Quotes from Alice Hoffman

Elv felt consoled. She'd done such terrible things no one could forgive her, except perhaps for another sorrowful creature who understood the effects of human cruelty, who could lie down beside her and know she hadn't meant any harm.

Claire's dog and the cat Elv had rescued from the river had a strange alliance. When they thought no one was at home, they sat together on the couch by the window, peering out at the courtyard. As soon as the key turned in the door, they jumped off the couch so that no one would see their attachment. Dogs and cats had their secrets too.

Black cats can do that to some people: They make them go all shivery and scared and remind them of dark.

Each time she sees it she is reminded of how some things are never over they stay with you until they are a part of you, like it or not

You know what love is? Maureen said to me that day...it's what you least expect.

That's good luck, Aunt Jet says when their electricity goes as well. We'll be the light in the darkness.

It's figuring out the why of things; the final factor that makes a person act can be so damn elusive, but you can always find some motivation, if you look hard enough. The wrong word said at the wrong time, a gun in the wrong hand, the wrong woman who kisses you just right. Money, love, or fury - those are the causes for most everything.

They might curse you, even despise you for doing so, but it took strong measures to ensure that a boy lived long enough to become a man.

Cover up grief and it grinds away at you from the inside out. It makes you run for dark corners and empty rooms heartsick and mute despising your own company.

Love is a false construct. It's how people convince themselves that life is worth living.

she saw there were indeed the sharp white bones of murdered birds in every furrow. This is the way it began; she knew that from the day Hannah told her that she must run. A woman alone who could read and write was suspect. Words were magic. Books were not to be trusted.

I'll know that sometimes those who love you best are the ones who leave you behind.

The responsibility of loving someone is too much for anyone to take, which is why she's done her best to avoid it.

How could I lose you when I haven't even found you?

She had the ability to know what people were thinking, and therefore understood that boys who were rude were usually fearful and that quiet girls often had a lot to say.

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 see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still.

He has no idea that being in love is bullshit. It's knowing someone down to their soul that matters. That's what love is. It's difficult and it's real and it doesn't change.

there was the sort of civility that was far worse than yelling and screaming. It was a cold curtain of mistrust. When people related by blood were so careful with each other, when they were so very polite, there was soon nothing left to say. Only niceties that meant so little they might as well have been spoken to a complete stranger. Pass the butter, open the door, see you after school, there's rain again

Sometimes the most dangerous thing of all in matters of love was to be granted your heart's desire.

Perhaps it's always true that when you wreck your own life you blame everyone else for your misfortune.

I read books as though I were eating apples, core and all, starved for those pages, hungry for every word that told me about things I didn't yet have, but still wanted terribly, wanted until it hurt.

We met before we were born and we'll probably still know each other after we die.

When she'd been married she had been to busy to notice that the world was beautiful. Or perhaps she'd known and had forgotten.

I heard a bitterness that hadn't been there before. Something was changing inside him. He'd had enough of following the rules.