Quotes from Alice Hoffman

I'd been bitten by a lion, but you had to look inside me to see the scar.

There was a spark inside that holiest of holy places that made people want to possess it, and what men yearn for they often destroy.

He said God could distinguish a sinner from a sin.

What did we know about those closest to us, really? No one ever dared to speak plainly about desire; no one said the word out loud.

It was believed that all creation came from thought, language, and mathematics.

She's not a demon, she's a woman. In this case, that's worse.

The children knew that which you cannot see can be more dangerous than that which is before you.

Who can you trust if not your sister? Who knows your story better than she? If you saw one Owens sister at the grocery, the other would be right beside her. If one was working in the garden, making certain the rows of herbs were weeded, her sister would be there as well, carrying a basket to collect the dandelion greens.

But rules were never the point. It was finding out who you were.

Amazing where your life can deposit you before you know it. One, two, three, and you're on a completely different road than the one you'd always expected to be on at this point in your life. There is no compass when such things happen, no rules and no maps to guide you, and no one who cares if the sun is glaring or if the asphalt is melting beneath your tires.

Time is out there. Everything that ever happened is still happening. For instance, if I took your hand in mine." Which he did as he was speaking. "It would be happening for hundreds of years.

Life is trouble, brother. You've got to fight for what you want.

There are those who say that heaven and hell are not so far apart. They are not at opposite ends of the world beyond ours, only a step away from one another.

Because love is an act of will. You think it will just happen, but you have to make it so. Even when it's gone wrong. Wait and see. If love doesn't come to you, you have to go find it.

We can offer women what they want most of all, cures for the most common ailments of this world... When children are ailing or babies refuse to be born, when men are unfaithful, when the sky is empty of rain, when the amulets buried beneath holy wall upon instructions of the minim offer not solace and all entreaties to the priests for guidance fail, when the rituals they offer bring no comfort and no consolation, they come to us.

I believe in tragedy," Shelby responds coldly. "Not miracles.

In the dark morning light, her gray eyes look completely green, as though they belonged to a cat that can see in the dark.

Don't cry while you are reading the book wait until you are done reading it.

In the human world you had to choose your loyalties carefully. You had to see through to someone's heart.

But Sally didn't have the heart to fight back. She wore dark clothes and tried not to be noticed. She pretended she wasn't smart and never raised her hand in class. She disguised her own nature so well that after a while she grew uncertain of her own abilities.

the summer of the gypsy moths when all the trees in their yard were bare, the leaves chewed by caterpillars. You could hear crunching in the night. You could see silvery cocoon webbing in porch rafter and strung across stop signs.

the eldest who had the misfortune of being too beautiful and had a far off look in her eyes. Madame Cohen had seen what could happen to girls like that, they were picked off like fruit on a tree, devoured by blackbirds.

Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous.

She wishes he would come to her tonight, climb in through the window to lie down beside her and explain how it's possible to love someone so much and still manage to carry on when you have to let them go.