Alice Hoffman Quotes

132 Sourced Quotes

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

Alice Hoffman
I wasn't good company, that was true, and people avoided me, but that was all right. I was too busy dreaming.

Alice Hoffman
Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

Alice Hoffman
Cleaning up after themselves was a low priority for Margo and my mother. They had both recovered from cancer scares, failed marriages, and lost hope; in their opinion, dirt could wait.

Alice Hoffman
Some things, however, are true no matter how hard you might try to block them out,
and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told. Some doors, once they're opened,
can never be closed again, just as some trust, once it's been lost, can never be won back.

Alice Hoffman
I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.

Alice Hoffman
That was the way illness appeared in a house, in the corners, in between floorboards, on the hooks in the closet, along with the sweaters and coats.

Alice Hoffman
I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

Alice Hoffman
It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.

Alice Hoffman
My mother's blood that would last forever after. The blood of my brother, my grandfather, my father.

Alice Hoffman
No barrier was strong enough to keep out the movement of time.

Alice Hoffman
You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go-into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you're not really there.

Alice Hoffman