Top 269 Quotes & Sayings by Alice Hoffman - Page 4

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.

The best way to die is when your living

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.

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.

Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight.

How could I have been so stupid to ignore everything I’d had in my life? The color red alone was worth kingdoms.

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

My mother's blood that would last forever after. The blood of my brother, my grandfather, my father.

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.

Love was like rain: it turned into ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn't go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said, Dear you, good-bye from me. Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you'd known your whole life. It settled and lurked; it stayed with you.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist

Maybe a hundred years ago our people should have run away from this place, I said... And then run from the next place and the next place and the place after that? You run once, what makes you think you won't have to run all the rest of your life?... We love moment to moment... Everything changes. One minute we are part of the river, and the next we are joined with the sea.

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

And then I understood that she had no idea what she'd done to my family. She thought love and hatred were equal.

Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside? At the library I couldn’t help but notice which patrons checked out the same books. They appeared to have nothing in common, but who could tell what a person was truly made of? The unknown, the riddle, the deepest truth. I noticed them all: the ones who’d lost their way, the ones who’d lived their lives in ashes, the ones who had to prove themselves, the ones who, like me, had lost the ability to feel.

Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don't think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year.

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

What did you see?' he asked then. Nothing,' I told him. 'Because nothing is what you wanted me to see, though the man on the table might disagree.

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.

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

What was a rose but the living proof of desire, the single best evidence of human longing and earthly devotion. but desire could be twisted,after all, and Jealousy was the name of the rose that did well in arid souls.

My grandmother was overwhelmed by what was happening to us. She ahd moved back into the past because the here and the now was too terrible.

The more you feel, the stronger you are.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder if it was a mistake for people like us to be tied to a place. If we weren't meant to be ready and willing to wander. If everything we needed was contained in who we were. And what we remember.

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

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

We had to survive to remember. Otherwise everything we were would disappear. Those people we loved would fade as though we'd never loved them, as if they'd never walked and talked and burned, forgetting them was the real evil. That was the hole of darkness.

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.

How could I tell the doctor what was wrong with me? I didn't understand it myself. I couldn't articulate the pain; it was the pain of nothingness. My fear was of the weather, the atmosphere, the very air. What good did safety tips do me now? 'Avoid water, metal objects, rooftops; stay off the telephone in a storm, don't think glass can protect you; even if a storm was 8 miles away, you're still not safe from a strike. Avoid life perhaps that was the answer. The number one safety tip, stay away from it all.

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

I was beginning to understand.My grandmother's love was cold because she was afraid of things;that was why everything had to be perfect.

I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

That was the way love was, invisible, there whether or not you wanted to see it or admit to it.

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.

Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become part of you when you remember them.

I'm much faster now. When you only have a certain amount of time to write, after a while you learn to use your time well or you stop writing

But most important of all, she explained that it was all right to say 'No. I disagree.' that was a gift. I understood it was power. The power to think my own thoughts. The power to believe in myself.

I know who you are in your heart,' Andres said. 'That's all that matters.' And that was it. That was the moment. Now I knew how I would feel if I ever lost him. That was how you knew love. My mother had told me that. All you had to do was imagine your life without the other person, and if the thought alone made you shiver, then you knew.

I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled

This kind of knowing you can never tell to anyone. If you want us to survive, you cannot trust a soul'... 'Not for any reason on this earth. You can never tell.

I loved him even now, as he took a knife to my throat, as I drowned in blood, as I whispered "Cousin, you were wrong. We were born to live.

What else is there to write about than love and loss?

Jill told me that when you're really in love, you know right away. I'm not exactly sure how this happens. Is it like a flash of lightning? Like an angel tapping you on the shoulder? Or is it similar to choosing a puppy? You think you're picking the cutest one, but really you wind up going home with the one who keeps insisting on climbing into your lap.

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us

I never even believed in happiness. I didn't think it existed. Now look at me. I'm ready to believe in just about anything.

I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself

It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere to settle beside her and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert her now.

Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.

Even in times when it's difficult to figure out, how do you go forward, art - and books - always help

Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.

Sally...can no longer think of love as a reality, or even as a possibility, however remote.

He believed in dreams, in endings that people told you could never happen, in disappointments reversed and luck that lasted.

I wept to think that life went on even when so much had been lost, that rain still fell and myrtle grew between the rocks.

The voice that arises out of the silence is something no one can imagine until it is heard. It roars when it speaks, it lies to you and convinces you, it steals from you and leaves you without a single word of comfort.

Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.

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.

That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination.