Jodi Picoult (b.1966) is an American novelist and author of popular fiction and family saga. Her work is translated into 34 languages and has sold 40 million copies globally, and ten of her books have been No. 1 New York Times bestsellers.
Born in Nesconset on Long Island, New York, Picoult studied English at Princeton. She worked at an ad firm, a financial analyst, a textbook editor, and a schoolteacher. She drafted her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992,) when she was pregnant with her first child. She has published 26 books since then, averaging almost one a year, including Mercy (1996,) My Sister’s Keeper (2004,) Nineteen Minutes (2007,) Handle with Care (2009,) Sing You Home (2011,) and A Spark of Light (2018.)
Picoult has also published short stories and issues of Wonder Woman comic books.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jodi Picoult
Maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.
—Jodi Picoult
Topics: Determination
You don’t love someone because they’re perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.
—Jodi Picoult
What if it turns out that a life isn’t defined by who you belong to, or where you came from, by what you wished for or whom you’ve lost, but instead by the moments you spend getting from each of these places to the next?
—Jodi Picoult
See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it.
—Jodi Picoult
Power isn’t doing something terrible to someone who’s weaker than you, … It’s having the strength to do something terrible, and choosing not to.
—Jodi Picoult
You know it’s never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It’s always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.
—Jodi Picoult
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.
—Jodi Picoult
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Cynthia Ozick American Novelist, Essayist
Andre Norton American Science Fiction Writer
Isabel Allende Chilean Novelist
Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
Lloyd Alexander American Writer
Judy Blume American Author
Susan Sontag American Writer, Philosopher
Joyce Carol Oates American Novelist
Amy Tan Chinese-American Novelist
Annie Dillard American Writer