Quotes from Alice Hoffman

Like his father before him he had come to love being on land and spent most days in the garden, where he grew vegetables and kept bees that were known for honey that was so sweet strong men cried when they tasted it.

Maybe I'm afraid of love," Franny admitted. "It's too powerful." "You?" Isabelle scoffed. "Who chose courage? You're stronger than you know. Which is why I'm leaving you what matters most. The book.

Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts had won in the closest presidential election since 1916. Hatless and handsome, he had given people faith in the future when he gave his acceptance speech. I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and of the cause of freedom around the world.

One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her. She was so busy forgetting, she couldn't take a single step into the future

I signaled for him to lean down, and he did so. I then did the second most terrible thing a mother could do, in some ways worse than burying her beneath the stones. I breathed my daughter's last breath into his mouth. I gave her to him so that her spirit would belong to him and he could carry her with him, so that he could still be a man with a soul, even though he had lost everything else.

Now Jet could hear his voice when the wind carried as he recited a quote from Cotton Mather. Families are the Nurseries of all Societies: and the First combinations of mankind.

just do the best I can to face what life brings. That's the secret, you know. That's the way you change your fate.

All I want for you is a normal life. Mother, what makes you think that's what I want?

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

Things ended, and then they began again, only they would begin without Isabelle.

As for Franny, she wanted what she most often experienced in her dreams. To be among the birds. She preferred them to most human beings, their grace, their distance from the earth, their great beauty. Perhaps that was why they always came to her. In some way, she spoke their language.

In good time every secret must be shared and every miracle called into question.

Drink chamomile tea to calm the spirit. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Read as many books as you can. Always choose courage. Never watch another woman burn. Know that love is the only answer.

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever.

Love is trouble, and trouble is love.

People in the courtroom let loose with their disgust, cursing us, d--ning us, we who had become less than human. Marranos. Pigs. As for me, I felt something rise in my throat: the horror of the world of men.

I had been blind to the pain of others until I had my own burden to carry.

Nature could be shifted, but not controlled.

Haylin was given a good talking-to by the headmaster and made to write a paper about workers' rights, which he considered a privilege rather than a punishment. He was obligated to write ten pages, and handed in a tome of nearly fifty pages instead, duly footnoted, quoting from Thomas Paine and FDR. He couldn't wait for the next decade. Everything would change in the sixties, he told Franny. And, if they were lucky, they would then be free.

Lately, she's been wondering if perhaps when the living become the dead they leave an empty space behind, a hollow no one else can fill.

Don't think this won't happen to you,' she hissed at all the pretty young girls passing by. 'Youth is fleeting. It's nothing but a dream. I'm where you're going. I'm what you'll be.

he wants to be completely in control. In a way, it's a relief. ...[she] doesn't have to think when she's with him, or make a decision, or state a preference.

Like the rabbi with the red circle, she should have said no to everything. She should have become a raven. She didn't understand that every word the judge said was a trap, in that every word she said could easily be a stone used to shut her into that trap.

This is your heart that you hold in your hands, be careful with it, don't lose it, and don't forget that I loved you the same way even though you weren't born to me.