I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved.
Alice HoffmanNever look at other people's bad fortune,' my mother said. 'If you do, it will come back to find you instead of its rightful owner.
Alice HoffmanWomen know things that men will never know. We keep the best secrets. We tell the best stories.
Alice HoffmanMy grandmother told me once that 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 shines like heaven, so far above us we can never hope to reach such heights.
Alice Hoffman