Quotes by Alice Hoffman

The voice that arises out of the silence is something no one can imagine until it is heard. It roars when it speaks, it lies to you and convinces you, it steals from you and leaves you without a single word of comfort.

Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.

The story became a cloud, and the cloud a sheet of rain, and rain fell throughout the empire.

I want the difficult stories, the ones that aren’t easy to believe, the twisted ones, the sorrowful ones, the ones that need telling most of all.

But I was not a mouse. In the fields where I walked, I was much more interested in the actions of the hawks.

In a novel, youll find yourself in a world of possibilities. Youll find shelter there.

They sealed this promise by hooking pinkies, the way they used to, long ago, when promises didnt hurt as much.

You want to know what love is? Its the thing that ruins you.

There seemed to be handfuls of stars tossed right above the rooftops in Haddan, keeping the town still alight at midnight.

I knew what happened in fairy tales. The strong survived while the weak were eaten alive.

She has an eye for tragedy and sorrow. Show her a rose and shell see only the wasp in the center of the bloom.

Your sorrow will become smaller, like a star in the daylight that you cant even see. Its there, shining, but there is also a vast expanse of blue sky.

Time wasnt the same anymore. Doors were slamming shut before we even knew theyd been opened. Good fortune can take forever to get to you, but as it turns out, sorrow is as quick as a shot.

I wrote Seventh Heaven for my mother who I miss eve

The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world.

Such was the case with most unhappy students; they avoided even one another, so intent on their own unhappiness they failed to notice the other lost souls around them.

It was amazing how many colors there were, all running into the gutter in a stream: a dozen shades of blue, twenty different reds, and all that black soot, like a nightmare given form, the insides of a heart, destroyed so easily, done away with before anyone could stop the damage, or salvage what was lost, or even try to save him.

I only have one story now.The story was heroin. It was made out of sensation, not words; it was invisible and murderous and unstoppable. Sam disappeared from her slowly, like a snowman melting, until all Blanca had left of him was a pool of freezing-cold blue water, arctic cold, sorrow colored, evaporating with every year. She did her best to hold onto him, but it was impossible, like carrying ice into the desert or making time stand still. After the final fight when Sam moved out, Blanca saw him less and less often. He no longer had a presence; he was like the outline of a person, an absence rather than a full-fledged human being.

She thinks of the way angels arrive, when you lease expect them, when the road is dark, when youre bleeding and alone and hopeless, when youre sleeping in a basement, convinced that no one knows youre there.