Jodi Picoult Quotes

I would say 99 percent of the time, you're probably attracted to the other person because it is repairing something that's a little broken in yourself. When you're getting into the relationship, whether that becomes an impediment or the rocket fuel, that's the choice of the person who's in it.

If we must lose wife or husband when we live to our highest right, we lose an unhappy marriage as well, and we gain ourselves. But if a marriage is born between two already self-discovered, what a lovely adventure begins, hurricanes and all.

I have always been with men who were type A, alpha males. I must exist because I'm with him, I'd think. But what made them what they were also often meant they were lacking empathy genes. And now I know I don't need an alpha male; I need somebody who's interesting. I'm not pretending that I'm 100 percent healed, so I might not know if a man is right for me right away, but it wouldn't take me seven years to figure it out. Maybe a month or two.

My girlfriend makes me want to be a better person... so I can get a better girlfriend.

I don't know why anyone would want to ask an actor for dating advice. We are not the poster children for healthy relationships.

If we are happy within ourselves, we don't accept or demand that our partner should fulfill every need. We need to be comfortable with our own company.

A lot of people hurl themselves into relationships to lose themselves, but I think the best relationships help us to be more ourselves, to bring forth our best selves.

I think there's a big difference between loving someone out of duty and dependency and loving someone because you really are able to sort of grow and be whole in the context of that relationship.

Love yourself. Then find something to love beyond yourself.

I think I've learned through not speaking up for myself and thinking that I needed to let men trample all over me, and that didn't work out and I did lose my voice and I knew I wasn't going to let that happen in my experience when I was trying to find someone to spend forever with.

If you truly want to find a meaningful relationship, you've got to find yourself first and learn to be confident in your own skin. Don't sacrifice anything about who you are to be with someone. That's setting yourself up for failure.

I describe a soulmate as a 'soul-nurturing mate' - someone who nurtures your soul - thereby promoting insight and growth.

Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me-so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins.

As you get older and as you experience and go through different things you realize you have to set boundaries. You have to for your life. You have to say this is OK and this is not OK. This is what I do for a living and this is my life. It's the only one I get and so I have to set boundaries.

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves.

Am I going to be able to be the person I want to be in this relationship?

Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.

There are two different categories of love. The first category is called a fairytale. The second category of love is called just another lesson

I think it's a mistake to say that to be a healthy, well-adjusted person you need a monogamous relationship.

Not to settle. If you're not happy with a person, leave. And wait until you find that one person who makes you feel good about yourself every single day and is not expecting you to change, but to grow.

I want us to have it all, love and career. It's a struggle sometime to achieve that, but I love the struggle.

Loving someone means helping them to be more themselves, which can be different from being what you’d like them to be, although often they turn out the same

No boy is worth your teenage years!." "For me to be in love with someone means that I have to accept who I am, and not allow another person to define me. And if someone loves me in spite of all that, then that's a start.

Romance is a means to the end of self-completion, but love is an end in itself.

It's important to have your own space. I've never trusted people who do everything together. I call them "Kool-Aid Couples," because it's like they drank the same Kool-Aid and it's drugged them into constantly gazing into each other's eyes.