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
But mostly I wondered why the head could move so swiftly while the heart dragged its feet. I still loved him. It felt like anything else permanent that has gone missing; a lost tooth, a severed leg. You might know better, but that doesn’t keep your tongue from poling at the hole in your gum, or your phantom limb from aching.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the conflict between the mind's ability to move on and the heart's struggle to let go of love.
In this poignant reflection, Jodi Picoult highlights the emotional turmoil one experiences when trying to reconcile the rapid processing of thoughts with the lingering feelings of love that remain tied to past relationships. The imagery of a lost tooth or a phantom limb serves to illustrate the persistent pain of absence, suggesting that while one's intellect may understand the need to move forward, one's heart can continue to feel deeply attached to what has been lost.
Themes
LoveHeartMindLossEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a speech about the complexities of love during a relationship discussion.
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.
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.
Jodi PicoultRead
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.
Jodi PicoultRead
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?
Jodi PicoultRead
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
Similar quotes
Your love for God is only as great as the love you have for the person you love the least.
Dorothy DayRead
A charity which knows only how to give money is not yet Christian love. You will be free of guilt only when you also give your time, your energy, and your resourcefulness to help end such abuses for good, and when you allow nothing that lies hidden in the storehouse of your Christian religion to remain unused against the cancer that is destroying the vitality of our society in such alarming ways.
Abraham KuyperRead
One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by hearts that overflow.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
My heart is broke, but I have some glue, help me inhale and mend it with you.
Kurt CobainRead
You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
I hate and love. You ask, perhaps, how can that be? I know not, but I feel the agony.
CatullusRead