Quotes from Alice Hoffman

Love has nothing to do with time or space.

Everyone should know exactly what everyone else is thinking and then people wouldn't hurt each other so much.

Nothing could do that to them, that's what they used to whisper as they sat on the back stairs, in the dark and the dust, as if desire were a matter of personal choice.

hoping that if she just walked down the same street fate would whirl her backward in time until she was once more (fill in your age), when the future was something she had not yet stepped into, when it was just an idea, a moment, something that had not disappointed her yet.

When you have a sister, someone knows the story of who you were and who you would always be.

What is broken can also be mended.

This is what love was, you stayed when you wanted to run away. You held on when you knew you had no choice but to let go.

History is personal, Gwen understands that now. All you are seeing is what's before you, the rest is guesswork.

She had the feeling that if she went home, she might never get away. She thought of birds caught in nets. There was something inside her, beating against her ribs, urging her to do things she might not otherwise attempt. She had the strongest desire to get lost.

I knew that men told you the truth for one of two reasons: when they wished to be rid of what they couldn't bear to carry, or when they wished to include you in what they knew so their stories wouldn't be lost.

There comes a time when every one of our people understands that a Jew can never be attached to a place. The rules always change, and we always lose. People will always despise us, and we must be ready to fly away. We cannot have roots in the earth of any country, only in the garden that we carry inside us.

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.

Mrs. Dale was a good woman, Hollis will grant her that. A busybody and a pain in the neck, but she never judged what she didn't understand and that Hollis knows, is rare. Unlike Alan and the boys in the village, she treated him fairly, but that doesn't mean he has to moan and bellyache down at the funeral parlor. Ashes to ashes, that's all there is. If you can't change a fact of life, then be smart enough to walk away from it.

If you tried to right all the wrongs in the world you'd exhaust yourself in under an hour.

Every woman is only one bad boyfriend or one bad choice away from the street. And she's only one good choice back to the path that will lead her home.

For a man tells you who he is the instant you meet him, all you have to do is listen.

The only way to fight evil is with joy

is simply the way of the world to lose everything you have ever loved.

People say there's the Angel of Life and the Angel of Death, but there's another one, too. The one who walks among us.' He could tell that she was listening. 'He's nothing fierce or terrible or filled with light. He's like us, sometimes we can't even tell him apart. Sometimes we're the ones who try to save him. He's there to show us who we are. Human beings aren't Gods. We make mistakes.

Revenge did that to a person; it caused even the insecure and the meek to take foolhardy chances. After a while it became a way of life; the risks felt as natural as drawing a breath.

With every step I wished myself away to another life, one lived far from here.

Everyone knows a white blackbird is nothing more than a ghost, a shadow of what it ought to be.

You ever put your arms out and spin really, really fast ? Well, that's what loves like. It makes your heart race. It turns the world upside down. But if you're not careful, if you don't keep your eyes on something still, you can lose your balance. You can't see what's happening to the people around you. You can't see your about to fall.

Children would beg for a peppermint drop each time he walked into town, and they'd follow behind, asking for a second and a third. When he died suddenly, while working late at his office, every boy and girl in the village reported smelling mint in the night air, as if somehing sweet had passed them right by.