Quotes from Alice Hoffman

There are some things you have only once in a lifetime, and then only if you're lucky.

Lately, she's been wondering if perhaps when the living become the dead they leave an empty space behind, a hollow that no one else can fill. She was lucky once, for a very brief time. Maybe she should just be grateful for that.

She would have to do away with herself in order to have a life of her own.

She wanted to be known, but no one knew her.

Our people believed every creature had a spark—nitzotz—that which was holy, and we were to show kindness and compassion to all beings, what we called baal chayyim. All animals praise God, as we do, with their songs and their voices. In midwinter, we dedicated a Sabbath to the birds, to offer our gratitude and acknowledge that it is their songs that have taught mankind how to chant and praise the glory of our Creator.

Well, I think of life as a novel. You can't just hop out of the mess you're in and into another story. You carry it all with you.

Who could blame the citizens of Massachusetts for rejoicing when spring is so close at hand? Winter in New England is merciless and cruel, a season that instills a particular melancholy in its residents and a hopelessness that is all but impossible to shake.

First they burned the books, then the people who wrote them, then those who read them. They burned books about medicine and magic, books in Hebrew and in Spanish and Portuguese.

You want me to lie to you? said McKay. I shrugged. Why not? I didn't mind lies.

Life is a tragedy.

As long as she lives she will never figure out why it is that some boys refuse to see that somebody loves them.

Did you want something?" she would ask. Yes, I felt like saying. A mother.

It was then that Nathaniel truly began to appreciate the years he had spent alone in his room, the distance from other people that had given him the ability to observe and to feel what another might had also made him a writer.

She thought that some people were like stories rather than whole books—at least the ones you never saw again. With people like that, you never knew what the real ending was.

You can never tell about a person by guessing.

She did believe in one thing, something so vast and deep she couldn't bring herself to tell John, even though it was probably safe to confide in someone she would never see again. She believed that people could lose themselves.

Those lines in Gillian's face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she's gone through and what she's survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.

for things without remedy must be without regard.

They both always wished for the same thing when they were sitting on the roof of the aunts' house on those hot, lonely nights. Sometime in the future, when they were both all grown up, they wanted to look up at the stars and not be afraid. This is the night they had wished for. This is that future, right now. And they can stay out as long as they want to, they can remain on the lawn until every star has faded, and still be there to watch the perfect blue sky at noon.

Eat raw garlic every day and a cup of hot water with lemon and honey.

But false cheer is draining, and if you pretend long enough there's always the possibility that you'll become an automaton.

No one can accept the indiscriminate order of cruelty.

Math plus desire equals who you are.

That was how you knew love. My mother had told me that. All you had to do as imagine your life without the other person, and if the thought alone made you shiver, then you knew.