Alice Hoffman Quotes:

Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.

Topics: Brother, Forget, Disappear, Forgetting Someone

Do you ever just put your arms out and just spin and spin and spin? Well, that's what love is like; everything inside of you tells you to stop before you fall, but for some reason you just keep going.

Topics: Fall, Love Is, Arms, Romantic Movie Love, Practical Magic

I'm at the point where going forward is easier than going back.

Topics: Easier

Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often.

Topics: Butterfly, Men, Way, Wrong Man

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.

Topics: Love, Weather, Two

When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

Topics: Husband, Dark, Night, Sapphires, Attics

He has the ability to catch someone by the way that he looks at her, and make her wish he would go on looking.

Topics: Wish, Looks, Goes On, Practical Magic

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

source: - Twitter post from Aug 16, 2016

Topics: Done, Sometimes, Feels, Practical Magic

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.

Topics: Art, Real, Reading

It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Topics: Running, Mean, Home, Practical Magic

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

Topics: Girl, Aunt, Magic, Practical Magic

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.162, Penguin

Topics: Inspirational, Life, May, Practical Magic

They weren't true stories; they were better than that.

Topics: Stories, True Story

Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however briefly it might last.

Topics: Real, Real Love, Might

Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by

Topics: Waiting

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.

Topics: Thinking, Chance, Trouble

All the characters in my books are imagined, but all have a bit of who I am in them - much like the characters in your dreams are all formed by who you are

Topics: Dream, Book, Character

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.

Topics: Walks

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.

Topics: Notebook, Eye, Blue

Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.111, Penguin

Topics: Pride, Funny Things, Treasure

This day is going to be awful. It's the sort of day you wouldn't mind losing completely, even if it meant your life would be twenty-four hours shorter.

Topics: Mind, Twenties, Would Be

No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.69, Penguin

Topics: Childhood, Way, Persons

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.

Topics: Rain, Clouds, Blue

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.

Topics: Sweet, Garden, May, Peonies, Main Street

But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone.

Topics: Taken, Glory, Given

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.

source: - Source: www.ebony.com

Topics: Country, School, Diversity

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.

Topics: Teeth, Fairy Tale, Tales, Claws

Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Topics: Running, Mean, Sometimes

I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival them

Topics: Emotional, Rivals, Fairy Tale

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written

Topics: Writing, Novel

The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world.

Topics: Stars, Sky, Purple, Edge Of The World

It was the sort of beauty you feel so deeply it becomes contagious and somehow makes you feel beautiful too.

Topics: Beautiful, Feeling Beautiful, Contagious

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Burden, Given

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.

Topics: Falling In Love, Garden, Rose, Rosemary, Lavender

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Jealous, Practical Magic

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.

Topics: Strong, Needs, Weak

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?

Topics: People, Tree, World, Sidewalk

Books may well be the only true magic.

Topics: Inspirational, Book, Reading

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

Topics: Good Luck, Perspective, Luck

Mothers always find ways to fit in the work - but then when you're working, you feel that you should be spending time with your children and then when you're with your children, you're thinking about working.

Topics: Mother, Children, Single Mom, Single Mother

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

Topics: Dream, Butterfly, Sleep

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

Topics: Childhood, Wish, Behinds

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

Topics: Distance, Lying, Problem

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.84, Penguin

Topics: Love Is

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.

Topics: Blue, Sky, Forever, Better Now

If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face. My name once meant daughter, grandaughter, friend, sister, beloved. Now those words mean only what their letters spell out; Star in the night sky. Truth in the darkness. I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.

Topics: Daughter, Dream, Stars, Stars In The Night Sky

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.

Topics: Tears, One Day, Necks

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.

Topics: Grandmother, Perfect, Cold

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.

Topics: Dog, Guessing, Language, Sniffing

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.

Topics: Dream, Believe, People

Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.

Topics: Wish, Tongue, Facts, Careful What You Wish For, Unforgiving

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.

Topics: Book, Looks, Way

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.

Topics: Reading, People, Together, Pages Turning

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever. The ever after, what precisely was that? Your dreams, your life, your death, your everything. Was it the blank space that went on without us? The forever after we were gone?

Topics: Dream, Mean, Space, Living Happily Ever After, Blank Space

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.

Topics: Regret, Believe, People

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.

Topics: Senior, Stars, Real, The Next One, Sicilian

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Mean, Disappear, Unspoken

Do what you want, do what you will, do what you have to, do what you think you cannot.

source: - Twitter post from Jun 05, 2016

Topics: Thinking, Want, What You Want

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

Topics: Voice

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.417, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Worthy, Proving Yourself, Prove

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2014). “The Museum of Extraordinary Things: A Novel”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Understanding, Lost, Found

What men yearn for they often destroy.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Men

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2002). “Blue Diary”, p.147, Penguin

Topics: Block, Lying, Doors

Some people say, 'Save yourself and you save your ways.' I say, 'Be yourself and you save your soul.

Topics: Being Yourself, People, Soul, Save Yourself

No barrier was strong enough to keep out the movement of time.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers”, p.195, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Strong, Movement, Enough

You can't dispute the ridiculous. You can't argue reasonably with evil.

Topics: Evil, Ridiculous, Arguing

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (1999). “Here on Earth”, p.132, Penguin Group

Topics: Love You, Men, Unfinished Business, Love You Forever

Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.386, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Wise, May, Serpent

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.78, Penguin

Topics: People, Cost, Want, Practical Magic

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

source: - Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Topics: Thinking, Railroads, Genius, Underground Railroad

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

Topics: War, Men, Desire

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Thinking, Wish, Remember

If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.196, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Attention, World, Understood, Outrun

Sometimes movies really are the best medicine.

source: - "6 Movies to Chase Away the Blues" by Alice Hoffman, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 28, 2013.

Topics: Medicine, Sometimes

The only people out at this hour were ones who couldn't sleep,those haunted by one thing or another:love thwarted, love lost, love thrown away. They were the sort of people who didn't want to be noticed, who wanted to slip through shadows, be alone with their despair.

Topics: Lost Love, Sleep, People

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

source: - Twitter post from Jul 02, 2016

Topics: Changed, Humans, All Things

A red map isn't easy to follow. Any document made of blood and bones is tricky. Wrong turns are easily made, and there are often piles of stones in the road. A person has to disregard time and sorrow and all the damage done. If you follow, if you dare, the thread always leads to whomever or whatever you've forgotten.

Topics: Blood, Sorrow, Done, Wrong Turn

That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all.

source: - FaceBook post by Alice Hoffman from Jun 06, 2015

Topics: Garden, Would Be, Easy

Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you're gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold.

source: - Alice Hoffman (1999). “Here on Earth”, p.81, Penguin Group

Topics: I Miss You, Missing You, Beautiful, Love Vows, I Will Miss You

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers”, p.126, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Silence, Speech, Silent

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.111, Broadway Books

Topics: Would Be, World, Way

My 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.

Topics: Grandmother, Thinking, Sky, Songbirds, Apple Trees

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Mother, Men, Garden, Abra

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

Topics: People, Stories, Patron

I wasn't quite as certain that I knew her soul. When it came right down to it, I wasn't sure she knew me either.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Soul, Certain

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

source: - Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Topics: Book, Shelves, Feels

You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go-into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you're not really there.

source: - Alice Hoffman (1999). “Here on Earth”, p.131, Penguin Group

Topics: Night, Men, Shopping

When you start writing the magic comes when the characters seem to take on a life of their own and write the words for themselves.

Topics: Writing, Character, Magic

I wasn't good company, that was true, and people avoided me, but that was all right. I was too busy dreaming.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2010). “Green Angel”, p.4, Scholastic Inc.

Topics: Dream, People, Busy

They say that dogs may dream, and when Topsy was old, his feet would move in his sleep. With his eyes closed he would often make a noise that sounded quite human, as if greeting someone in his dreams. At first it seemed that he believed Sara would return, but as the years went by I understood that his loyalty asked for no reward, and that love comes in unexpected forms. His wish was small, as hers had been -- merely to be beside her. As for me, I already knew I would never get what I wanted.

Topics: Loyalty, Dream, Dog

Fairytales were maps formed of blood and hair and bones; they were the knots of the sub-conscious unwound. Every word in every tale was real and as true as apples and stones. They all led to the story inside the story.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Skylight Confessions”, Center Point Pub

Topics: Real, Hair, Blood

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real.... Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.

Topics: Inspirational, Real, Writing

She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.35, Broadway Books

Topics: Twelve, Felt

...and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie.

source: - Alice Hoffman (1999). “Here on Earth”, p.5, Penguin Group

Topics: Pie, Afternoon, Village, Orchard

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head

Topics: Book, Writing, Forget Everything

I thought that love was a river, endless and deep. I thought it merely happened, washing over you like water. It was nothing to search for, nothing to force. I didn't understand that even when we can't control our fate, we alone have the last say in matters of the heart. We can give it freely, even in the worst of times, even when it isn't returned.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2010). “Green Witch”, p.97, Scholastic Inc.

Topics: Heart, Fate, Rivers, Matters Of The Heart, Washing

In losing a friend, she is reminded of all she has lost and all she stands to lose again. There is nothing to be done to make it any easier. We all grieve alone.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”, p.34, Hachette UK

Topics: Grieving, Losing Friends, Done

We are only an instant, that's true. But we are eternal.

source: - Twitter post from Jan 23, 2017

Topics: Instant, Eternal

The best way to die is when your living

Topics: Way, Best Way, Dies

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.34, Penguin

Topics: Fate, Trying, Matter, Practical Magic

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Mother, People, Looks, Bad Fortune

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2002). “Blue Diary”, p.200, Penguin

Topics: Heart, Broken, Want, Being Broken

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.343, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Fighting, Embrace

I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay

source: - "The Quest for a Blue Rose and Other Unexpected Gifts". Interview with Melissa Mia Hall, www.publishersweekly.com. May 05, 2003.

Topics: Pain, Joy, Half

Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.235, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Prayer, Heart, Warrior, Might Use

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

Topics: Real, Writing, Character, Heading In The Right Direction

Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.98, Penguin Group

Topics: Judging, Arms, Certain

Love ambushed you, it lay in wait, dormant for days or years. It was the red thread, the peach stone, the kiss, the forgiveness. It came after you, it escaped you, it was invisible, it was everything.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “The Probable Future”, Random House LLC

Topics: Kissing, Years, Waiting, Red Thread

I don't think I make much of a distinction between the 'real' and the 'fantastic.' They both seem to be threads in the same cloth as far as I'm concerned.

Topics: Real, Thinking, Fantastic

Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.466, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Giving, Riddle

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Crime, Pretending, Worst

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Men, Secret, Stories

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.114, Broadway Books

Topics: Stories, Forget, Wanted

I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.109, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Dream

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.

Topics: Lying, Fighting, People

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

Topics: Mother, Brother, Father

...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.

Topics: Girl, Letting Go, Hands

The grass he walked through was new and a sweet smell clung to his clothes. There was blue dye on his hands from the wild irises... that the color of the sky was a shade that could never be replicated in any photograph, just as Heaven could never be seen from the confines of Earth.

Topics: Sweet, Blue, Hands, Irises

When I read Jerome D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" that was the first time I felt my mind blow open. I thought that book was speaking to me. I was 12 or 13 when I read that. I read everything on my mother's bookshelves.

source: - Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Topics: Mother, Book, Blow, Salinger

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Red Garden”, p.55, Broadway Books

Topics: People, Rooms, Talent

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2010). “Green Angel”, p.39, Scholastic Inc.

Topics: One Day, Each Day, Littles, Wisps

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “The Probable Future”, Random House LLC

Topics: Dream, Knows, Fronts

I think secrets often come out. I spoke to a friend who is a therapist and I asked her if there were people who came to her and admitted to doing horrible things and she said, 'More than you know.'.

Topics: Thinking, People, Secret

The original fairy tale was about the youngest sister going into a room in the castle and finding all the bodies of the wives that came before her - she is confronted with truth, thinking about how often we think we know people and we really don't.

Topics: Thinking, People, Wife

I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman's domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told.

Topics: Ideas, Fairy Tale, Being A Woman

Unrequited love is so boring. Weeping under a blue-black sky is for suckers or maniacs.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.88, Penguin

Topics: Unrequited Love, Love Is, Sky

Remember what I've told you. Remember me.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Remember, Remember Me

[Fairy tales] are like a journey to the woods and the many ways you can get lost. Some people say it's not a good idea to read fairy tales to anyone under the age of eight because they are brutal and raw. When I was a kid I often felt that kids's books were speaking down to me, but I never felt that way about fairy tales. They are bloody and scary, but so is life.

source: - Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Topics: Book, Kids, Journey

I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved.

source: - Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Topics: Book, Tree, Brooklyn

Everything was red, the air, the sun, whatever I looked at. Except for him. I fell in love with someone who was human. I watched him walk through the hills and come back in the evening when his work was through. I saw things no woman would see: that he knew how to cry, that he was alone. I cast myself at him, like a fool, but he didn't see me. And then one day he noticed I was beautiful and he wanted me. He broke me off and took me with him, in his hands, and I didn't care that I was dying until I actually was.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.143, Broadway Books

Topics: Beautiful, Air, Hands

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.

Topics: Writing, Character, Cutting

The adults don't know what's happening on the kids' universe and the kids don't know what's happening on the adults' universe

Topics: Kids, Adults, Knows

Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool fresh water. Seek shelter from the sun at noon.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.122, Penguin

Topics: Dog, Baby, Lying, Dark Glasses, Lavender

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.

Topics: Dark, Thinking, Magic Realism, Hawthorne, Dark Woods

He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes met. She'd know what he intended because she would have done the very same thing if she'd had his courage. Nothing was going to break his fall.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2008). “The Third Angel”, p.242, Random House

Topics: Ocean, Fall, Eye, Jumping Off, Jumping Off A Bridge

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Mother, Heart, Matter

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

Topics: Home, School, Kids

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Rain, Thinking, Rocks, Myrtle

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”, p.34, Hachette UK

Topics: Men, Might, Tables

Our house was littered with books- in the kitchen, under the beds, stuck between the couch pillows--far too many for her the ever finish. I suppose I thought if my grandmother kept up her interests, she wouldn't die; she'd have to stay around to finish the books she was so fond of. "I've got to get to the bottom of this one," she'd say, as if a book were no different from a pond or a lake. I thought she'd go on reading forever but it didn't work out that way.

Topics: Book, Reading, Grandmother

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.

Topics: Knowing, Soul, Earth

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.

Topics: Mistake, People, Helping

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.

Topics: Running, Thinking, Should Have

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.

source: - FaceBook post by Alice Hoffman from May 10, 2015

Topics: Daughter, Children, Secret, Mothers Day Messages, Love For My Mother

Only her death could prove her innocence; a circle of impossible, deathly judgement.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Circles, Judgement, Innocence

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.

Topics: Blood, People, Forever

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!

Topics: Children, Gone, Too Much

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.

Topics: School, People, Community

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Mother, Hands, Water

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.45, Penguin Group

Topics: Mother, Cancer, Waiting, Failed Marriage, Lost Hope

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

Topics: Way, Invisible, Wanted

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2001). “The River King”, p.14, Penguin Group

Topics: Air, Yellow, September, Pollen

It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.

Topics: World, Way, Break, Another World, My Own World

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

Topics: Believe, Fate, Thinking, Snowstorms, Drought

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

Topics: Book, Plot, Stories

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.

Topics: Desert, Settling, Ifs

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

source: - Twitter post from Apr 30, 2016

Topics: Reading, Imagination, Joy, Joy Of Reading, Said And Done

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

Topics: Reality, Thinking, Possibility

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

Topics: Love, Writing, Loss, Love And Loss, Love Loss

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Believe, Thinking, Important

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2003). “Practical Magic”, p.122, Penguin

Topics: Summer, Stars, Thinking, Summer Is Over, Mint

She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless.

source: - Alice Hoffman (1999). “Here on Earth”, p.201, Penguin Group

Topics: Air, Dragons, Blood

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.

Topics: Men, Waiting, Maps

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.

Topics: Grandmother, Past, Overwhelmed

He wanted pain, I saw that in him, and what a man wants he will often manage to find.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.373, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Pain, Men, Want, What A Man Wants

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else?

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.178, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Life, Mean, Losing Everything

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers”, p.458, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Abandoned

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

Topics: Together, Speak, Easy

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2001). “The River King”, p.205, Penguin Group

Topics: Night, Lost, Certain

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.

Topics: People, House, Soul

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”, p.50, Hachette UK

Topics: Real, People, Evil

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

Topics: Stupid, Color, Kingdoms, Color Red

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

source: - FaceBook post by Alice Hoffman from Nov 29, 2015

Topics: Book, Breathing, Sigh

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.318, Broadway Books

Topics: Sorrow, World, Ingredients, Sorrow Love

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.466, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Giving, Desire, Causes

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2009). “The Story Sisters: A Novel”, p.158, Broadway Books

Topics: Stupid, People, Flawed

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.76, Penguin Group

Topics: Stars, Sky, Salt, Stars In The Sky, Shakers

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2008). “The Third Angel”, p.13, Random House

Topics: Sweaters, House, Hook

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?

Topics: Dream, Halloween, Writing

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.

Topics: Growing Up, Teenager, Kids, Different Universes

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

Topics: Writing, Novelists, Different

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.9, Penguin Group

Topics: House, Way, Planning

Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.

Topics: Heart, Hands, Racing, Wakes You, Him And Her

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.

Topics: Names, Rose, Soul, Living Proof

Everything we knew condemned us, and our questioning condemned us most of all. Knowledge was the way of our people, and knowledge was dangerous. It was the first thing that freed you and the thing that put you in peril. It was the key to the ten gates. I saw them clearly now, each and every one, the gates that were there for me. Ashes, Bones, Grass, Heart, Stone, Love, Sorrow, Blood, Earth, Sky.

Topics: Heart, Keys, Blood, Sorrow Love

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

Topics: Eye, Long, Way, Her Eyes

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.

Topics: Pain, Fear, Thinking, 8 Mile, Protect You

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.

Topics: Broken Heart, Hurt, Morning, Searching For Love

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.11, Penguin Group

Topics: Love You, Angel, Home, Cutest

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.

source: - "Fictional characters: Young Sally Owens, Young Gillian Owens". "Practical Magic", www.imdb.com. 1998.

Topics: Song, Falling In Love, Stars, Practical Magic, Summoning

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

Topics: Writing, Use, Faster

I could hardly get a boy to look at me. All right, they'd look, they'd even take me out, but no one asked for a second date. I was too nasty, a real wise guy, and all the boys could tell what my rotten disposition was. Deep down, I wanted a commitment with a capital C. To get anywhere with me, a boy would have to sign his undying loyalty with his own blood.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2000). “Local Girls”, p.46, Penguin Group

Topics: Wise, Loyalty, Real, Wise Guy

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

Topics: One Thing At A Time, One Thing, I Can

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

Topics: Real, Love Is, Thinking

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

Topics: Writing, Want, Language

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

Topics: Art, Book, Helping

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

Topics: Giving, Riding, Done

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2007). “Incantation”

Topics: Girl, Together, Different

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.

source: - Alice Hoffman (2012). “Green Heart”, p.115, Scholastic Inc.

Topics: Heart, Love Is, Giving

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

source: - Alice Hoffman (2010). “Green Angel”, p.39, Scholastic Inc.

Topics: Steps, Busy, Forget, Single Step