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
What is the point of trying to put down on paper emotions that are too complex, too huge, too overwhelming to be confined by an alphabet? Love isn't the only word that fails. Hate does, too.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the inadequacy of language to fully capture complex emotions like love and hate.
Jodi Picoult highlights the limitations of language when attempting to articulate deep emotions. While words like 'love' and 'hate' are commonly used, they often fall short of encapsulating the intricacies and overwhelming nature of our feelings. The quote suggests that some emotions are too vast to be neatly summarized and that the simplest expressions may not do justice to the profound experiences they represent.
Themes
EmotionsLoveHateLanguageComplexity
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a discussion about the challenges of expressing feelings adequately.
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
If I profane with my unworthiest hand_x000D_ _x000D_ This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:_x000D_ _x000D_ My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand_x000D_ _x000D_ To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
William ShakespeareRead
The future for me is already a thing of the past - You were my first love and you will be my last
Bob DylanRead
sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.
Haruki MurakamiRead
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
Alice WalkerRead
There are only two energies at the core of the human experience: love and fear. Love grants freedom, fear takes it away. Love invites full expression, fear punishes it. Love invites you, always, to break the bonds of ignorance.
Neale Donald WalschRead
Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.
RumiRead