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I Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.
-Jodi Picoult
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I Am Not Keeping

Jodi Picoult
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I Am Not Keeping My Distance Because It Is Uncomfortable For Me, But Because It Is Uncomfortable For Them.

Understanding the Quote: "i am not keeping my distance because it is uncomfortable for me,..."

This quote by Jodi Picoult reflects deeply on the theme of distance. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Distance, Uncomfortable, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jodi Picoult interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is celebrated for insightful thoughts on distance and uncomfortable. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Distance
Uncomfortable
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In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Mow The Front Lawn; Color Your Hair; Watch A Third Of A Hockey Game. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Bake Scones Or Get A Tooth Filled By A Dentist; You Can Fold Laundry For A Family Of Five. In Nineteen Minutes, You Can Stop The World; Or You Can Just Jump Off It.
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Since It Had Gotten So Quiet In The Room That You Could Hear The Sound Of Your Own Doubts.
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Knowledge Was Power, But A Good Librarian Did Not Hoard The Gift. She Taught Others How To Find, Where To Look, How To See.
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Dylan Jerome," The Lawyer Admits, "wanted To Sue God For Not Caring Enough About Him.
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I Imagine How Cool It Would Be If All Small Talk Wasn't Lies.
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People
When You Don't Know Where You're Headed, You Find Places No One Else Would Ever Explore.
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She Wanted Him To Tell Her That When You Love Someone So Hard And So Fierce, It Was All Right To Do Things That You Knew Were Wrong.
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But It Was Like Wearing A Size Five Sneakers When Your Foot Is A Seven- You Can Get By For A Few Steps, And Then You Set Down And Pull Off The Shoes Because It Just Plain Much
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Feet
I Believe That You Can Fall In Love Many Times With Many Different People. However, I Don't Think That You Can Fall In Love The Same Way Twice. One Type Of Relationship May Be Steady. Another May Be Fire And Brimstone. Who Is To Say If One Of These Is Better That The Other? The Deciding Factor Is How It All Fits Together. Your Love, I Mean, And Your Life.
Falling In Love
Believe
Mean
Your Problem Is That You Have Been Too Honest For Too Long. Once You Start Doing It, Lying Is Simpler Than Breathing.
Lying
Breathing
Long
When You Love Someone, You Don't See Parts Of Him You Don't Like.
When You Love Someone
Love Someone
When You Finally Start To Write Something, Do Not Let Yourself Stop...even When You Are Convinced It's The Worst Garbage Ever. This Is The Biggest Caveat For Beginning Writers. Instead, Force Yourself To Finish What You Began, And Then Go Back And Edit It.
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Force
Maybe Knowing Where You Belong Is Not Equal To Knowing Who You Are.
Knowing Who You Are
Where You Belong
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Eskimos Maybe? Believed Stars Were Holes In The Sky Where People Who Died Could Peek Through At You
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You Don't Make Peace Only With G-d. You Make It With People. Sin Isn't Global. It's Personal. If You Do Wrong To Someone, The Only Way To Fix That Is To Go To That Same Person And Do Right By Him.
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Way
Sin
Dark Matter Has A Gravitation Effect On Other Objects. You Can't See It, You Can't Feel It, But You Can Watch Something Being Pulled In Its Direction.
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I Think There Are Crossroads In Our Lives When We Make Grand, Sweeping Decisions Without Even Realizing It.
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Realizing
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Want
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The Real Power Of A Wolf Isn't In Its Fearsome Jaws, Which Can Clench With Fifteen Hundred Pounds Of Pressure Per Square Inch. The Real Power Of A Wolf Is Having That Strength, And Knowing When Not To Use It.
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No One Gets To Start Where They Left Off; It Just Doesn't Work That Way.
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Left
When You're Different, Sometimes You Don't See The Millions Of People Who Accept You For What You Are. All You Notice Is The Person Who Doesn't.
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Confidence
Self Esteem
He’s Not Your Typical Prince, More Like A Square Peg In A Round Hole, Kind Of Like Me. He’s The Sort Of Guy Who Wouldn’t Mind Reading Side By Side On A Date.
Reading
Squares
Guy
And If Your Parents Have You For A Reason, Then That Reason Better Exist. Because Once It's Gone, So Are You.
Parent
Gone
Reason
There Are All Sorts Of Experiences We Can't Really Put A Name To...the Birth Of A Child, For One. Or The Death Of A Parent. Falling In Love. Words Are Like Nets--we Hope They'll Cover What We Mean, But We Know They Can't Possibly Hold That Much Joy, Grief, Or Wonder. Finding God Is Like That, Too. If It's Happened To You, You Know What It Feels Like. But Try To Describe It To Someone Else--and Language Only Takes You So Far.
Falling In Love
Children
Grief
Mistakes Are Like The Memories You Hide In An Attic: Old Love Letters From Relationships That Tanked, Photos Of Dead Relatives, Toys From A Childhood You Miss. Out Of Sight Is Out Of Mind, But Somewhere Deep Inside You Know They Still Exist. And You Also Know That You're Avoiding Them.
Memories
Mistake
Sight
I Had The Heart Of The Relationship, And No Body To Grow It In... It Broke.
Heart
Body
Broke
I ...understand How A Parent Might Hit A Child- It's Because You Can Look Into Their Eyes And See A Reflection Of Yourself That You Wish You Hadn't.
Children
Eye
Reflection
You Can't Pay A Landlord In Dogma.
Pay
Dogma
Landlord
How Could You Not Want To Draw Breath One More Day? How Could Your Own Life Be Such A Cheap Commodity? But Then I Started To Understand: When Your Existence Is Hell, Death Must Be Heaven.
Heaven
Want
Life Is
I Have The Most Devoted And Loyal Following. I Could Probably Type Up My Grocery List And They'd All Want To Read It. I Love That They're Willing To Let Me Go Wherever I Need To Go As An Author, And They're Happy To Come Along For The Ride As The Reader.
Want
Lists
Needs
Gay Rights Is Not Something Most Of Us Think About - Because Most Of Us Happen To Have Been Born Straight.
Gay
Thinking
Rights
But Will You Miss Me? More Importantly - Will I Miss You? Does Either One Of Us Really Want To Hear The Answer To That Question?
Missing
Answers
Want
The Night Is Falling Down Around Us. Meteors Rain Like Fireworks, Quick Rips In The Seam Of The Dark... Every Second, Another Streak Of Silver Glows: Parentheses, Exclamation Points, Commas - A Whole Grammar Made Of Light, For Words Too Hard To Speak.
Rip
Rain
Fall
Sara: "you Are So Brave," I Tell Her, And Then I Smile. "when I Grow Up, I Want To Be Just Like You." To My Surprise, Kate Shakes Her Head Hard. Her Voice Is A Feather, A Thread. "no Mommy," She Says. "you'd Be Sick.
Growing Up
Voice
Sick
A Fire Can't Burn Forever. Eventually, It Consumes Itself.
Fire
Forever
My Sisters Keeper
In Reality, You Don’t Ever Change The Hurricane. You Just Learn How To Stay Out Of Its Path.
Reality
Path
Hurricanes
Why Are Terms Of Endearment Always Food? Honey, Cookie, Sugar, Pumpkin. Its Not Like Caring About Someone Is Enough To Actually Sustain You.
Caring
Cookies
Sugar
A Man Should Live His Life A Certain Way Not Because Of Some Divine Authority, But Because Of A Personal Moral Obligation To Himself And Others.
Men
Way
Moral
I Think You Can Love A Person Too Much. You Put Someone Up On A Pedestal, And All Of A Sudden, From That Perspective, You Notice What's Wrong - A Hair Out Of Place, A Run In A Stocking, A Broken Bone. You Spend All Your Time And Energy Making It Right, And All The While, You Are Falling Apart Yourself. You Don't Even Realize What You Look Like, How Far You've Deteriorated, Because You Only Have Eyes For Someone Else.
Running
Fall
Eye
Good People Are Good People; Religion Has Nothing To Do With It.
People
Good People
The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.
Desperate
Holes
Bigger
Love Is Not An Equation, It Is Not A Contract, And It Is Not A Happy Ending. Love Is The Slate Under The Chalk, The Ground That Buildings Rise, And The Oxygen In The Air. It Is The Place You Come Back To, No Matter Where Your Headed
True Love
Love Is
Air
The Music We Listen To May Not Define Who We Are. But It’s A Damn Good Start.
May
Who We Are
Damn
You Figured That The Only Way I'd Be Happy Is If I Did The Things You Thought Would Be Best For Me.
Would Be
Way
Ifs
It's Just Like Nurses In A Hospital Tend To Know More Than The Doctors Most Of The Time; If You Really Want To Get The Answers To A Question About Court, You Should Spend More Time Buttering Up The Clerks Than The Judges.
Doctors
Nurse
Judging
You Came Back Fighting And Furious At Me. You Told Me You'd Been Looking For Mermaids, And I Interrupted You. [...] I Said That Next Time, You Had To Take Me With You." "was There A Next Time?" "well, You Tell Me, You Don't Need Water To Feel Like You're Drowning, Do You?
Fighting
Water
Mermaid
Summertime, I Think, Is A Collective Unconscious. We All Remember The Notes That Made Up The Song Of The Ice Cream Man; We All Know What It Feels Like To Brand Our Thighs On A Playground Slide That's Heated Up Like A Knife In A Fire; We All Have Lain On Our Backs With Our Eyes Closed And Our Hearts Beating Across The Surface Of Our Lids, Hoping That This Day Will Stretch Just A Little Longer Than The Last One, When In Fact It's All Going In The Other Direction.
Song
Heart
Eye
Let Me Tell You What Happens When You Cook Down The Syrup Of Loss Over The Open Fire Of Sorrow: It Solidfies Into Something Wlaw. Not Grief, Like You'd Expect, Or Even Regret. No, It Gets Thick As Paste, Black As Ash; Yet It Isn't Until You Dip A Finger In And Feel That Sharp Taste Dissolving On Your Tounge That You Realize This Is Angel In Its Purest Form, Unrefined; A Substance To Be Weighed And Measyred And Spread.
Regret
Grief
Angel
You Can't Look Back - You Just Have To Put The Past Behind You, And Find Something Better In Your Future.
Moving On
Past
Behind You
All Writers Start With A Layer Of Truth, Don't They? If Not, Their Stories Would Be Nothing But Spools Of Cotton Candy, A Fleeting Taste Wrapped Around Nothing But Air.
Air
Would Be
Stories
What You Notice Is The Loneliness. Daniel Started To Isolate Himself, Because It Hurt Less Than Being Pushed Away.
Hurt
Loneliness
It Hurts
Eric Understands That The World Is Rarelythe Way It Is Supposed To Be. And He Knows That, Given The Chance, We Don't Have To Wait For Someone To Make Messes Of Our Lives. We Do A Good Enough Job, Ourselves.
Jobs
Waiting
World
After All, Once You Know That Part Of Something Exists, It Stands To Reason That The Rest Of It Is Somewhere Out There, Too.
Reason
Somewhere Out There
Knows
When Your Mother Is Made Out Of Your Dreams, Anything Real Is Bound To Disappoint You.
Mother
Dream
Real
When You Care More If Someone Else Lives Than You Do About Yourself- Is That What [love Is]?
First Love
Love Is
Care
It's Hard To Be The One Always Waiting. I Mean, There's Something To Be Said For The Hero Who Charges Off To Battle, But When You Get Right Down To It There's A Whole Story In Who's Left Behind.
Hero
Mean
Waiting
Identification Is Not The Same As Knowing Someone Through And Through.
Knowing
Identification
Knowing Someone
Until This Moment, I Had Not Realized That Someone Could Break Your Heart Twice, Along The Very Same Fault Lines.
Broken Heart
Broken Love
Lines
You Can Tell Yourself That You Would Be Willing To Lose Everything You Have In Order To Get Something You Want. But It's A Catch-22: All Of Those Things You're Willing To Lose Are What Make You Recognizable. Lose Them, And You've Lost Yourself.
Order
Would Be
Want
It Is A Remarkable Question- Do All The Wonderful Things Happen When We Are Not Aware Of Them?
Wonderful
Awareness
Remarkable
This Was Something She Would Keep Hidden Within Herself, Maybe In Place Of The Knot Of Pain And Anger She Had Been Carrying Under Her Breastbone...a Security Blanket, An Ace Up Her Sleeve. She Might Never Use It, But She Would Always Feel Its Presence Like A Swelling Secret Stone, And That Way When She Let Go Of The Rage, She Would Not Feel Nearly As Empty.
Heartbreak
Letting Go
Pain
Love Is Not A Because, It's A No Matter What.
Love
Attitude
Matter
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.
Communication
Facts
Faces
It Takes Two People To Make A Lie Work: The Person Who Tells It, And The One Who Believes It.
Lying
Believe
Two
I Never Said I Do Not Remember, My Grandmother Corrects. I Said I Prefer To Forget.
Grandmother
Remember
Forget
I Learned A Long Time Ago With You That Folks Who Were Trying To Be Kind Would Rather Do It With A Macaroni-and-cheese Bake Than Any Personal Involvement. You Hand Off A Serving Dish And You've Done Your Job - No Need To Get Personally Involved, And Your Conscience Is Clean. Food Is The Currency Of Aid.
Jobs
Hands
Long
Violence Up Close Has A Smell. Like Copper Blood And Charcoal Burning.
Blood
Smell
Burning
I Watch Her Do The Simplest Things: Brushing Her Hair Into A Ponytail, Feeding The Dog, Tying Sophie's Shoelaces, And I Want To Tell Her What She Means To Me, But I Never Actually Say The Words. After All, To Acknowledge Delia As A Drug, I'd Have To Face The Fact That One Day I Might Have To Go Without Her And This I Can't Do.
Dog
Mean
Hair
Traveling Is All Very Well And Good As Long As You Knew There Is A Place Or Person You Can Call Home
Home
Long
Wells
What Could It Be Like To Find Out, In A Matter Of Minutes, That The Person You Believed The Sun Rose And Set On Was Not The Person You'd Thought?
Rose
Matter
Sun
You Want To Write Something As Good As What You've Read.
Writing
Want
Why Are You Doing This To Yourself? When Something Bad Happens, Why Do You Have To Pick At It Until It Bleeds All Over Again?
Happens
Picks
After All, The Only Way To Communicate Is To Find Someone Who Can Comprehend; The Only Way To Be Forgiven Is To Find Someone Who Is Willing To Forgive.
Forgiving
Way
Communicate
There Was, Really, Nothing You Could Use As A Blueprint For Your Life, Except Your Past. There Was No Starting Over. There Was Only Picking Up The Pieces Someone Had Left Behind.
Past
Starting Over
Use
The Only Person Who Suffers, When You Squirrel Alway All That Hate, Is You.
Hate
Squirrels
Suffering
His Hand Is Cool On My Cheek As He Paints A Tear Beneath My Left Eye, Dark Blue And Swollen With Sorrow.
Eye
Dark
Blue
I Don't Write The Same Book Over And Over - I Think If I Did That, I Would Stop Writing. I Couldn't Write A Series With The Same Character, And I Couldn't Write A Romance Novel Over And Over Again That Takes Place At A Different Beach Every Year. That's Not Who I Am.
Beach
Book
Writing
I Think This Is Every Mother's Worst Nightmare - Something Dreadful Happening To Her Child.
Mother
Children
Thinking
It Never Failed To Amaze Me How The Most Ordinary Day Could Be Catapulted Into The Extraordinary In The Blink Of An Eye.
Eye
Ordinary Days
Blink
It Turns Out That Sharing The Past With Someone Is Different From Reliving It When You’re Alone. It Feels Less Like A Wound, More Like A Poultice.
Past
Different
Turns
It's The Child Who's Supposed To Cry, And The Mom Who Makes It All Better, Not The Other Way Around, Which Is Why Mothers Will Move Heaven And Earth To Hold It Together In Front Of Their Own Kids.
Mom
Mother
Children
Things Break All The Time. Glass And Dishes And Fingernails. Cars And Contracts And Potato Chips. You Can Break A Record, A Horse, A Dollar. You Can Break The Ice. There Are Coffee Breaks And Lunch Breaks And Prison Breaks. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Chains Can Be Broken. So Can Silence, And Fever... Promises Break. Hearts Break.
Horse
Coffee
Heart
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