Jodi Picoult Quotes

I definitely went through some dark teenage years. I wore black raccoon eyeliner every single day. I would be late to school if I didn't have time to put my eyeliner on.

I always tried so hard to fit in, and then I figured out that I didn't want to fit.

After a show, I'll get the 16-year-old white kid whose lip is pierced, his head is shaved and his parents hate him, and the young gangster from the screwed-up 'hood, and they say that now they realize there's someone out there who thinks like they do.

As a teenager especially, I just wanted to do my thing and not be noticed.

I was a pretentious teenager, so of course I had, you know, 'Raging Bull' posters and all of that. 'Raging Bull' is not a pretentious movie, but me having the poster was a pretentious action. I even grew a goatee and had a Knicks cap, because I thought I wanted to be like Spike Lee.

I threw all my clothes away from high school.

Do what you want, and if people are going to judge you for it, who cares? You might not fit in, but that's okay. Everyone thought I was weird in high school!

What was it about high school that made people think with their insecurities instead of their brains?

Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty.

People tell me what to do every single day. They think I'm boring. I'm Disney kid. So, there's that.

People always ask if I was really voted Most Bizarre Girl in high school. But that one's actually true. I was living in Michigan in a very conservative town and had a nose-ring and a shaved head and did kind of strange things.

I think that I just wasn't brought up under any rules, and I think that made me a little different and people wanted to look up to that or aspire to that, and that makes me very grateful.

In high school, I got picked on. It's funny that I got tormented for what I'm doing now - the acting thing. People would see me in a Nickelodeon commercial, and I would hear about it the next day at school. Kids would say, 'Hi, TV Boy.' They heckled. I never got beat up.

I take what people feel and think, especially when it's different from, very seriously, and I find it liberating.

If that's what you're thinking, then don't even question it. Go let your freak flag fly, brother.

Bingo pup. It's a lesson best learned early. They're all afraid of us." He strolled over to Derek. "You're trying to be a good kid, aren't you? You think that'll show them they're wrong. So how'd that working out for you? Guess what? They don't care. To them, you're a monster, and nothing you do--or don't do--will change their minds. My advice? Give 'em what they want. It's a short, brutal life." He smiled. "Live it up." Derek stared straight ahead, patiently waiting. "He can't hear a word I'm saying, can he?" Liam said. "Nope.

It's more like the inner workings of John Bender. He feels like he's been given a short shrift, he's not been provided the opportunities that maybe these other kids have. So he feels like he begins in a hole. And instead of trying to raise himself up, he wants to bring all of them down. That's a dynamic that's pretty universal. And so that was the real foothold on that. It wasn't like, "Oh, my high school experience is like John Bender's [in St. Elmo's Fire]."

Never was a cornflake girl; Thought it was a good solution: hanging with the raisin girls.

The problem with all these fiercely individualistic girls was that they were all exactly the same.

I've had a lot of people who've said they can relate to the show and it's helped them through a lot of difficult times, especially the kids in high school now. Everyone kind of feels like an outcast in high school. Even if you're super popular, you still have issues.

Talk about high school and what we identify with in the play; things that have happened to us and all of our high school experiences that we could bring to this. And to talk about what everyone knows in each specific scene.

I think acting is totally conducive to being a little kid, because kids are less inhibited and use their imagination.

I'm never quite sure how far to go with praising young kids because the next thing you will see him probably driving a Mercedes and he'll have his socks over his knees and four earrings in and a Walt Disney hat.

Don't get caught up in fashion games. These kids probably think we're old, nark conformists or something, but really, they're just conforming in their own ways. They're conforming to nonconformity.

I never wanted to be a wild kid. I respected my parents and I had great friends. I was lucky. We did a lot of church activities. There were the bad kids in school who partied all the time, but none of my close friends did.