Jodi Picoult Quotes

The strange thing about living somewhere for a couple of years and then moving on and not returning is that those locations become ghosts of themselves in your mind.

Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

The memory fades, and I’m left hanging on to the ghosts of his words.

Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

Sometimes when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena.

Visiting old haunts is hard on memory. Things shrink, change, and disappear.

Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.

It was a life I didn’t want to leave behind.It was a life I didn’t want to forget.

All that he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness.

It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer.

Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome.

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.

When we grow up, we tend to forget our first crush, first love, as we move along. Only when you see something on TV or hear someone say something do you go back to those moments.

Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.

For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.

Experience had taught me that even the most precious memories fade with the passage of time.

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

Over the years I’ve collected a thousand memories of you, every glimpse, every word you’ve ever said to me. All those visits to your family’s home, those dinners and holidays—I could hardly wait to walk through the front door and see you.” The corners of his mouth quirked with reminiscent amusement. “You, in the middle of that brash, bull-headed lot…I love watching you deal with your family. You’ve always been everything I thought a woman should be. And I have wanted you every second of my life since we first met.

How important things had become, now that they were gone! I felt a sudden panic that I would soon forget everything.

Identity is memory; when memory disappears, the self dissolves and love with it.

The calendar has a magic that makes us imagine a memory can be resurrected and revived, but nothing returns.

He thinks about her, at this moment, in her house, a few thin walls away, packing her life into boxes and bags and he wonders what memories she is rediscovering, what thoughts are catching in her mouth like the dust blown from unused textbooks. He wonders if she has buried any traces of herself under her floorboards. He wonders what those traces would be if she had. And he wonders again why he thinks about her so much when he knows so little to think about.

memories fall apart too.