Jodi Picoult Quotes

When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.

I never had the chance to consider what or how I wanted to be.

Yes there are times when you regret your decisions but we all have to make them without the power of hindsight.

Christina Stead has a Chinese say, "Our old age is perhaps life's decision about us" or, worse, the decision we have made about ourselves without ever realizing we were making it.

I am still raw. I say I may be back. You know what lies are for. Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

I don't know if I would do this if I had to start over again.

I'd be like, 'You're a young, vibrant woman. Where are you?' I realized that I had been living in denial.

I'd be lying to you if I said I had not done some soul searching.

Every man writes his manner. I just made poor decisions.

On the Road that I have taken, one day walking I awaken, amazed to see where I've come, where I'm going, where I'm from.

Take one, and you cannot take the other. But neither path is safe. Which way would you walk — the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies?

Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.

I don't know what to do. I only know that it's taken me years to understand that life was pushing me in a direction I didn't want to go in.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth.

A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach . . .

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.

I know the mistake I am making. I see the exits in life.

You make some big grandoise decision about what you need to do, or who you need to be, and then circumstances arise that immediately reveal to you how little you understood about yourself.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.

Life is more a matter of choosing than knowing. He could never know the eventual destination of his path, but he could always choose in which direction to take each step.

You have to choose your future regrets.

Every decision you make ... is a decision about Who You Are.

We find ourselves only by looking to what we’re not.