle."
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"Objection!" Metz shouts.
"Grounds?" the judge asks.
"Well...he's my witness!""
— Jodi Picoult (Keeping Faith)

"'The joke's on them. One little hypodermic wont' be enough. Split a piece of wood, and they'll find me. Lift up a stone, and they'll find me. Look in the mirror, and they'll find me...If you really want to know what makes someone a killer, ask yourself what would make you do it.'"
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"Any highway . . . they all take you to the same place, don't they?"
— Jodi Picoult (The Pact: A Love Story)

"You gotta be rich to be insane, Hol. Losing your mind is not a luxury for the middle class. "
— Sharon McCarthy

""Did you ever wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see when you look in the mirror?" - "That's the eternal question, isn't it? Are we born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?""
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"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. Like falling in love or finding god, if it ha...ppens to you, you know what it feels like. But try to describe it to someone else - and language only takes you so far."
— Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

"Jacob: "Stupid leeches. Think they're so superior."
Edward: "They'll be shocked when infants save their superior lives, won't they?"
Jacob: "Hell yeah, they will."
— Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn)

"Time is priceless, but it’s Free. You can't own it, you can use it. You can spend it. But you can't keep it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for."
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

"Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."
— Haruki Murakami

"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting."
— Haruki Murakami