Small Great Things QUOTES

61 " Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. —JAMES BALDWIN "

62 " Did you know that in the Lion King, the hyenas – the bad guys – all speak in either black or Latino slang? And that the little cubs are told not to go where the hyenas live?"

"Do you realise that scar, the villain, is darker than Mufasa? "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

63 " It just goes to show you: every baby is born beautiful.
It's what we project on them that makes them ugly. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

64 " Do you think there will ever be a time when racism doesn't exist?"

"No, because that means white people would have to buy into being equal. Who'd choose to dismantle the system that makes them special? "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

65 " The adhan,” the father explained. “God is great; there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” he looked up at me and smiled. “In Islam, we want the first words a child hears to be a prayer.”
It seemed absolutely fitting, give the miracle that every baby is.
The differences between the Muslim father's request and the request made by Turk Bauer was like the difference between day and night.
Between love and hate. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

66 " When it comes to social justice, the role of the white ally is not to be a savior or a fixer. Instead, the role of the ally is to find other white people and talk to make them see that many of the benefits they’ve enjoyed in life are direct results of the fact that someone else did not have the same benefits. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

67 " Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. -Benjamin Franklin

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. -James Baldwin

She wore an expression I've only seen in paintings in museums, of a love and a grief so fierce that they forged together to create some new, raw emotion.

There are two types of people who become public defenders: those who believe they can save the world, and those who know damn well they can.

Any public defender who tells you justice is blind is telling you a big fat lie.

If no one ever talks about race in court, how is anything ever supposed to change?

It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life & think you are seeing yourself clearly. Then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, & you realize you've never truly seen yourself at all.

My client hates me. She thinks I'm a racist. Micah: She has a point. You're white and she's not, and you both happen to live in a world where white people have all the power.

It is a strange thing being suddenly motherless. It's like losing a rudder that was keeping me on course, one that I never paid much mind to before now. Who will teach me how to parent, how to deal with the unkindness of strangers, how to be humble? You already did, I realize.

She looks at me, and we laugh....we have more in common than we have differences.

Everyone has prejudices. It's my job to make sure that they work in favor of the person I'm representing.

The Millennials are the me generation. They usually think everything revolves around them, and make decisions based on what's going on in their lives & how it will affect their lives. They're minfields of egocentrism. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

68 " When I tell people this story, they assume the miracle I am referring to during that long-ago blizzard was the birth of a baby. True, that was astonishing. But that day I witnessed a greater wonder. As Christina held my hand and Ms. Mina held Mama's, there was a moment- one heartbeat, one breath- where all the differences in schooling and money and skin color evaporated like mirages in a desert. Where everyone was equal, and it was just one woman, helping another.
That miracle, I've spent thirty-nine years waiting to see again. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

69 " There's an elderly woman fussing with the top of the cream pitcher, trying to get it open. Her purse sits on the counter, but as I approach, she picks up the handbag and anchors it to her side, crossing her arm over the strap.
“Oh, that pitcher can be tricky,” I say. “Can I help?”
She thanks me and smiles when I hand her back the cream.
I'm sure she doesn't even realize she moved her purse when I got closer.
But I did. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

70 " Most of us think the word racism is synonymous with the word prejudice. But racism is more than just discrimination based on skin color. It’s also about who has institutional power. Just as racism creates disadvantages for people of color that make success harder to achieve, it also gives advantages to white people that make success easier to achieve. It’s hard to see those advantages, much less own up to them. And that, I realized, was why I had to write this book. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

71 " How incredibly easy it is to hide behind white skin, I think, looking at these probable supremacists. The benefit of the doubt is in your favor. You’re not suspicious. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

72 " Do you think there will ever be a time when racism doesn't exist?"

"No, because that means white people would have to buy into being equal. Who'd choose to dismantle the system that makes them special "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

73 " In a lot of ways, having a teenager isn’t all that different from having a newborn. You learn to read the reactions, because they’re incapable of saying exactly what it is that’s causing pain. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

74 " It is remarkable how events and truths can be reshaped, like wax that’s sat too long in the sun. There is no such thing as a fact. There is only how you saw the fact, in a given moment. How you reported the fact. How your brain processed that fact. There is no extrication of the storyteller from the story. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

75 " Small Great Things is a reference to a quote often attributed to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

76 " The loneliest creature on earth is a whale that has spent more than twenty years calling out for a mate, I read, but whose voice is so different from those of other whales that none of them ever respond. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

77 " I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

78 " True confession? The reason we don’t talk about race is because we do not speak a common language. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

79 " I tell them that there is nothing more selfish than trying to change someone’s mind because they don’t think like you. Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected. I "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things

80 " THEY PUT ME IN CHAINS. Just like that, they shackle my hands in front of me, as if that doesn’t send two hundred years of history running through my veins like an electric current. As if I can’t feel my great-great-grandmother and her mother standing on an auction block. They put me in chains, and my son—who I’ve told, every day since he was born, You are more than the color of your skin—my son watches. "

― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things