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Where You Come From Does Matter -- But Not Nearly As Much As Where You Are Headed.
-Jodi Picoult
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Where You Come From

Jodi Picoult
...
Where You Come From Does Matter -- But Not Nearly As Much As Where You Are Headed.

Understanding the Quote: "where you come from does matter -- but not nearly as much..."

This quote by Jodi Picoult reflects deeply on the theme of travel. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Travel, Doe, Where You Come, 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 travel and doe. 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
Travel
Doe
Where You Come
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Any Time You Put On The Mouthpiece Of Somebody That You're Not, There's A Professional Responsibility To Get It Right. I Did A Great Deal Of Research In Both Of Those Arenas.
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Humans
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Home
Guy
Would Be
The Ideas Choose Me, Not The Other Way Around.
Ideas
Way
Choose Me
I Once Heard Someone On A Bus Say That This Guy Had Gotten Under Her Skin. And It Struck Me As A Remarkable Thought - That Someone Would Affect You So Deeply They'd Always Be A Part Of You.
Guy
Skins
Bus
People Believed What They Wanted To Believe, No Matter What Was Right In Front Of Their Eyes.
Believe
Eye
People
Time Is An Optical Illusion- Never Quite As Soild Or Strong As We Think It Is
Strong
Thinking
Optical Illusions
The Reason I Am Still Sitting At Josef's Kitchen Table Is The Same Reason Traffic Slows After A Car Wreck- You Want To See The Damage; You Can't Let Yourself Pass Without That Mental Snapshot. We Are Drawn To Horror Even As We Recoil From It.
Car
Kitchen
Sitting
Anna Is The Only Proof I Have That I Was Born Into This Family. Instead Of Dropped Off On The Doorstep By Some Bonnie And Clyde Couple That Ran Off Into The Night. 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. (jesse)
Couple
Night
Thinking
Where You Come From Does Matter -- But Not Nearly As Much As Where You Are Headed.
Travel
Doe
Where You Come
Tradionally, Parents Made Decisions For A Child, Because Presumably They Are Looking Out For His Or Her Best Interests. But If They Are Blinded, Instead, By The Best Interests Of Another One Of Their Children, The System Breaks Down.
Children
Decision
Parent
I Think...she Said Finally, "that All Of Us Have Got Our Ghosts.
Thinking
Ghost
Said
As Lacy Waited For Her Turn To Speak On Peter's Behalf, She Thought Back To The First Time She Realized She Could Hate Her Own Child.
Children
Hate
Firsts
Loneliness Is A Mirror, And Recognizes Itself.
Loneliness
Mirrors
It Was One Thing To Make A Mistake; It Was Another Thing To Keep Making It. I Knew What Happened When You Let Yourself Get Close To Someone, When You Started To Believe They Loved You: You'd Be Disappointed. Depend On Someone, And You Might As Well Admit You're Going To Be Crushed, Because When You Really Needed Them, They Wouldn't Be There. Either That, Or You'd Confide In Them And You Added To Their Problems. All You Ever Really Had Was Yourself, And That Sort Of Sucked If You Were Less Than Reliable.
Disappointment
Mistake
Believe
What I Want, More Than Anything, Is To Turn Back Time A Little. To Become The Kid I Used To Be, Who Believed Whatever My Mother Said Was One Hundred Percent True And Right Without Looking Hard Enough To See The Hairline Crack.
Mother
Kids
Cracks
Why Is It That Only In The Very Beginnings Of A Relationship Are You Aware Of The Heat Coming From Inside A Person, Of The Number Of Inches You Would Have To Move For Your Shoulders To Brush As If It Were An Accident?
Moving
Numbers
Heat
Life Sometimes Gets So Bogged Down In The Details, You Forget You Are Living It.
Details
Sometimes
Forget You
What You Didn't Tell Someone Was Just As Debilitating As What You Did.
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
Sneakers
Shoes
Feet
Who Spit In Your Porridge?
Spit
Porridge
Somewhere Along The Line, Organized Religion Stopped Being About Faith, And Started Being About Who Had The Power To Keep The Faith. You Said That The Purpose Of Religion Was To Bring People Together. But Does It, Really? Or Does It-knowingly, Purposefully, And Intentionally--break Them Apart?
People
Together
Doe
Words, For All They Were Flimsy And Invisible, Had Great Strength. They Could Be Fortified As A Castle Wall And Sharp As A Foil. They Could Bite, Slap, Shock, Wound. But Unlike Deeds, Words Couldn't Really Help You. No Promise Ever Rescued A Person; It Was The Carrying-through Of It That Brought About Salvation.
Wall
Promise
Castles
When Heaven Breaks, Who Fixes It?
Heaven
Break
That's Because You've Never Been One. You Haven't Spent Years Wearing Someone Else's Clothes, Taking Someone Else's Name, Living In Someone Else's Houses, And Working Someone Else's Job To Fit In. And If You Don't Sell Out, Then You Run Away... Proving You're The Gypsy They Said You Were All Along.
Running
Jobs
Years
Just Because You Keep Something A Secret Doesn't Mean It Never Happened, No Matter How Much You Want That To Be True.
Mean
Secret
Want
Into The Silence Rips A Sound That Makes Me Let Go Of Max's Hand And Cover My Ears. It Is Like The Strafe Of A Bullet, Nails On A Chalkboard, Promises Being Broken. It's A Note I Have Never Heard - This Chord Of Pure Pain - And It Takes A Moment To Realize It Is Coming From Me.
Letting Go
Pain
Rip
Life Can Change In An Instant; Don't Be So Worried About The Future That You Forget To Celebrate What You Have Right Now.
Forget
Worried
Celebrate
All Any Of Us Wanted, Really, Was To Know That We Counted. That Someone Else's Life Would Not Have Been As Rich Without Us Here.
Life
Rich
Wanted
The Bigger The Hole Inside You, The More Desperate You Became To Fill It.
Desperate
Holes
Bigger
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
If She Spoke, She Would Tell Him The Truth: She Was Not Okay At All, But Horribly Empty, Now That She Knew What It Was Like To Be Filled.
Empty
Spokes
Okay
I Think Many Of My Books, Including "handle With Care," Including "my Sister's Keeper" Circle Back To How Far Are We Willing To Go For The People We Love? I Think Love Changes The Way We Think. It's The Thing That Takes You Out Of What Your Normal Set Of Beliefs Would Be.
Book
Thinking
Circles
Technically I've Improved - I Might Turn A Metaphor In Five Words Now, Where Years Ago, It Would Have Taken Me A Paragraph. I Can't Say It Was Intentional - But You Know What They Say About Practice Making Perfect...!
Taken
Years
Practice
Then They Scrambled Through The Window And Into The Darkness, Determined To Turn Themselves Into What They Were Not.
Darkness
Determined
Window
Most People In America Want An Easy Read. I Call It Mcfiction - Books Which Pass Right Through You Without You Even Digesting Them. I Don't Mean A Book That Has Two-syllable Words. I Mean Chapters You Can Read In A Toilet Break. Happy Endings. We Are More Of A Tv Culture.
Book
Mean
Two
You Couldn't Have Strength Without Weakness, You Couldn't Have Light Without Dark, You Couldn't Have Love Without Loss
Loss
Dark
Light
The Bottom Line Is That We Never Fall For The People We're Supposed To.
I Love You
Falling In Love
People
I Closed My Eyes And Curled My Fists Around The Things I Knew For Sure: That A Scallop Has Thirty-five Eyes, All Blue. That A Tuna Will Suffocate If It Ever Stops Swimming. That I Was Loved. That This Time, It Was Not Me Who Broke
Eye
Swimming
Blue
There's No Way To Convince Her That Just Because You Put Half. Planet Between You And Someone Else, You Can't Drive That Person Out Of Your Thoughts. Believe Me. I've Tried.
Believe
Half
Way
How Do You Know That You Are Not Part Of A Book? That Someone's Not Reading Your Story Right Now?
Book
Reading
Stories
This Is Love, I Think. A Place Where People Who Have Been Alone May Lock Together Like Hawks And Spin In The Air, Dizzy With Surprise At The Connection. A Place You Go Willingly, And With Wonder
Love
Thinking
Air
Memories Aren't Stored In The Heart Or The Head Or Even The Soul, If You Ask Me, But In The Spaces Between Any Given Two People.
Memories
Heart
Two
She's Not Like Anyone I've Ever Seen Before. When I'm Not With Her, I Want To Be. And When She Opens The Book And I See Her Face, I Can Barely Remember What I'm Supposed To Say, Much Less How To Speak At All." I Test The Words On My Tongue. "i Think I Might Be In Love With Her. But How Can I Really Know, Since The Only Love I've Ever Experienced Was Written For Me?
Book
Thinking
Want
The Way I Challenge Myself Is By Writing Something That Really Engages Me, That Doesn't Have An Easy Answer, And Isn't Always An Easy Book To Write.
Book
Writing
Challenges
My Whole Life Was About Her, What If Her Whole Life Wasn’t All About Me?
What If
Whole Life
Whole
She Suddenly Remembered Studying The Brain In Science Class- How A Steel Rod Pierced A Man's Skull, And He Opened His Mouth To Speak Portuguese, A Language He'd Never Studied. Maybe It Would Be Like This, Now, For Josie. Maybe Her Native Tongue, From Here On In, Would Be A String Of Lies.
Lying
Men
Class
The Best Thing About Endings Is Knowing That Just Ahead Is The Daunting Task To Start Over.
Knowing
Starting Over
Tasks
The Best Place To Cry Is On A Mother's Arms.
Mothers Day
Mom
Mother Daughter
This Is What I Like About Photographs. They're Proof That Once, Even If Just For A Heartbeat, Everything Was Perfect.
Perfect
Heartbeat
Photograph
What's Stronger-the Need To Uphold The Law, Or The Motive To Turn One's Back On It?
Law
Stronger
Needs
Even Though I Don't Write About Things That Come From My Life Because I'm Lucky, And I Live In A Great Place With Great Kids And, You Know, A Great Husband, I Think You Can Find Threads Of Me In The Characters, So That's Really What Being A Writer Is, Probably.
Husband
Writing
Character
The Process Of Growing Up Was Nothing More Than Figuring Out What Doors Hadn't Yet Been Slammed In Your Face.
Growing Up
Doors
Faces
Imagine If You Were The Positive Pole Of A Magnet, And You Were Told That Under No Circumstances Were You Allowed To Touch That Negative Pole That Was Sucking You In Like A Black Hole. Or If You Crawled Out Of The Desert And Found A Woman Standing With A Pitcher Of Ice Water, But She Held It Out Of Your Reach. Imagine Jumping Off A Building, And Then Being Told Not To Fall. That's What It Feels Like To Want A Drink.
Fall
Jumping
Ice Water
Dead Isn’t Angels Or Ghosts. It’s A Physical State Of Breakdown, A Change In All Those Carbon Atoms That Create The Temporary House Of A Body So That They Can Return To Their Most Elemental Stage.
Angel
House
Atoms
An Apology With A Defense Built In Isn't Much Of An Apology
Apology
Defense
Built
When You're Pregnant, You Can Think Of Nothing But Having Your Own Body To Yourself Again; Yet After Giving Birth You Realize That The Biggest Part Of You Is Now Somehow External, Subject To All Sorts Of Dangers And Disappearance, So You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Trying To Figure Out How To Keep Her Close Enough For Comfort. That's The Strange Thing About Being A Mother: Until You Have A Baby, You Don't Even Realize How Much You Were Missing One.
Mother
Baby
Thinking
It Feels Like A Punch. Tears Fill My Eyes, And I Wonder How I Could Be Upset Over Losing Something I Never Had.
Eye
Upset
Tears
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.
Motivational
Confidence
Self Esteem
You May Be Real, But You're Still Stuck In A Book.
Real
Book
May
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
What If Instead Of Focusing On What You Don't Have, You Concentrate On What You've Got?
What If
Ifs
Let Me Tell You This: If You Meet A Loner, No Matter What They Tell You, It's Not Because They Enjoy Solitude. It's Because They Have Tried To Blend Into The World Before, And People Continue To Disappoint Them.
Inspirational
Life
Lonely
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
If You Ask Me, Music Is The Language Of Memory
Memories
Language
Music Is
I Don't Think We Get A Choice In Who We Fall For," Ian Whispers. "i Think We Just Do.
Fall
Thinking
Choices
Just Because You Had Every Right To Feel Sorry For Yourself Didn't Mean You Ever Took The Opportunity To Do So.
Forgiveness
Im Sorry
Mean
We All Have Things That Come Back To Haunt Us. Some Of Us Just See Them More Clearly Than Others.
When You Want Something Bad, You'll Tell Yourself A Thousand Lies.
Lying
Want Something
Want
I Smiled At Him As Best I Could And Pushed The Paper Across The Table Before He Could Change His Mind. Because Henry Deville Was Correct - There Was An Ingredient In My Baking More Concenctrated Than Any Extract, More Pungent Than Any Spice; An Ingredient That Everyone Would Recognize And No One Was Able To Name: It Was Regret, And It Rose When One Least Expected.
Regret
Names
Rose
Houses Are Cellular Walls; They Keep Our Problems From Bleeding Into Everyone Else's.
Wall
House
Bleeding
Well I Talk A Little About That, But I Don't Admit That From The Beginning I Knew We Were Not Meant To Be Together.
Together
Were Not Meant To Be
Littles
Lately, I Have Been Having Nightmares, Where I'm Cut Into So Many Pieces That There Isn't Enough Of Me To Be Put Back Together.
Cutting
Together
Pieces
It Is So Easy To Presume That While Your Own World Has Ground To An Absolute Halt, So Has Everyone Else's.
World
Easy
Halt
I Know You Love Me. The Question Is, How Much?
I Know You Love Me
Knows
Sometimes It Made Her Want To Put Her Fist Through Glass; Other Times, It Made Her Cry A River.
Loss
Glasses
Rivers
Maybe The Reason I've Never Died In This Story Is That I've Never Had Something Worth Dying For Before.
Dying
Stories
Reason
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