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What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?
-Jodi Picoult
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What Was The Point

Jodi Picoult
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What Was The Point Of Being Able To Forgive, When Deep Down, You Both Had To Admit You'd Never Forget?

Understanding the Quote: "what was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down,..."

This quote by Jodi Picoult reflects deeply on the theme of forgiving. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Forgiving, Able, Never Forget, 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 forgiving and able. 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
Forgiving
Able
Never Forget
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Lost Love
Rainbow
You Need To Learn To Write On Demand, And To Get Critiqued Without Flinching. When Someone Can Rip Your Work To Shreds Without It Feeling As Though Your Arm Has Been Hacked Off, You're Ready To Send Your Novel Off To An Agent.
Rip
Writing
Feelings
I Think The 'new York Times' Reviews Overall Tend To Overlook Popular Fiction, Whether You're A Man, Woman, White, Black, Purple Or Pink. I Think There Are A Lot Of Readers Who Would Like To See Reviews That Belong In The Range Of Commercial Fiction Rather Than Making The Blanket Assumption That All Commercial Fiction Is Unworthy.
New York
Men
Thinking
I Wish I Could Tell Him I Understand: The Higher You Raise Your Hopes, The Farther You Have To Fall.
Fall
Wish
Raises
You Know How Every Now And Then, You Have A Moment Where Your Whole Life Stretches Out Ahead Of You Like A Forked Road, And Even As You Choose One Gritty Path You've Got Your Eyes On The Other The Whole Time, Certain That You're Making A Mistake.
Mistake
Eye
Path
If You Read A Book That's Fiction And You Get Caught In The Characters And The Plot, And Swept Away, Really, By The Fiction Of It - By The Non-reality - You Sometimes Wind Up Changing Your Reality As Well. Often, When The Last Page Is Turned, It Will Haunt You.
Book
Character
Reality
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
You Keep Distracting Me,” I Tell Her. “all I’m Doing Is Sitting Here Talking To You!” “exactly,” I Say, And I Smile At Her.j
Talking
Sitting
I Smile
Most People Who Offer Their Help Do It To Make Themselves Feel Better, Not Us. To Be Honest, I Don't Blame Them. It's Superstition: If You Give Assistance To The Family In Need... If You Throw Salt Over Your Shoulder... If You Don't Step On The Cracks, Then Maybe You'll Be Immune. Maybe You'll Be Able To Convince Yourself That This Could Never Happen To You.
Feel Better
People
Giving
You Can Make It Dark, But I Can't Make It Light.
Dark
Light
I Can
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
It Still Hurts," She Whispered. "even When You're Doing It For Someone Else, That Doesn't Stop Your Ribs From Getting Cracked, Or Your Wrist Swelling, Or Your Cuts From Bleeding.
Hurt
Cutting
Ribs
My Mother Walks Forward. She's Crying, But There's A Smile On Her Face. For God's Sake, Is It Any Wonder I Can't Ever Understand What You People Are Feeling?
Mother
People
Feelings
When You Want Something So Desperately, You Shake With The Need For It. You Tell Yourself That You Don't Need More Than One Sip, Because It's Just The Taste You Crave, And Once It's On Your Tongue You Will Be Able To Make It Last Alifetime. You Dream Of It At Night. You See A Thousand Mile-high Obstacles Between Where You Stand And What You Want, And You Convince Yourself You Have The Power To Hurdle Them. You Tell Yourself This Even When, Leaping The First Block, You Wind Up Bruised And Bloodied And Flattened.
Dream
Block
Night
Where You Come From Does Matter -- But Not Nearly As Much As Where You Are Headed.
Travel
Doe
Where You Come
Although You Hadn't Asked Why, It Had Less To Do With You Not Noticing Than With You Not Wanting To Hear The Answer.
Fear
Answers
Noticing
I, Um, I Have This Problem. I Broke Up With My Boyfriend, You See. And I'm Pretty Upset About It, So I Wanted To Talk To My Best Friend. [...] The Thing Is, They're Both You.
Love
My Boyfriend
Upset
I Don't Base My Books On My Life (thank Goodness) And I Don't Pick The Topic First. In Fact, The Topic Picks Me - Via A Question I Can't Answer As A Mom, A Wife, A Woman, An American. I Find Myself Wondering "what If..." And It Blossoms Into A Whole Novel.
Mom
Book
Ifs And
Even The Most Beautiful Things Can Be Toxic.
Beautiful
Toxic
Beautiful Things
The Joke's On Them. One Little Hypodermic Wont' Be Enough. Split A Piece Of Wood, And They'll Find Me. Lift Up A Stone, And They'll Find Me. Look In The Mirror, And They'll Find Me...if You Really Want To Know What Makes Someone A Killer, Ask Yourself What Would Make You Do It.
Mirrors
Looks
Pieces
I Thought Of All The Magazine Article I'd Read On Mothers Who Worked And Constantly Felt Guilty About Leaving Their Children With Someone Else. I Had Trained Myself To Read Pieces Like That And Silently Say To Myself, 'see How Lucky You Are?' But It Had Been Gnawing At The Inside, That Part That Didn't Fit, That I Never Let Myself Even Think About. After All, Wasn't It A Worse Kind Of Guilt To Be With Your Child And To Know That You Wanted To Be Anywhere But There?
Mother
Children
Thinking
A Lie, As You Probably Know, Has A Taste All Its Own. Blocky And Bitter And Never Quite Right.
Lying
Toffee
Never Quit
The Problem Was, You Couldn't Have One Without The Other. There Couldn't Be A Bad Guy Unless There Was A Good Guy To Create The Standard. And There Couldn't Be A Good Guy Until A Bad Guy Showed Just How Far Off The Path He Might Stray.
Guy
Might
Path
On The Surface, We're Polar Opposites. Under The Skin, Though, We're The Same: People Think They Know What They're Getting, And They're Always Wrong.
Thinking
Opposites
People
You'd Think Someone Who'd Been To Medical School Would Be Able To Hear Through A Stethoscope That Somebody Was Empty Inside.
School
Thinking
Would Be
Or In Other Words, It's The Substance You've Got When You Start That Determines The Outcome.
Substance
Outcomes
Determine
Remember When You Were A Little Kid And You'd Fall Asleep In The Car? And Someone Would Carry You Out And Put You Into Bed, So That When You Woke Up In The Morning, You Knew Automatically You Were Home Again? That's What I Think It's Like To Die.
Morning
Fall
Home
I Don't Want To Make The Same Mistake Twice. I Don't Want To Tell Myself It's Over When It's Not.
Mistake
Want
Same Mistakes
This Is What It Always Comes Down To, I Realized. There Are The Ones Who Believe, And The Ones Who Don't, And Caught In The Space Between Them Are Guns.
Believe
Gun
Space
You Know What I Noticed When I Was With Jacob? In Your World, People Can Reach Each Other In An Instant. There's The Telephone, And The Fax - And On The Computer You Can Talk To Someone All The Way Around The World. You've Got People Telling Their Secrets On Tv Talk Shows, And Magazines That Publish Pictures Of Movie Stars Trying To Hide Their Homes. All Those Connections, But Everyone There Seems So Lonely.
Lonely
Stars
Home
I Realized It Was Like Looking Into The Sun—you Shouldn't Do It, Because You'd Turn Your Face Away And Be Blind To Everything Else.
Faces
Sun
Blind
I Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That Before I Was A Writer, I Was A Teacher. I Still Am. My Classroom's Just Gotten A Little Bigger.
Teacher
Sight
Littles
When This Is Over...we Will Got To The Rainforest, Or A Beach As White As Bone. We Will Eat Grapes From The Vine, We Will Swim With Sea Turtles, We Will Walk Miles On Cobblestone Streets. We Will Laugh And Talk And Confess. We Will.
Beach
Turtles
Sea
When She Wanted To Escape Her Life, She Read Books
Book
Wanted
I Wanted Him To Feel What I Felt When I Was With Him: That Incredible Combination Of Comfort, Decadence, And Wonder; The Knowledge That, With Just A Single Taste Of Him, I Was Addicted.
Comfort
Taste
Wonder
Real Mothers Don't Just Listen With Humble Embarrassment To The Elderly Lady Who Offers Unsolicited Advice In The Checkout Line When A Child Is Throwing A Tantrum. We Take The Child, Dump Him In The Lady's Cart, And Say, "great. Maybe You Can Do A Better Job." Real Mothers Know That It's Okay To Eat Cold Pizza For Breakfast. Real Mothers Admit It Is Easier To Fail At This Job Than To Succeed.
Mother
Jobs
Children
I Learned A Lot That Night. For Example, That Part Of Being The Magician's Assistant Means Coming Face-to-face With Illusion. That Invisibility Is Really Just Knotting Your Body In A Certain Way And Letting The Black Curtain Fall Over You. That People Don't Vanish Into Thin Air; That When You Can't Find Someone, It's Because You've Been Misdirected To Look Elsewhere.
Fall
Mean
Night
And That Was The Greatest Heartbreak Of All- No Matter How Spectacular We Want Our Children To Be, No Matter How Perfect We Pretend They Are, They Are Bound To Disappoint. As It Turns Out, Kids Are More Like Us Than We Think: Damaged, Through And Through.
Children
Kids
Thinking
I Told Myself That If I Didn't Care, This Wouldn't Have Hurt So Much - Surely That Proved I Was Alive And Human And All Those Touchy-feely Things, For Once And For All. But That Wasn't A Relief, Not When I Felt Like A Skyscraper With Dynamite On Every Floor.
Hurt
Relief
Alive
I Try Really Hard To Ask People To Take A Look At Their Bookshelves. Are There Female Writers On It? Gay Writers? Writers Of Color? There Should Be.
Gay
Color
People
Kid Says To Me, "you Play Baseball? What Position? Left Out?" And Gets A Big Laugh From The Rest Of The Class. Kid Is Only One Person Out Of 6.792 Billion Humans On This Planet. This Planet Is Only One-eighth Of The Solar System, Whose Sun Is One Of Two Billion Stars In The Milky Way Galaxy. Put It That Way, The Comment Loses It's Importance.
Baseball
Stars
Kids
A Duck Walks Into A Bar And The Bartender Asks, What'll It Be? The Duck Doesn't Answer Because It's A Duck.
Ducks
Bars
Answers
Things Break All The Time. Day Breaks, Waves Break, Voices Break. Promises Break. Hearts Break.
Heart
Voice
Promise
Since It Had Gotten So Quiet In The Room That You Could Hear The Sound Of Your Own Doubts.
Doubt
Sound
Rooms
It Makes Faith Think Of A Hammock In Their Yard, A Web Of Rope That She Thought Would Unravel The First Time She Leaned Back On It, But That Managed To Support Her All The Same.
Thinking
Support
Yards
Is It Really Worth Dying For The Person You Love?
Dying
Persons
[i] Don't Think I Was Trying To Kill Myself. I Just Wanted To Hurt, And Understand Exactly Whay I Was Hurting. This Made Sense: You Cut, You Felt Pain, Period.
Hurt
Pain
Cutting
You Don't Make A Friend," Jacob Said With A Scowl. "it's Not Like They Come With Directions Like You'd Find On A Box Of Macaroni And Cheese.
Cheese
Like You
Boxes
What She Hadn't Realized Was That Sometimes When Your Vision Was That Sharp And True, It Could Cut You. That Only If You'd Felt Such Fullness Could You Really Understand The Ache Of Being Empty.
Cutting
Vision
Sometimes
Justification Is A Remarkable Thing-takes All Those Solid Lines And Blurs Them, So That Honor Becomes As Supple As A Willow, And Ethics Burst Like Soap Bubbles.
Honor
Soap Bubbles
Lines
If You Want Something To Be True Badly Enough, You Can Rewrite It That Way, In Your Head. You Can Even Start To Believe It.
Believe
Want Something
Way
That's The Crazy Thing About Lies. You Start To Fall For Them, Yourself.
Crazy
Lying
Fall
Clearly God Was In Some Kind Of Mood On My Birthday.
Cancer
My Birthday
Kind
I Think That's Probably The Most Devastating Thing - When Someone Who Is Larger Than Life Winds Up A Shadow Of Themselves In A Hospital Bed.
Thinking
Wind
Shadow
Do You Know How Sometimes - When You Are Riding Your Bike And You Start Skidding Across Sand, Or When You Miss A Step And Start Tumbling Down The Stairs - You Have Those Long, Long Seconds To Know That You Are Going To Be Hurt, And Badly?
Hurt
Riding Your Bike
Tumbling Down
Maybe If God Gives You A Handicap, He Makes Sure You've Got A Few Extra Doses Of Humor To Take The Edge Off.
Giving
Handicaps
Extras
There Were Some People Who Hit Your Life So Hard, They Left A Stain On Your Future.
People
Stains
Your Future
Infatuation's Just Another Word For Not Seeing Clearly. When You Start To Love A Person- That's When They Become Real
Real
Infatuation
Persons
On A Really Dark Night, You Can See Between 1,000 And 1,500 Stars, And There Are Millions More That Haven't Been Discovered. It Is So Easy To Think That The World Revolves Around You, But All You Have To Do Is Stare Up At The Sky To Realize It Isn't That Way At All. -brian Fitzgerald
Stars
Dark
Night
Being A Good Mother, It Seemed To Me, Meant You Ran The Risk Of Losing Your Child.
Mother
Children
Risk
You Can Fool Yourself, You Know. You'd Think It's Impossible, But It Turns Out It's The Easiest Thing Of All.
Thinking
Fool
Impossible
You Know How Hind-sight Is 20/20? Love Is When You Look Back And Wouldn't Change Anything.
Love Is
Sight
Looks
You Know Why I Think We Still Execute People? Because, Even If We Don't Want To Say It Out Loud-for The Really Heinous Crimes, We Want To Know That There's A Really Heinous Punishment. Simple As That. We Want To Bring Society Closer Together-huddle And Circle Our Wagons-and That Means Getting Rid Of People We Think Are Incapable Of Learning A Moral Lesson. I Guess The Question Is: Who Gets To Identify Those People? And What If, God Forbid, They Got It Wrong?
Mean
Simple
Thinking
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