Eileen Patterson > Eileen's Quotes

“I am a man, and men are animals who tell stories. This is a gift from God, who spoke our species into being, but left the end of our story untold. That mystery is troubling to us. How could it be otherwise? Without the final part, we think, how are we to make sense of all that went before: which is to say, our lives?

So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.”
― Clive Barker, Sacrament

“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

“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

“I'm lonely. Why do you think I had to learn to act so independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has it's own zip code. Plus, I get certifiably crazy when I've got PMS. 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

“A photo says, you were happy, and I wanted to catch that. A photo says, you were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch.”
― Jodi Picoult

“The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatley wrapped lies”
― Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith

“When in doubt, shut up.”
― Caroline B. Cooney

“Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War

“If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“And I think, not for the first time, that what is immoral is not always wrong.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“You ask your readers if they can account for every minute of their lives, every thought in their heads, and be proud of it. You ask them if they've never jaywalked.... never gone thirty-one miles per hour in a thirty-mile zone... if they've never sped up when they saw that yellow light. And when you find that single, sorry person who hasn't taken a misstep, that one person with the right to judge me, you tell him he's just as human as I am. That tomorrow, his world could turn upside down and he might find himself capable of actions he'd never believed possible... you tell him, he could have been me.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, falling is the first step in learning how to fly.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“Nathaniel closes his eyes and jumps, his arms glued to his sides like that fly's. He doesn't try to break his fall, just hits hard, because it hurts less than everything else.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match

“God gave us crying so other folks could see when we needed help, and help us.”
― Joshilyn Jackson, Gods in Alabama

“Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.”
― Christopher Pike, The Last Vampire

“You can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong.”
― Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith

“I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.”
― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence.”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“Too many people would rather fight to the death to defend their bullhead positions. Tyrone was impressed whenever someone changed their mind. It meant acting on reason, and with reason came self-improvement.”
― Jack Kilborn , Trapped

“Sir, this lane is for ten items or less. I’m counting thirteen items in your cart, including that hemorrhoid cream. And while hemorrhoids might give you a reason to be nasty, they don’t give you a reason to be in this lane.”
― J. A. Konrath

“even if vampires were stupid. Especially American vampires. They hung out in places Alaric himself would never have gone, especially if he were immortal. Such as high schools. And Walmart.”
― Meg Cabot, Insatiable

“Love is not a because, it's a no matter what.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“And oh she had been broken. She hid it well, but Ross knew from personal experience that once you had put the pieces together, even though you might look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“I wish I could tell him I understand: the higher you raise your hopes, the farther you have to fall.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“Words, for all they were flimsy and invisible, had great strength. They could be fortified as a castle wall and sharp as a foil. They could bite, slap, shock, wound. But unlike deeds, words couldn't really help you. No promise ever rescued a person; it was the carrying-through of it that brought about salvation.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“Shelby believed that love was like a solar eclipse - breathtakingly beautiful, absorbing, and capable of rendering you blind. She had not necessarily gone out of her way to avoid a relationship, but she hadn't wanted on either. It was called falling in love for a reason - because, inevitably, you crashed at the bottom.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far.”
― Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home

“I don't know. But I do know that I'm at the stage of my life where I want forever, not right now.

I know that the first person I kissed won't be nearly as important as the last person I kiss.

And I also know better than to dream about things that can't happen.”
― Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home