Alice Hoffman Quotes

It's still horrible to wish the worst on anyone. I'm sure she had her reasons. Maybe people hurt her feelings, the same way I was hurt. A single word can feel like a rock being thrown at you.

When they got back in the Corvette, Gretel fished around in her shopping bad. "What is this?"
She had chosen a black tank suit, but somehow a pink bikini had wound up among her purchases.
"Don't be mad," Margot pleaded.
"I'm not wearing this." Gretel tossed the bikini back in the bag. All the same, she couldn't help but notice the fabric was the same exact shade as the palest climbing roses. The tint of seashells on a deserted beach, or the mouth of someone you might want to kiss.

Trouble is just like love, after all; it comes in unannounced and takes over before you've had a chance to reconsider, or even to think.

Fate could twist you around and around if you weren't careful. Just when you thought you knew where you were headed, you'd wind up in the opposite direction, or flattened against a wall.

Early on Monday evening, when the sky was the color of a velvet ribbon falling over the hills.

Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for.

There is no fiercer enemy than a word. A word that can be written down in pages and punctuated by quotation marks and commas and spelled out in contracts and poems and sighs, in old whispers and song lyrics, in promises and vows.

I thought you were supposed to be the champion of your people,' I said.
I live because I need to do that. For anyone who is left.'
Don't you see? No one will be left. Protect them now or there will be no one to protect!'
This is a battle that goes on and on. It never ends. You're too young to understand.
No! You're too much of a coward to fight.'
I was sick of lies and secrets and of battles so old we had to erase who we were to fight back. And still we lost. Still we were tied to posts.

The summer of the gypsy moths when all the trees in their yard were bare, the leaves chewed by caterpillars. You could hear crunching in the night. You could see silvery cocoon webbing in porch rafter and strung across stop signs.

Do as you will, but harm no one.

What you give will be returned to you threefold.

Fall in love whenever you can.

In the darkest hour of winter, when the starlings had all flown away, Gretel Samuelson fell in love. It happened the way things are never supposed to happen in real life, like a sledgehammer, like a bolt from out of the blue. One minute she was a seventeen year-old senior in high school waiting for a Sicilian pizza to go; the next one she was someone whose whole world had exploded, leaving her adrift in the Milky Way, so far from earth she was walking on stars.

When I looked at her, she appeared to be a different person from the one I'd known ... She had rewritten everything, our history together, our friendship. Now I was the girl who'd stolen Andres; the girl who'd lied to her about who I was. Therefore, she owned me nothing.

He thought of Jesus as a great teacher, a rebel who refused to see the poor and disenfranchised mistreated.

In our world of shadows, there is no black and white but a thousand different strokes of light".

You lose people sometimes, you know. You don't expect to, but then it happens and you can't get them back." We

Jill and I have known each other our whole lives. One house separates our houses but we act as if it doesn't exist. We met before we were born and we'll probably still know each other after we die. At least, that's the way we're planning it.

It's not easy. It never is. That is the secret our parents fail to tell us, out of kindness and love, but it's a secret we need to know. Everything that begins, ends. Everything beautiful disappears.

I think of life as a book of stories," he goes on. You move through the stories and the characters change.

Everyone should know exactly what everyone else is thinking and then people wouldn't hurt each other so much.

It was amazing how many colors there were, all running into the gutter in a stream: a dozen shades of blue, twenty different reds, and all that black soot, like a nightmare given form, the insides of a heart, destroyed so easily, done away with before anyone could stop the damage, or salvage what was lost, or even try to save him.

I saw this was the way of the future, to leave the past behind as if it were a dream.

There seemed to be handfuls of stars tossed right above the rooftops in Haddan, keeping the town still alight at midnight.

she clutched her purse and was completely composed, gracefully accepting people's sympathies, but when they started to shovel the dirt over old dick's coffin she began to weep, and her grief was strong enough to chase the sparrows from the trees.

She wishes she had time to run around the block once or twice; maybe then she wouldn't feel as if she were about to burn up or shatter.

I was making a different sort of heart, one that was black, one that was protected by thorns, by bats, by raven's wings, by sorrow, by my aloneness, my armour

Time was like a river, and I was a fish in that river, moving so quickly that the world outside my household was blur.

Every problem has a solution, although it may not be the outcome that was originally hoped for or expected.

We must do as we're told," Ava reminded her. "We will honor your mother and follow her instructions."

"Because she is your maker?" Lea asked, her heart breaking.

Ava shook her head. "Because she is yours.

You don't fight for peace sister,' Nahara told me, 'You embrace it.

Although she'd never believe it, those lines in Gillian's face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she's gone through and what she's survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.

Rules of Magic:
Do as you will, but harm no one.
What you give will be returned to you threefold.
Fall in love whenever you can.

Meaning of Abracadabra - I create what I speak

In the human world you had to choose your loyalties carefully. You had to see through to someone's heart.

I think growing up is difficult and it's a process that I'm always interested in, with kids and adults, they are often on two different universes.

In my family, a book can be a life raft.

And from then on whenever he smells lilacs he'll think about this moment. How the bees were circling above him, how purple the ink on the leaflets he's been distributing suddenly seemed, how he realized, all at once, just how beautiful a woman can be.

Women know things that men will never know. We keep the best secrets. We tell the best stories.

What is made of water and fire
for isn't that what a man whose nature opposes his responsibilities can be said to be? Does one quench the other, or do they combine to ignite the depths of the soul?

Believers with nothing to believe in.

Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

She wonders if she has something other people don't. Intuition or hope
she wouldn't know what to call it.

In a novel, you'll find yourself in a world of possibilities. You'll find shelter there.

If this was what angels observed when they gazed upon our world, how we might murder each other and cause one another agony, then I pitied them as I pitied no others.

Good fortune can take forever to get to you, but as it turns out, sorrow is as quick as a shot.

What was a demon but a lost soul, one that had been forced to use his skills to survive.

Some things, however, are true no matter how hard you might try to block them out,
and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told. Some doors, once they're opened,
can never be closed again, just as some trust, once it's been lost, can never be won back.

WITCHES TAKE THEIR NAMES FROM PLACES, for places are what give them their strength. The place need not be beautiful, or habitable, or even green. Sand and salt, so much the better. Scrub pine, plumberry, and brambles, better still. From every bitter thing, after all, something hardy will surely grow. From every difficulty, the seed that's sewn is that much stronger. Ruin is the milk all witches must drink; it's the lesson they learn and the diet they're fed upon.

One thing I've learned is that strange things do happen. They happen all the time. Today, for instance, my best friend Jill's cat spoke. We were making brownies in the kitchen when we heard it say, 'Let me out.

But chains made out of blood and memory were a thousand times more difficult to sever than those made of steel, and the past could overtake a person if she wasn't careful"
"The day had begun, cool and clear and absolutely impossible to avoid"
"Being a physician is like working on a machine that keeps breaking down, time after time"
"Honesty was like a stone, dropped and irretrievable once it was spoken aloud"
"Love was like that, like a dream you didn't quite understand, one in which you didn't necessarily know what you were looking at until it was right in front of you"
"adolescence is what makes the person

At night I told myself a story, wordless, inside my head, one I liked far better than those in my books. The girl in my story was treated cruelly, by fate, by her family, even by the weather. Her feet bled from the stony paths; her hair was plucked from her head by blackbirds. She went from house to house, looking for refuge. Not a single neighbor answered his door, and so one day the girl gave up speaking. She lived on the side of a mountain where every day was snowy. She stood outside without a roof, without shelter; before long she was made of ice - her flesh, her bones, her blood. She looked like a diamond; it was possible to spy her from miles away. She was so beautiful now that everyone wanted her: people came to talk to her, but she wouldn't answer. Birds lit on her shoulder; she didn't bother to chase them away. She didn't have to. If they took a single peck, their beaks would break in two. Nothing could hurt her anymore. After a while, she became invisible, queen of the ice. Silence was her language, and her heart had turned a perfect pale silver color. It was so hard nothing could shatter it. Not even stones.

If we had no hurt and no sin to speak of, we'd be angels, and amgels can't love the way men and women do.

With his words, he could approach the soul where it resided, a glory to God, for words were what the Almighty first created, after the silence of the world, and they were Eleazar ben Ya'ir's gift as well.

A fortuneteller at a magicians' convention in Atlantic City once told him that when he fell in love it would be forever, and he laughed at the notion, but now he sees that reading was completely on target.

Ironically, now that my children are older and gone quite a bit, I find it harder to work when they're not around. Too much free time!

He said God could distinguish a sinner from a sin.

He backed off, the way he always does, but it won't happen a second time. If he ever sees her again he's going to go right up to her and ask her to marry him, that's what he'll do. He's sick of letting fate roll right past him.

Cleaning up after themselves was a low priority for Margo and my mother. They had both recovered from cancer scares, failed marriages, and lost hope; in their opinion, dirt could wait.

They were written on cheap blue notebooks bought by poor women. I'm interested in folk tales in the way that medicine and magic in women's stories are all kind of combined.

He still wanted to believe that people could survive their misfortunes. He believed that was all anyone had.

Young Sally Owens: He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards.
Young Gillian Owens: What are you doing?
Young Sally Owens: Summoning up a true love spell called Amas Veritas. He can flip pancakes in the air. He'll be marvelously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star. And he'll have one green eye and one blue.
Young Gillian Owens: Thought you never wanted to fall in love.
Young Sally Owens: That's the point. The guy I dreamed of doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist I'll never die of a broken heart.

Listen carefully. Listen and you'll hear everything you need to know.

a nightmare is a different case entirely, it's a box of black shadows and vicious red stars, something to keep carefully closed, lest the ground below be broken in two

now it's a time like any other, long minutes, tedious seconds, nothing more than flat time moving forward, like it or not

it is impossible to stop some things, rainfall, for instance, and love at first sight, and the slow and steady path of sorrow

the cruel and desperate variety that always accompanies yearning for someone you're bound to lose

when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. there are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shine like heaven, so far above us qw can never hope to reach such heights

sometimes those who love you best are the ones who leave you behind

hearts were made for being broken. there's really no way around it if you want to be a human being.


...consider what people are capable of going through in this world and how much courage it's possible to have

when someone kisses you with everything they feel, you don't stop thinking about it fo

...It's pure vanity to presume that love exists only on our terms. A red lead may be the universe for the tortoise beetle or the ladybird. A single touch the ecstasy of a lifetime. (180)

Love has nothing to do with time or space.

When I write for teens, I feel I can cut through everything and get to the bare bones. I can get straight into the emotional world of the character.

There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.

...he wants to be completely in control. In a way, it's a relief. ...[she] doesn't have to think when she's with him, or make a decision, or state a preference.

Dreams came to men for many reasons, both as oracles and as warnings.

Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.' ... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

If you took all the trouble most girls got into as teenagers and boiled it down for twenty-four hours, you'd wind up with something the size of a Snickers candy bar. But if you melted down all the trouble Gillian Owens got herself into, not to mention all the grief she caused, you'd have yourself a sticky mess as tall as the statehouse of Boston.

People all over town had listened for my grandfather's cries, but there were none.
Only silence.

His song would be our only path, despite any sins w might have committed and any punishments we might deserve. What we believed in, and what we said aloud, we could create before His eyes and in His image.

Some stories stayed with you even when you wanted to forget them.

In the dark morning light, her gray eyes look completely green, as though they belonged to a cat that can see in the dark.

Lately, she's been wondering if perhaps when the living become the dead they leave an empty space behind, a hollow no one else can fill.

The more you feel, the stronger you are.

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.

A man always revealed his own inner story in his actions and expressions. A man's past deeds foretold his future and allowed anyone with half a brain to divine the path he would take.

With every step I wished myself away to another life, one lived far from here.

Life was beautiful, everyone knew that, but it was also bitter and bleak and unfair as hell and where did that leave a person? On the outs with the rest of the world. Someone who sat alone in the cafeteria, reading, escaping from his hometown simply by turning the page.

All that will ever be has already been written long before it happens. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

I did go there later, but I hadn't been there before I wrote the book. Sometimes I feel like the imagined can feel more real than the real?

As they were falling asleep, Gillian could have sworn she heard Ben say Fate
as if they were meant to be together from the start and every single thing they'd ever done in their lives had been leading to this moment. If you thought that way, you could fall asleep without regret. You could put your whole life in place, with all the sadness and the sorrow, and still feel that at last you had everything you ever wanted. In spite of the lousy odds and all the wrong turns, you might actually discover that you were the one who'd won.

They were such solitary creatures that when they met their mates they would begin to scream, for they were drawn to each other, yet were enemies still.

Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside?

If anyone bothered to search through the laurel bordering the asphalt he'd surely find handfuls of teeth that were said to give the laurel its odd milky color, ivory with a pale pink edge, each blossom forming the shape of a bitter man's mouth.

Sometimes words spoken are the ones you've been afraid to think,
but once they're said aloud there's no way to make them
disappear

I never once stopped to consider that what you are given can also be taken away.

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon.

If I hadn't learned my lesson, I would have wished we could stay there forever. But I knew better now. We'd seen what we'd come to see. The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upwards, black and blue into the even bluer sky.

My father had told me that no matter how comfortable we might feel, we must live like fish, unattached to any land. Wherever there was water, we would survive. Some fish could stay in the mud for months, even years, and when at last there was a high flooding tide, they would swim away, a dark flash, remembered only by their own kind. So perhaps the stories they told of our people were true: no net could hold us.

Love has made him surprise himself. He would never have believed it possible, but it's turned out that he is a man who can walk up to a closed door on a murky November day, wearing his one good suit, and knock without hesitation, waiting while the rain comes down around him, even though he's not wanted. He can do this and not think twice, just the way he can spend hours watching a wounded cedar beetle and weep over its rare beauty, as well as its agony.

Richard is certain that other species fall in love - primates, of course, and canines - but he has wondered about his beetles. There are people who would surely get a chuckle out of the mere suggestion, but in Richard's opinion it's pure vanity to presume that love exists only on our terms. A red leaf may be the universe for the tortoise beetle or the ladybird. A single touch the ecstasy of a lifetime. And so, here he is, in love despite everything. It is he, stupider than any beetle, and far more obstinate, who has traveled three thousand miles, even though he fully expects to be turned away.

You can try to take sorrow and make it into something enduring, meaningful and beautiful. I always feel guilty that this is my job, that I get to do this.

There are those who say that heaven and hell are not so far apart. They are not at opposite ends of the world beyond ours, only a step away from one another.

He was so pale the freckles stood out on his face the way they did when he was upset or hadn't slept. She thought they might be telling her something if she could only understand the language of freckles.

See a charmer and you're bound to see a snake nearby,

She thinks of the way angels arrive, when you lease expect them, when the road is dark, when you're bleeding and alone and hopeless, when you're sleeping in a basement, convinced that no one knows you're there.

The truth was written upon us, as they say men's sins are written on their bones so that when they die their wicked deeds can be read as if written upon parchment.

You don't forget the people you love," she told him. "That's what I've realized. They just get farther away. Like a spyglass turned around. Annie to Pete

What he was doing was actually a hundred times worse. He was telling her that he loved her, something he hadn't mentioned and may not have even known when they were married. She used to whisper it to him sometimes, while he was fucking her, and he had to turn off his mind every time she did that. For some reason that declaration had seemed like a curse to him back then; he couldn't even hear it spoken aloud

She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her.