Quotes from 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult

“If we don’t change the direction we are headed we will end up where we are going.”

“But there was a part of her that wondered what would happen if she let them all in on her secret – that some mornings, it was difficult to get out of bed and put on someone else’s smile; that she was standing on air, a fake who laughed at all the right jokes and whispered all the right gossip attracted the right guy, a fake who had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real…and who, when you get right down to it, didn’t want to remember, because it hurt even more than this.”

“Tears had a whole different melody didn’t they, without the pain thread through them.”

“There were 2 ways to be happy: improve your reality or lower your expectations.”

“Wasn’t getting what you wanted all along the very definition of being happy?”

“Lie to yourself until it’s true.”

“Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. You only get to do this once.”

“You couldn’t fight the injustice of fate; you could only suffer it and hope that one day it, might be different.”

“Her eyes reminded him of the sky you see from airplanes; a boundless gray that could be anywhere, and nowhere, all at once.”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Do you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn’t be filled?”

“I sometimes think it’s easier to be the one who’s been hurt than one who couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“Old habits die hard.”

“He knew there was a difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn’t. The trick was convincing yourself these were one and the same.”

“You are the only thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you cant even remember what that was like.”

“How many years had it been since she’d seen him? You could lose track of someone when you blinked.”

“There’s different kinds of real.”

“For a moment, when he touched her she actually thought she would slip through his fingers.”

“Life was what happened when all the what-ifs didn’t.”

“She hesitated and kissed him back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you’d been missing.”

“When you begin a journey of revenge start by digging two graves: one for your enemy and one for yourself.”

“You don’t need water to feel like you’re drowning, do you?”

“Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, your mind tumbling? When you think that no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life, you will remember every last detail of that one minute forever?”

“Something still exists as long as there’s someone to remember it.”