Quotes from Alice Hoffman

In books, no one helped a girl who didn't help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your energy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself.

Why should you not speak to me / And why should I not speak to you?

If you are loved, you never lose the person who loved you. You carry them with you all your

lifetime is a lifetime whether it lasts one night or a hundred years.

Real life is unbelievable. Souls are snatched away from us, flesh and blood turn to dust, people you love betray you, men go to way over nothing. IT's all preposterous. That's why we have novels. To make sense out of things.

I know we lived among extraordinary things but, perhaps more importantly, in extraordinary times. People may or may not remember the heroes and the villains of our day, but all that the brave among us did, and all that they were, remains with us still.

As they held hands through the bars, Dias spied a black beetle burrowing through the wood of the jail. It made a horrid clacking sound. It was said there was no way to stop this beetle's ticking off the hours of a person's life, but Samuel Dias had never heard of a deathwatch beetle. He went over and stomped on it with his boot, crushing it completely

A fish and a sparrow cannot live in the same world. one will gasp for air and the other will drown.

Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness.

Sam said, Hey, you want to get high? Amy had taken his words to mean You are so beautiful I am undone by you.

In truth, she didn't care for rules of any sort; rules made little sense to a person who had grown up in a world without compassion or pity, where there was no moral code by which to abide.

every May there would be a town gathering to remember this day so that no one would forget how easily everyday life could be suddenly disrupted, for disaster was always a moment away, in the wind, in a red rain, in the illness that had spread through the village on a beautiful spring day.

felt a sort of joy I'd never felt before. I was so unaccustomed to such emotions it took some time before I realized I was happy.

Love could ruin your life or set you free; it could happen by chance or be a well-planned decision.

I had made the decision to stick with life as I knew it, which meant I was alone. But at least I wasn't dumped or betrayed.

Curses are like knots, the more you struggle to be free, the tighter they become, whether they're made of rope or spite or desperation.

In his opinion, a woman who loved books was the best sort.

Some people grow weak when they are victimized, others grow stronger, and still others combine those two attributes to become dangerous, even if the person in question is a girl who has recently turned twelve.

I cure him every time. That is the only way to treat this disease. Some things return no matter what, and we must deal with it when it does.

Standing at her window, Anne was enchanted to see the buds that would soon be opening into white stars. Perhaps the magnolia spoke to her, and if it did, it told her that no man with ill intentions would travel with a large, flowering tree.

It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Sally hears something dangerous in her daughter's voice, but of course thirteen is a dangerous age. It's the time when a girl can snap, when good can turn to bad for no apparent reason, and you can lose your own child if you're not careful.

He awoke before dawn to find the tree in full bloom, a bower of cream-colored stars on dark, leathery leaves. He heard it speak to him when he leaned his head against the gray trunk.

Never be without thread," she told the girl. "What is broken can also be mended. Remember that in your dark days, as I have.