Jodi Picoult Quotes

It was quite a blow to have my perfect image of my father shattered, but that's something we all face before we come to full adulthood.

I think probably everyone can relate to wanting to believe that your parents are one thing, and having to come to the realization that they might not be.

Being a teenager is complicated.

...that melancholy which we feel when we cease to obey orders which, from one day to another, keep the future hidden, and realise that we have at last begun to live in real earnest, as a grown-up person, the life, the only life that any of us has at his disposal.

I sometimes imagine that as one grows older one comes to live a role which as a young person one merely 'played.

Picture the moment when your mom and dad first saw you as something other than a pretty, tiny version of them. You as them, but improved. Better educated. Innocent. Then picture when you stopped being their dream.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

I still feel like a kid sometimes myself so hard to believe that I'm a mom. Now I'm an adult! It only took 38 years!

A lot of middle-aged women are children still trying to find their way.

You grow and you change, or at least you think you do, but you're kind of the same.

I thought I was an old soul, and that I knew life, but then starting the real life, I figured I am completely new.

I have a lot of growing up to do, or a lot of growing down. I think that's probably more appropriate.

In middle school, we are all so damn insecure. It was the worst time for me, really destructive, like slapping myself across the face but loving it. Now I have to be an adult and change myself. I have to be a bigger person.

I think everyone has their awkward phases. Growing up isn't easy for everyone. I definitely had my awkward moments.

People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

I feel like I experienced my 20s in all their glory and all their disastrousness.

I had a very brilliant father who was not only intellectual, but was street-smart and very curious to boot. The day I found out that he didn't know everything, I grew up. It was a shock. I just thought that the man was the end-all of everything, and he knew the answer to everything. Then I found out I'd have to find out my own answers.

In the early 2000s, I was going through a lot. I didn't have my head screwed on right. Where I was at as a man, I was still growing up.

For whatever reason, I decided: 'I'm 18, I'm a man, I'm going to grow a moustache' - and it was pathetic for years - it was awful.

When I came back to Britain, I realized that I was no longer a very young woman. I had to meet my new consciousness, my new age, with roles that reflected it somewhat.

A lot of first novels are coming-of-age stories. A lot are autobiographical.

I remember when I was 33 or 34, it was devastating because I realized I wasn't a kid anymore. The great thing about 40 was that I really felt like I had life experience and knew what I was doing now.

I was a kid who did a kid show. Then I went away and raised my child, and the world has never met me as an adult.

When I stopped going to school, I got the strongest dose of perspective. When you're a kid, your friends, your school, your teachers, your family - that's your whole world, your whole existence. And then when I stopped going, I lost all my friends but the few that were really close to me.

I really like coming-of-age dramas. It's probably the most intense period in anyone's life, those years before you become an adult. Dramatically, there's so much to explore there. And it's nice to be around young talent coming through.