Jodi Picoult Quotes

It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.

To love someone means that you sometimes are fulfilled the most by putting thier deepest desires above your own.

Our German language has a word which in a magnificent way denotes conduct based on this spirit: doing one's duty [Pflichterfüllung]-which means serving the community instead of contenting oneself. We have a word for the basic disposition which underlies conduct of this kind in contrast to egoism and selfishness-idealism. By 'idealism' we mean only the ability of the individual to sacrifice himself for the whole, for his fellow men.

My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for.

I fight for other people better than I fight for myself.

What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.

Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.

Feel the needs of others more than your own.

Be more concerned with everybody else than yourself.

Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.

Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

We ought to be people of compassion. And being people of compassion means we deny ourselves, and our self centeredness.

Altruism is for those who cannot endure their desires.

Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it.

It's not about you. It's about them.

Sometimes you have to be selfish to be selfless.

I never want to get to the point where it's all about my needs, and the hell with anybody else.

It so happens that after a certain stage, we have to give in to the wishes of the people rather than your own satisfaction. I look at it as my responsibility to satisfy the wishes of the people more than mine.

Putting the need of your team above personal self-interest is a difficult thing to do.

It's always easier to sacrifice when you're not the one who has to do it.

Canadians are a compassionate people and we should be. But at what cost?

There are things that are more important than my personal happiness.

I often long to . . . give up my life to love of my neighbour. This is really a temptation.

I cared more about your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.

Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.