The scariest thing in the world is thinking someone you love is going to die.

—Jodi Picoult in Lone Wolf

love fear death

About Jodi Picoult

Portrait of Jodi Picoult

Jodi Lynn Picoult ( PEE-koh; born 1966) is an American writer. As of 2026, Picoult has published 30 novels, several short stories, and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages. In...

More quotations from Jodi Picoult

I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I don't want to tell myself it's over when it's not.

—Jodi Picoult in My Sister's Keeper

mistakes moving on

Stop trying to act like nothing happened. Because something did, and you can't make it go back to being the same.

—Jodi Picoult in The Pact

I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now… if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.

—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

love communication happiness death unknown

I believe that having something to hope for—even if it's just a better tomorrow—is the most powerful drug on this planet.

—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

power hope better

The first person you fell in love with stole your heart. The first person you made love with stole your soul. And if these were one and the same, you were doomed.

—Jodi Picoult in Mercy

love soul heart theft

More quotations tagged with “death”

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

—H. L. Mencken

cynicism death flowers coffins

I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now… if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.

—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

love communication happiness death unknown

If you're condemned to death they have to give you one last meal of your choice. What is that all about? A group of people plans to kill you, so they want you to eat something you like? Do they think the food part will take your mind off the dying part? Or do they prefer to kill you when you're just coming off a peak experience and full of positive energy?

—George Carlin

mind death food energy

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

—Rudyard Kipling

War would end if the dead could return.

—Stanley Baldwin

History

18 Dec 2014 Added