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
Asking me to describe my son is like asking me to hold the ocean in a paper cup
Interpretation
What this quote means
Describing a loved one is an immense task that can't be contained in simple terms.
This quote beautifully captures the depth of a parent's love for their child, suggesting that the complexity and magnitude of that love cannot be easily conveyed or contained. Just as a paper cup cannot hold the vastness of an ocean, so too can a mere description fall short of encapsulating the profound experience of parenthood and the uniqueness of a child.
Themes
LoveFamilyParentingDepthEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a speech about parental love at a family gathering.
More from Jodi Picoult
All quotes βWhether 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
It is funny the two things most men are proudest of is the thing that any man can do and doing does in the same way, that is being drunk and being the father of their son.
Gertrude SteinRead
~As a mom, you have to look at how much time you're spending with your kids. There is nothing you will regret more in your life - nothing - than not being present for your children.~
Jamie Lee CurtisRead
I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.
Frank MccourtRead
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Pope John Paul IiRead
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
Adrienne RichRead
Your children live or die without you. No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die. It's a devastating realization, but liberating.
David SheffRead