The collection / 144 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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144 results · Page 3 of 6Play this collection ▷

01Undated

I once believed that life was a gift. I thought whatever I wanted I would someday possess. Is that greed, or only youth? Is it hope or stupidity? As far as I was concerned the future was a book I could write to suit myself, chapter after chapter of good fortune. All was right with the world, and my place in it was assured, or so I thought then. I had no idea that all stories unfold like white flowers, petal by petal, each in its own time and season, dependant on circumstances and fate. ~ Green Heart, Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman / quote

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02Undated

She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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03Undated

The best way to die is when your living

Alice Hoffman / quote

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04Undated

Every man engaged in war tells himself he can alter what has been written, that it is he, not God, who is the maker of destiny, free to change what is meant to be.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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05Undated

...never to rush something I was creating, but instead let it come into being as if it had a soul of it's own.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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06Undated

Although I am no longer caught in the past, the future seems like a ridiculous thing to me. Try to catch it, hold it in your hand. It disappears every time.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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07Undated

I saw this was the way of the future, to leave the past behind as if it were a dream.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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08Undated

... the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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09Undated

... a man always revealed his own inner story in his actions and expressions. A man's past deeds foretold his future and allowed anyone with half a brain to divine the path he would take.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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10Undated

There is the outside of a story, and the inside of a story... One is the fruit and may be delicious, but the other is the seed.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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11Undated

There is no fiercer enemy than a word. A word that can be written down in pages and punctuated by quotation marks and commas and spelled out in contracts and poems and sighs, in old whispers and song lyrics, in promises and vows.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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12Undated

He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes met. She'd know what he intended because she would have done the very same thing if she'd had his courage. Nothing was going to break his fall.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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13Undated

People expected certain things of me: assistance, silence, comfort. They had no idea who I was.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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14Undated

But now I understood that, although words were God's first creation, silence was closer to His divine spirit, and that prayers given in silence were infinitely greater than the thousands of words men might offer up to heaven.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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15Undated

When Juliet came flying down the hallway, Stella didn't recognize her friend. Juliet hadn't bothered with makeup; she was wearing a nightgown underneath her raincoat and had on plastic flip-flops. This was the way loved walked in, barely dressed, confused, panic-stricken, overcome, not caring what anyone thought or what they believed.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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16Undated

The stars are reflected from within the black water in the cistern. I find comfort in the omen I glean from this: light in the darkness, truth when it seems there is none.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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17Undated

That was the sorrow of it. He saw the light but never expected the darkness.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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18Undated

Our house was littered with books- in the kitchen, under the beds, stuck between the couch pillows--far too many for her the ever finish. I suppose I thought if my grandmother kept up her interests, she wouldn't die; she'd have to stay around to finish the books she was so fond of. "I've got to get to the bottom of this one," she'd say, as if a book were no different from a pond or a lake. I thought she'd go on reading forever but it didn't work out that way.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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19Undated

She had been grief stricken as her father lay dying but now she felt weightless, the way people do when they're no longer sure they have a reason to be connected to this world. The slightest breeze could have carried her away, into the night sky, across the universe.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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20Undated

My grief was cold. It was nothing to share. It was nothing to speak about, nothing to feel.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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21Undated

I KNEW I MUST do all as I was told, yet something burned inside me, a seed of defiance that must have derived from a long-ago ancestor. Perhaps my mind was inflamed from the books I had read and the worlds I had imagined.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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22Undated

Interesting, but she could see that the boy didn't have a single lie in him. A very rare condition, especially for the male of the species.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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23Undated

Every problem has a solution, although it may not be the outcome that was originally hoped for or expected.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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24Undated

I loved him even now, as he took a knife to my throat, as I drowned in blood, as I whispered "Cousin, you were wrong. We were born to live.

Alice Hoffman / quote

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