Jodi Picoult Quotes

The weight is off my shoulders. I don't live in the past anymore. I look forward, instead of back.

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves that allows us to get on with our lives instead of being trapped in the past by resentment.

Don't ignore the past, but deal with it, on your own pace. Once you deal with it, you are free of it; and you are free to embrace your life and be a happy loving person because if you don't, the past will come back to haunt and keep coming back to haunt you.

The emptiness where I used pain to fill the hole no longer controls me, no longer calls me because of you.

Part of forgiving people is releasing them from our own agendas.

Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment.

To forgive is to abandon your right to pay back the predator in his own coin, but it is the loss that Liberates.

Forgiving someone does not mean you condone their behavior. The act of forgiveness takes place in your own mind. It really has nothing to do with the other person. The reality of true forgiveness lies in setting ourselves free from holding on to the pain. It is simply an act of releasing yourself from the negative energy.

To denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.

Forgiveness isn't about letting the other person off the hook - it's about releasing ourselves.

Forgiveness makes you feel better. As soon as you forgive, you're free.

When you haven't forgiven those who've hurt you, you turn back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.

Forgiveness is the key that can unshackle us from a past that will not rest in the grave of things over and done with. As long as our minds are captive to the memory of having been wronged, they are not free to wish for reconciliation with the one who wronged us.

It is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. Forgiveness is love practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without wanting anything in return.

A lot of people, when they say 'forgive and forget,' they think you completely wash your brain out and forget everything. That is not the concept. What I think is you forgive and you forget so you can transform your experiences, not necessarily forget them but transform them, so that they don't haunt you or handicap you or kill you.

Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours.

The most important thing that I learned in growing up is that forgiveness is something that, when you do it, you free yourself to move on.

We all have our demons. When we finally learn to let them go, we get to live and be free.

As I forgive, I set myself free and experience the bliss of inner peace.

You don't have to move on to let go.

To forgive is to unlock the cage of another's folly to set ourselves free.

Forgiveness is a gift to myself. I forgive, and I set myself free.

Learn to forgive yourself and move on.

We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living in the present.