The voices / 144 fragments

Alice Hoffman

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

Alice Hoffman / quote

02Undated

Do you ever just put your arms out and just spin and spin and spin? Well, that's what love is like; everything inside of you tells you to stop before you fall, but for some reason you just keep going.

Alice Hoffman / quote

03Undated

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.

Alice Hoffman / quote

04Undated

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.

Alice Hoffman / quote

05Undated

...he had a way of taking your hand which made it clear he'd have to be the one to let go."From Alice Hoffman's "Local Girls", pg.102.

Alice Hoffman / quote

06Undated

Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

Alice Hoffman / quote

07Undated

If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face. My name once meant daughter, grandaughter, friend, sister, beloved. Now those words mean only what their letters spell out; Star in the night sky. Truth in the darkness.I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.

Alice Hoffman / quote

08Undated

Unrequited love is so boring. Weeping under a blue-black sky is for suckers or maniacs.

Alice Hoffman / quote

09Undated

Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.

Alice Hoffman / quote

10Undated

My mother was teaching me that the inside of something was not necessarily its outside. Always look carefully, she told me. Look with more than your eyes.

Alice Hoffman / quote

11Undated

But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone.

Alice Hoffman / quote

12Undated

She knew it the way people say they know they are about to be hit by lightning, yet remain powerless to run, unable to avoid their fate. She panicked, as anyone might have when disparate parts of her life were about to crash into each other, certain to leave a path of anguish and debris. It was true that devotion could be lost as quickly as it was found, which was why some people insisted that love letters be written in ink. How easy it was for even the sweetest words to evaporate, only to be rewritten as impulse and infatuation might dictate. How unfortunate that love could not be taught or trained, like a seal or a dog. Instead it was a wolf on the prowl, with a mind of its own, and it made its own way, undeterred by the damage done. Love like this could turn honest people into liars and cheats, as it now did…

Alice Hoffman / quote

13Undated

We are only an instant, that's true. But we are eternal.

Alice Hoffman / quote

14Undated

But in battle you cannot tell another when it is his time to enter the World-to-Come, nor is it possible to keep any man in this world when he wishes to leave it behind.

Alice Hoffman / quote

15Undated

You can get addicted to trouble if you're not careful.

Alice Hoffman / quote

16Undated

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.

Alice Hoffman / quote

17Undated

Pride is a funny thing it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.

Alice Hoffman / quote

18Undated

Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms.

Alice Hoffman / quote

19Undated

Helplessness and anger make for predictable behavior: Children are certain to shove each other and pull hair, teenagers will call each other names and cry, and grown women who are sisters will say words so cruel that each syllable will take on the form of a snake, although such a snake often circles in on itself to eat its own tail once the words are said aloud.

Alice Hoffman / quote

20Undated

I could hardly get a boy to look at me. All right, they'd look, they'd even take me out, but no one asked for a second date. I was too nasty, a real wise guy, and all the boys could tell what my rotten disposition was. Deep down, I wanted a commitment with a capital C. To get anywhere with me, a boy would have to sign his undying loyalty with his own blood.

Alice Hoffman / quote

21Undated

Books may well be the only true magic.

Alice Hoffman / quote

22Undated

Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.

Alice Hoffman / quote

23Undated

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.

Alice Hoffman / quote

24Undated

Shelby watched the books burn. She wonders if words are pouring down on other people's houses,sad words, like beast and mourn and sorrow and mother.

Alice Hoffman / quote