Jodi Picoult Quotes
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I have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.
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Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
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On a shelf above my computer are five letters that spell out W-R-I-T-E. Just in case I forget why I'm there. I also have 'Wonder Woman' paraphernalia from when I wrote five issues of the comic, and pictures of my husband and kids.
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Read a ton. Take a workshop course so you learn to give and get criticism.
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Many of my books come from what if questions that I can't answer, things that I'm worried about as either a woman, a wife, a mom, an American.
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I think the 'New York Times' reviews overall tend to overlook popular fiction, whether you're a man, woman, white, black, purple or pink. I think there are a lot of readers who would like to see reviews that belong in the range of commercial fiction.
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My friends say I have two speeds: fast and blistering.
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My first job was as an assistant in the local library. Self-fulfilling prophecy?
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For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.
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I feel I'm able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves me free to create all of this and to enjoy our family life, stepping away from all the fictional traumas and the dramas. If I write about family in crisis, then I won't have to live through it, I guess.
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I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.
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I am an activist. I have a really big pulpit with my fiction and I love knowing that I can make people think.
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Writer's block is for people who have the luxury of time.
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If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?
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Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.
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Everyone has a book inside of them - but it doesn't do any good until you pry it out.
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I'm the kind of person you want to kill. I had an incredibly happy childhood. I married a terrific guy when I was 23. I have great, well-adjusted kids. Sometimes my husband and I look at each other and do a little jig in the kitchen. This is the best life.
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I write about all the horrible things that can happen to kids as a way of keeping those things from happening to mine. Write the books, spit three times over your shoulder and you're safe.
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There's that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success.
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I'm not going to tell a person how to think, don't believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don't be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let's see if you can still find the footing.
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I write adult fiction, but a good 40 to 50 per cent of my readers are teenagers. I love that if they have to grow up and move past JK Rowling they can move to me. From Jo to Jodi!
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Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch 'American Idol' and video their children's concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do.
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Every year I tell myself that I'm not going to read any reviews and then I do. We're all human and when I read something negative it hurts. I think when you write it's part of the game, you're going to get some good reviews and some bad reviews and that's how it goes. I don't write for the reviews.
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I think there are readers out there and I don't think the book is dead. And more importantly I don't think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.