Songs of the Humpback Whale Quotes

“You can run but you can't hide... but I can try. I feel air catch in my lungs and I get a cramp in my side and this pain, this wonderful physical pain that I can place, reminds me that after all I am still alive. ”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“The apple . . . came before Adam and Eve in the story of creation. It had to have been there at least three years because that's how long it takes for a new tree to bear fruit.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“anyone can understand anything. You just have to know how to present your information.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I don't know the first thing about holding together a family, especially one that resembles an heirloom vase, shattered but glued back together for its beauty, and no one mentions that you can see the cracks as plain as day. ”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I believed the reason there was a God was to prevent such atrocities from happening to the same person twice. But nothing prepared me for this: I have done what I've sworn I could never do; I have become my own nightmare... I have lost control. ”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However, I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship may be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one of these is better that the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together. Your love, I mean, and your life.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I know that there will be other women, but they couldn't compare. Maybe I'll change, maybe love will change, but I think we were a once-in-a-lifetime. You could never leave me; that's why I am not more upset. You can't possibly break these feelings. They stretch, and they last.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I believe in love. I think it just hits you and pulls the rug out from underneath you and, like a baby, demands your attention every minute of the day.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“Even if we have grown so far apart that we don't recognize each other when we pass, we have this life, this block of time, and what do you think about that?”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“What if one of us dies? What happens then?'
I reached around and turned on the light to see the clock: 3:20 A.M. 'I suppose we'd remarry.'
'Just like that!' Jane exploded. She sat up in bed, facing away from me. 'You can't just pick a wife off a shelf.'
'Of course not. I just meant that if I happened to die young I'd want you to be happy.'
'How could I be happy without you? When you get married, you make the biggest decision of your life; you say you're going to spend eternity with one person. So what do you do if that person leaves? What do you do once you've already committed yourself?'
'What do you want me to do?' I asked.
And Jane looked at me and said, 'I want you to live forever.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I kept hoping, silently, that you would want to save her like you hadn't been able to save yourself.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“When I see him, his frame filling the doorway, I do not feel passion, excitement. I can't remember if I ever have. He makes me feel comfortable, like a favorite pair of shoes.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“This year in school she read Romeo and Juliet, and she told me pragmatically that Romeo was a wimp. He should have just taken Juliet and run away with her, swallowed his pride and worked at some medieval McDonald's. What about the poetry, I asked her. What about the tragedy? And Rebecca told me that that's all very well and good but it isn't the way things happen in real life.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“The strange thing; her face, after she hit me. She was in greater pain than I. You could see it in her eyes - like she had been violated in some way that broke her own image.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“If Daddy could see me now. I spent the morning with Rebecca at the Indianapolis Speedway, at an auto museum filled with Nascars and racing paraphernalia. Do you remember when we used to watch all five hundred laps with him, every year? I never understood what it was that made auto racing such a biggie for him—it's not like he ever tried the sport himself. He told me once when I was older that it was the absolute speed of it all. I liked to watch for crashes, like you. I liked the way there'd be a huge explosion on the track and billows of ebony smoke, and the other cars would just keep a straight course and head right for the spin, into this sort of black box, and they'd come out okay. I”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I walk towards the car but on second thought step back to the railing for a final look. Enormous. Anonymous. I could hurtle myself down the walls of this chasm, and never be found.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“I learned a doctrine long ago from an ancient Muslim in Marrakech: in this world, there's only one person with whom you are meant to connect. This is a God-woven thread. You cannot change it; you cannot fight it. The person is not necessarily your wife or your husband, your long term lover. It may not even be a good friend. In many cases it is not someone with whom you spend the rest of your life. I would hazard a guess that ninety percent of all people never find the other person. But those lucky few, those very lucky few, are given the chance to grab the brass ring.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“in this world, there’s only one person with whom you are meant to connect. This is a God-woven thread. You cannot change it; you cannot fight it. The person is not necessarily your wife or your husband, your long-term lover. It may not even be a good friend. In many cases it is not someone with whom you spend the rest of your life. I would hazard a guess that ninety percent of all people never find the other person. But those lucky few, those very lucky few, are given the chance to grab the brass ring.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“You can take dead trees in an orchard, and bring them back to life. You can take two different strains of apples and they will bear fruit on the same tree. Grafting: the science of bringing together the unlikely; of bring back what is past hope.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“Rebecca and I walk through the saltwater exhibits, where fish congregate in bright splashes like kites against an open sky. They come in the most incredible colors; I have always been amazed by this. What is the point of being fuchsia, or lemon, or violet, when you are stuck under the water where no one can see you?”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale

“talking. “The reason this place looks”
― Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale