Alice Hoffman Quotes

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

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.

People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves?

Just because something is unspoken doesn't mean that it disappears.

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

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

My theory is that everyone at one time or another has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who's different. Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.

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.

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

The best way to die is when your living

...but now the worst crime was pretending to be something you were not.

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.

I just finished Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad," which I think is a work of genius.

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

Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.

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.

You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.

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

What men yearn for they often destroy.

Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" was extremely important to me.

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.

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

...he had a way of taking your hand which made it clear he'd have to be the one to let go." From Alice Hoffman's "Local Girls", pg.102.

I feel as if when you love a book it becomes a part of you whether you have it on your shelves or not.

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever.

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 love science fiction but especially his because it's so humane.

I feel like my eyes are killing me at the end of the day and that I shouldn't use them.

In "Faithful," Ray Bradbury is discussed a lot. The characters read "The Illustrated Man."

The evening had turned sweet and blue.

Never 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.

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.

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

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.

One of my favorites is "Time and Again" by Jack Finney. It takes place in Manhattan and goes back and forth between 1882 and the 1950s. It's really a cult book.

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Here's the thing about luck...you don't know if it's good or bad until you have some perspective.

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.

People want to ignore what they can't understand. They're looking for logic at any cost.

It wasn't right to have someone charge into you your world without even asking, acting as if you were nothing more than an egg to be flipped and flopped, sunny-side up or scrambled, depending on the whims on whoever ran your life..._

Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods.

Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows.

You have to choose the voice you are going to trust. You can't listen to everyone.