Wish You Were Here Quotes

“Busy is just a euphemism for being so focused on what you don’t have that you never notice what you do. It’s a defense mechanism. Because if you stop hustling—if you pause—you start wondering why you ever thought you wanted all those things.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“You can't plan your life, Finn,' I say quietly, 'Because then you have a plan. Not a life.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Well, I know why you love art, even if you don’t,” Kitomi continues, as if I haven’t spoken. “Because art isn’t absolute. A photograph, that’s different. You’re seeing exactly what the photographer wanted you to see. A painting, though, is a partnership. The artist begins a dialogue, and you finish it.” She smiles. “And here’s the incredible part—that dialogue is different every time you view the art. Not because anything changes on the canvas—but because of what changes in you.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“There are two ways of looking at walls. Either they are built to keep people you fear out or they are built to keep people you love in. Either way, you create a divide.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“You cannot trust perception. Falling, at first, feels like flying.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“When you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel, it’s hard to remember to keep going.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Grief, it turns out, is a lot like a one-sided video conversation on an iPad. It’s the call with no response, the echo of affection, the shadow cast by love.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“I learned the hard way that you shouldn't stay with someone because of your past together - what matters more is if you want the same things in the future.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. —Leon C. Megginson”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“The point is, if someone abandons you, it may be less about you and more about them.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Now, I’m wondering why those were ever even goals. We don’t need those things to feel whole. We need to wake up in the morning. We need our bodies to function. We need to enjoy a meal. We need a roof over our head. We need to surround ourselves with people we love. We need to take the wins in a much smaller way.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Busy is just a euphemism for being so focused on what you don’t have that you never notice what you do.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Trying to figure out what happened to me isn’t important. It’s what I do with what I’ve learned that counts.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow—I realize that viscerally now—but that doesn’t keep us from feeling cheated when it’s yanked away.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Other things that leave you breathless: love so big that it tumbles you like a wave.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“That was how I learned that the world changes between heartbeats; that life is never an absolute, but always a wager.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“In Japan, there are monuments called tsunami stones—giant tablets on the coastline that warn descendants of earlier settlers not to build their homes past a certain point. They date back to 1896, when two tsunamis killed 22,000 people. The Japanese believe that it takes three generations to forget. Those who experience a trauma pass it along to their children and their grandchildren, and then the memory fades. To the survivors of a tragedy, that’s unthinkable—what’s the point of living through something terrible if you cannot convey the lessons you’ve learned? Since nothing will ever replace all you’ve lost, the only way to make meaning is to make sure no one else goes through what you did. Memories are the safeguards we use to keep from making the same mistakes.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Do you think we’ll ever go back to the way it was?” I ask Finn. He glances at me. “I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully. “When I used to talk to patients before surgery, they always asked if they’d be able to do everything they used to do before the operation. I mean, technically, the answer should be yes. But there’s always a scar. Even if it’s not right across your belly, it’s in your head somewhere—the brand-new knowledge that you weren’t invincible. I think that changes you for the long haul.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“All of us are grieving something. But while we are, we're putting one foot in front of the other. We're waking up to see another day. We're pushing through uncertainty, even if we can't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are battered and broken, but we're all small miracles.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“You can’t grieve something if you don’t let yourself get close enough to care.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Everything you’re seeing up in the night sky happened thousands of years ago, because the light takes so long to reach us,” Gabriel says. “I always thought it was so strange… that sailors chart where they’re going in the future by looking at a map of the past.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“We don’t know what reality is,” Rayanne says. “We just pretend we do, because it makes us feel like we’re in control.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Ask anyone who's nearly died. You should live in the moment. Unfortunately, that's impossible. Every moment keeps slipping past. 

You can only go on to the next moment and the one after that, seeking out what you love most with whom you love most. All these moments tallied up? That's your life. 

Bucket lists aren't important. Benchmarks aren't important. Neither are goals. You take the wins in small ways: did I wake up this morning? Do I have a roof over my head? Are the people I care about doing okay? You don't need the things you don't have. You only need what you've got, and the rest? It's just gravy.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“The Japanese believe that it takes three generations to forget. Those who experience a trauma pass it along to their children and their grandchildren, and then the memory fades.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“It’s amazing how easily someone can leave your life. It’s standing on a beach and stepping back to see the hole of your footprint subsumed by the sand and the sea as if it were never there. Grief, it turns out, is a lot like a one-sided video conversation on an iPad. It’s the call with no response, the echo of affection, the shadow cast by love. But just because you can’t see it anymore doesn’t make it any less real.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Covid in the past year, we all have a much clearer sense of what matters. Go figure—it’s not the promotion, or the raise, or the fancy car, or the private jet. It’s not getting into an Ivy League school or completing an Ironman or being famous. It’s not adding an extra shift or staying late because your boss expects it of you. Instead, it is taking the time to see how beautiful frost looks on a window. It’s being able to hug your mom or hold your grandchild. It’s having no expectations but taking nothing for”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“Inside was my father’s wallet, his reading glasses, his wedding ring. Identity, insight, heart: the only things we leave behind.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“The only way you can tell how far you’ve come is to know where you started.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“What we want is for everyone to just wear a mask. But then there are people who say that requiring a mask is a gross infringement of their bodily rights. I don’t know how to make it any more clear: you don’t have any bodily rights when you’re dead.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

“It’s not having the adventures or crossing off the line items of the bucket list. It’s who you were with, who will help you recall it when your memory fails.”
― Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here