Quotes From "The Storyteller" By Antonia Michaelis

History isn't about dates and places and wars. It's about the people who fill the spaces between them. Jodi Picoult

Just a tiny little pain, Three days of heavy rain, Three days of sunlight, Everything will be alright, Just a tiny little pain. Antonia Michaelis

History tells us that six million Jews disappeared during that war. If there was no Holocaust, where did they go?' She shakes her head. 'All of that, and the world didn't learn anything. Look around. There's still ethnic cleansing. There's discrimination. Jodi Picoult

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future. Jodi Picoult

That cloak of love you were wearing–he’s torn it to shreds, undoing the seams of trust that held it together. How can you ever wear those shreds? Antonia Michaelis

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 Picoult

You know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not others. What Jesus challenges us to do is to let go of the wrong done to you personally, not the wrong done to someone else. But most Christians incorrectly assume that this means that being a good christian means forgiving all sins, and the sinners. Jodi Picoult

What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you. Jodi Picoult

There are all sorts of losses people suffer- from the small to the large. You can lose your car keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion. Jodi Picoult

When a freedom is taken away from you, I suppose, you recognize it as a privilege, not a right. Jodi Picoult

But that's what love is, isn't it? When it hurts you more to see someone suffer than it does to take the pain away? Jodi Picoult

How can you ricochet from a moment where you are on top of the world to one where you are crawling at rock bottom Jodi Picoult

The place in her, though, where her tears should have come from, was rough and dry. No, she didn't find any tears in herself to cry for the storyteller. The storyteller didn't exist anymore. Antonia Michaelis

The only monsters I have ever known were men. Jodi Picoult

My brother believed in all sorts of mythical creatures: pixies, dragons, werewolves, honest men. Jodi Picoult

My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn’t find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday. She was a chameleon, slipping into the personae of a privileged young girl, a frightened teen, a dreamy novelist, a proud prisoner, an army wife, a mother hen. She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her. By anyone’s account, her existence had been full, rich, important–even if she chose not to shout about her past, but rather to keep it hidden. It had been nobody’s business but her own; it was still nobody’s business. . Jodi Picoult

If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase--not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been--what would you take? The last photograph you had of your mother? A birthday gift from your best friend--a bookmark embroidered by her? A ticket stub from the traveling circus that had come through town two years ago, where you and your father held your breath as jeweled ladies flew through the air, and a brave man stuck his head in the mouth of a lion? Would you take them to make wherever you were going feel like home, or because you needed to remember where you had come from? . Jodi Picoult

Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others. Jodi Picoult

It turns out that sharing the past with someone is different from reliving it when you're alone. It feels less like a wound and more like a poultice. Jodi Picoult

You can't change things. That's life. Poor stays poor, rich says rich, and those two, they will never meet. Antonia Michaelis

My child, I know you're not a child But I still see you running wild Between those flowering trees. Your sparkling dreams, your silver laugh Your wishes to the stars above Are just my memories. And in your eyes the ocean And in your eyes the sea The waters frozen over With your longing to be free. Yesterday you'd awoken To a world incredibly old. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. You had to kill this child, I know. To break the arrows and the bow To shed your skin and change. The trees are flowering no more There's blood upon the tiles floor This place is dark and strange. I see you standing in the storm Holding the curse of youth Each of you with your story Each of you with your truth. Some words will never be spoken Some stories will never be told. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. I didn't say the world was good. I hoped by now you understood Why I could never lie. I didn't promise you a thing. Don't ask my wintervoice for spring Just spread your wings and fly. Though in the hidden garden Down by the green green lane The plant of love grows next to The tree of hate and pain. So take my tears as a token. They'll keep you warm in the cold. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. You've lived too long among us To leave without a trace You've lived too short to understand A thing about this place. Some of you just sit there smoking And some are already sold. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. This is the age you are broken or turned into gold. Antonia Michaelis

If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase-not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been-what would you take? Jodi Picoult

[There's a] point where you have to leave the dough alone. It's silly to anthropomorphize bread, but I love the fact that it needs to sit quietly, to retreat from touch and noise and drama, in order to evolve. I have to admit, I often feel that way myself. Jodi Picoult

Is his work vengeance? Or Justice? There is the finest line between the two and when i try to focus on it, it becomes less and less clear. Jodi Picoult

You will ask me, after this, why, I didn't tell you this before. It is because I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free. Jodi Picoult

For the narrative to exist, so that it could be read and reread even if I was taken away. Stories outlive their writers all the time. We know plenty about Goethe and Charles Dickens from what they chose to tell, even though they have been dead for years. Jodi Picoult

If you end your story, it's a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don't, it belongs to anyone's imagination. It stays alive forever. Jodi Picoult

When was the last time someone read aloud to you? Probably when you were a child, and if you think back, you'll remember how safe you felt, tucked under the covers, or curled in someone's arms, as a story was spun around you like a web. Jodi Picoult

But sometimes, in order to win, you have to make sacrifices. Jodi Picoult

A long time ago someone told me that a story will tell itself, when it's ready. Jodi Picoult

There was no black or white. Someone who had been good her entire life could, in fact, do something evil. People were just as capable of committing murder, under the right circumstances, as any monster. Jodi Picoult

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 Picoult

Repeat the same action over and over again, and eventually it will feel right. Eventually, there isn't even any guilt. Jodi Picoult

My mother used to say that sometimes if you turn a tragedy over in your hand, you can see a miracle running through it, like fool's gold in the hardest shard of rock. Jodi Picoult

She had taught herself how to knit, and for the mare's scarf - it was green - she had given herself the best grade possible. And. ..''That's silly! ' Micha giggled. 'Well, who is the cliff queen, you or me?' Abel asked. 'It isn't my fault if you're giving yourself grades! Antonia Michaelis

Abel was brushing the snow off his parka while Micha was dancing around him, still balancing the plate of cookies, singing, 'We're staying, we're staying, we're staying overnight! We're drying! We're drying! We're drying on the line! Antonia Michaelis

And the snow that fell onto the roof in winter... it fell softly... softly... and it covered the house, the armchair, the books, the children's voices. It covered Anna and Abel, covered their parallel world, and everything was finally, very, very quiet. Antonia Michaelis

As long as you're better at it than skating..., " Anna said and stood up too. She wanted to say more, but that wasn't possible because he was kissing her. Reasonable Anna wanted to draw back the danger of touch. But unreasonable Anna welcomed the kiss like happiness. Maybe, she thought, it's better to take these moments when you get them - there might not be too many in life. Antonia Michaelis

Her voice was caught in the shell of my ear, as if it were the ocean. Jodi Picoult

There is a magic to intimacy, a world built of sighs and skin that is thicker than brick, stronger than iron. There is only you, and him, so impossibly close that nothing can come between. Not the enemy, not your allies. In this safe haven, in this hallowed place and time, I could even ask the questions whose answers I feared. Jodi Picoult