Alice Hoffman Quotes

I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.

Certain things need not be said, and there’s nothing, not a whisper, prayer, not a sacrifice, not a payment of any price, that would change what’s about to happen.

Crying wasn't like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done.

It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.

Another world must surely exist somewhere one where she would be known in some deep way that was far beyond words.

It's not the lie that's the problem; it's the distance the lie forges between you.

Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.

Unfinished business always comes back to haunt you, and a man who swears he'll love you forever isn't finished with you until he's done.

Weapons are kept from women, but such a naming suggests that perhaps men fear our talents in war as well as our desire for peace.

My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.

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

She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.

You can never tell about a person by guessing...that's why language was invented. Otherwise, we'd all be like dogs, sniffing each other to find out where we stood.

You are only worthy of what you prove yourself to be.

Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.

She was disappearing a little more each day, so thin, so frail, a wisp of smoke. One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her.

Remember what I've told you. Remember me.

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.

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

He was in love, and people in that condition did stupid, unfathomable things. They were all flawed, every single one.

That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife.

Sometimes words drew blood, they cut your tongue, they made you know things you couldn't unknow.

The frightened walk away when love is difficult. I know that now. You have to be willing to give everything away. You have to be willing to end up with nothing. Only then will your heart be whole.

She was so busy forgetting, she couldn't take a single step into the future.

What you dream, you can grow. Someone told me that, but I didn't believe it. I said I had nothing and that people with nothing are unable to dream. But I was wrong.

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.

A boy who is trouble is something entirely different as a man.

I can hurt myself more than anyone else can, she told her sister. I can do it with my eyes closed.

That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward.

Maybe some love was guaranteed. Maybe it fit inside you and around you like skin and bones.

He'd thought he was lost, but now he recognized that eternity was around him, like salt from a shaker or stars in the sky.

Young people believe that regret is something you will never feel if you simply do as you please, but sometimes it is a matter of degree.

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

He fell in love with the way she closed her eyes, long before he fell in love with her.

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

We stood and watched as God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could.

The sisters were glad to be together. They had the easy sort of relationship where they didn't have to speak to be understood.

Margaret thought of all she knew for certain, that day would always follow night that love was never wasted nor was it lost.

What people read revealed so much about them that she considered our card catalog a treasure house of privileged secrets; each card contained the map of an individual’s soul.

In a world of sorrow, love was an act of will. All you needed were the right ingredients.

It was as though I had one map inside my head and it led to the man who was waiting for me. Someone who was alone - maybe even more alone - than I was.

I heard a sigh, as though the books were breathing. I felt that this was where I belonged. This was where I lived.

That was the way illness appeared in a house, in the corners, in between floorboards, on the hooks in the closet, along with the sweaters and coats.

I can't really work on more than one thing at a time

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

I think love is a huge factor in fiction and in real life. Is there a risk? Always. In fiction and in life

I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?

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!

I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.

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.