My Sister's Keeper Quotes

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect . . . You love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.”

“Although I am nine months pregnant, although I have had plenty of time to dream, I have not really considered the specifics of this child. I have thought of this daughter only in terms of what she will be able to do for the daughter I already have…Then again, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save her sister’s life.”

“I want to sue (my parents) for the rights to my own body.”

″‘(A guardian ad litem is) a person trained to work with kids in the family court, who determines what’s in the child’s best interests,’ Anna recites. ‘Or in other words, just another grown-up deciding what happens to me.‘”

“In America—even if the consequences are tragic—you are not responsible for someone else’s safety. You aren’t obligated to help anyone in distress. Not if you’re the one who started the fire, not if you’re a passerby to car wreck, not if you’re a perfectly matched donor.”

“Maybe it’s because Jesse isn’t all that different from me, choosing fire as his medium, needing to know that he could command at least one uncontrollable thing.”

“See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn’t get here by accident. And if your parents have you for a reason then that reason better exist. Because once it’s gone, so are you.”

“The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night—because morals are more important than ethics, and love is more important than law.‘”

“As we got older, I didn’t seem to exist, except in relation to her.”

“He smiles at me, and I suddenly am seventeen again—the year I realized love doesn’t follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable.”

“She is dying Sara. She will die, either tonight or tomorrow or maybe a year from now if we’re really lucky. You heard what Dr. Chance said. Arsenic’s not a cure. It just postpones what’s coming.’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘But I love her,’ I say, because that is reason enough.”

“You admitted that you’ve always considered Kate’s health, not Anna’s, in making these choices. ... So how can you claim to love them both equally? How can you say that you haven’t been favoring one child in your decisions?”

“I’m actually educated to think that morals and ethics do not necessarily go hand in hand.”

“Either this girl loses her sister, I think, or she’s going to lose herself.”

“If you don’t want to be my sister anymore, that’s one thing. But I don’t think I could stand to lose you as a friend.”

“If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone? ”

“Of course Anna should be honored for donating her bone marrow. Of course she deserves recognition. But the thought of rewarding someone for their suffering, frankly, never entered my mind.”

“It made me wonder, thought, what would have happened if Kate had been healthy. ... Certainly, I would not be part of this family.”

“A major decision about me is being made, and no one’s bothered to ask the one person who most deserves it to speak her opinion.”

“I have a feeling that if I really try to figure out who I am without Kate in the equation, I’m not going to like who I see.”