The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

The reason it’s important to believe in something, he said, is because you can.

It sounds like the first night in autumn when you build a fire in the fireplace and drink a glass of port and fall asleep with a dog on your lap.

“Power isn’t doing something terrible to someone who’s weaker than you, Reiner. It’s having the strength to do something terrible, and choosing not to.”

What could possibly be worth your own life? I had pleaded. His son’s.

Herr Fassbinder had held the door open for me, as if I was still a young lady, and not just a Jew.

Be kind to others before you take care of yourself; make whoever you’re with feel like they matter.

Overnight, his hair went snow white. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it possible.

Take the Allies, for example. If they had heard of people being gassed, hundreds at a time, wouldn’t they have already come to save us?

Sometimes all you need to live one more day is a good reason to stick around.

Sometimes all it takes to become human again is someone who can see you that way, no matter how you present on the surface.

I don’t believe in God. But sitting there, in a room full of those who feel otherwise, I realize that I do believe in people. In their strength to help each other, and to thrive in spite of the odds. I believe that the extraordinary trumps the ordinary, any day. I believe that having something to hope for—even if it’s just a better tomorrow—is the most powerful drug on this planet.