Quotes from Alice Hoffman

that you must be yourself no matter what; anything else was a lie, and a denial of who you were would always cause grief. What you put out into the world came back to you threefold.

They had become more like people who'd been through a war together, comrades with little in common but the battle itself

There were sinister aspects o magic, and what you brought into this world was your responsibility, to deal with forever more.

words that have been said cannot be unspoken

was alone with my father when it happened, a quiet death, with no complaints. He told me I was the light of his life and that I must look after my mother when he was gone. Afterward, I sat beside him and wept.

I would watch his footprints when he went and mourn him before he was gone.

Maria recalled the women who had crossed Devotion Field driven by love they couldn't renounce, even when it had ruined them. And then one night she knew the answer to her own question. This wasn't love. Maria Owens turned eighteen during her first winter in the second Essex County, the coldest winter in more than forty years.

Pain was something to get used to, to inure yourself against. I would rather hurt myself than be hurt by someone else, and so I took up this practice with a sense of purpose and without remorse.

Salvation was mysterious, wasn't that always true?

That was when my father went to the docks, that patient, good man I had so little respect for, though we were of the same flesh and blood and he had saved my life more than a dozen times when we traveled over continents, finding us bread and shelter. He was a mouse who feared the forest, yet he had managed to take us into France and on to Le Havre, where he worked shoveling coal in a mill until we could afford steerage on a boat to New York, the only dream we ever shared.

In a novel, you'll find yourself in a world of possibilities. You'll find shelter there.

Tuesdays were meant for accidents, disappointments, and bad news.

108I was a rat perhaps, but never a mouse.

Trust no one, make your own future, love with all your heart.

She never used a cookbook again—after all, there was no point in cooking for someone who couldn't tell the difference between a gâteau au chocolat and a defrosted Sara Lee cake.

the seventh day, a number that represents all that is good and all that is evil. There were seven heavens and seven deadly sins, for seven was the most magical number of all, the one that led to wisdom, even for those who would rather remain blind to the truth.

And yet, how much damage could one small book do? How powerful could it be? That was when Sally began to run, because she knew the answer. Words were everything, stories were more powerful than any weapon, books changed lives.

Her vision was going, but she could see him, the way people see clouds-beautiful, racing by, casting shadows.

All I wanted was to be somebody else. Was that asking too much? Was that asking for everything?

No wonder that afterward Lynn told anyone within earshot that she now believed it was impossible ever to divine a person's truest nature. Eric Herman, on the other hand, was not really surprised at Betsy's sudden departure. He had seen the way she'd looked at lightening.

ON JUNE 28, 1969, THE WEATHER WAS HOT, EIGHTY-SEVEN DEGREES, UNUSUAL FOR THE TIME OF YEAR. NEW YORK CITY GREW STEAMY, AS IF THE HEAT ROSE FROM ITS CORE.

Love was contagious, it passed from soul to soul, it woke a person up and shook her even when she wanted to be left alone.

When you chain something up, you turn him into something he shouldn't be.

That's all someone in the grip of obsession needs: the single possibility that desire might be real, a tiny shred of evidence to show you're not all alone in the dark.