Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.
Jodi PicoultRead
she told me she'd be a phoenix." The image of the mythical creature rising from the ashes glitters in my mind. "They don't really exist." "She said that depends on whether or not there's someone who can see them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote speaks to the idea of resilience and belief in the unseen potential of people.
In this quote, Jodi Picoult uses the metaphor of a phoenix—a creature that is reborn from its ashes—to illustrate the themes of hope and transformation. The conversation highlights the importance of vision and belief; the ability to recognize and support someone's potential can help them rise and thrive, even when they may seem to be at their lowest. It suggests that sometimes, the existence of greatness or beauty depends on the perceptions of those around us.
Themes
PhoenixResilienceTransformationHopeBelief
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
More from Jodi Picoult
All quotes →Whether it was power they sought, or revenge, or love-well, those were all just different forms of hunger. The bigger the hole inside you, the more desperate you became to fill it.
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for 100,000 (dollars), you [can] flatten a house with a wrecking ball. Imagine how much less it [takes] to destroy something than it [does] to build it in the first place.
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But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?
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when you [lose someone], it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all nerves are still a little raw
Jodi PicoultRead
But what if your obsession has nothing to do with drugs or thrills or money? What if what you want most in the world is to recapture the way life was a week, a month, a year ago-and you are willing to do whatever it takes?
Jodi PicoultRead
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