Jodi Picoult Quotes

I'll burn myself, or I'll cut myself. For a burn or a cut might be shown, might be nursed, might scar or heal, would be a miserable kind of emblem; would anyway be there, on the surface of her body, rather than corroding it from within. Now the thought came to her again, that she might scar herself in some way. It came, like the solution to a problem: I won't be doing it like some hysterical girl. I won't be hoping she'll come catch me at it. It won't be like lying on the sitting-room floor. I'll be doing it for myself, as a secret.

There are always suicides among people who are unable to say what they mean.

She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.

Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.

Inwardly, I gouged my eyes out.

Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride. Guilt aims at self-destruction, and pride aims at the destruction of others.

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

I can't stop thinking about cutting myself up. Visual bruises can be covered with make-up, but down to the core, I'm all bruises.

I am burning myself up and will always do so.

I am pregnant with song. My body aches but do not betray me. I will sing songs and hide them away. I will tear them into bits and throw them in the street. The streets of my city are full of dark holes. I will hide my songs in the holes of the streets.

Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.

It was the emotion I hated the most of all emotions, shame.

The fact of the matter is that, since we are determined always to keep our feelings to ourselves, we have never given any thought to the manner in which we should express them. And suddenly there is within us a strange and obscene animal making itself heard, whose tones may inspire as much alarm in the person who receives the involuntary, elliptical and almost irresistible communication of one's defect or vice as would the sudden avowal indirectly and outlandishly proffered by a criminal who can no longer refrain from confessing to a murder of which one had never imagined him to be guilty.

The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.

I will do my best to dodge tonight's depression Hide in sleep Damage myself in dreams Wake up older, slightly more used.

The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?

Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away.

In shame there is no comfort but to be beyond all bounds of shame.

I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

A woman who is starved for her real soul-life may look 'cleaned up and combed' on the outside, but on the inside she is filled with dozens of pleading hands and empty mouths.

Let me not be weak and tell others how bleeding I am internally; how day by day it drips, and gathers, and congeals.

Shame produces trauma. Trauma produces paralysis.

I talk openly about my past and what I've gone through - abuse being something that was very real in my household, and a lot of chaos growing up as a child. I think that I naturally just gravitated towards music that I could really feel on a deep level - and that meant sadness. I was able to connect with that at a really young age.

I feel pain everyday of my life. When you see me perform, it's that pain you're seeing coming out. I put all my emotions, all my feelings, and my body on the line. People hurt me, I hurt myself - mentally, physically