Quotes from Alice Hoffman

Frances was sulky and suspicious, while Jet was kindhearted and so sensitive that a negative remark could make her break into hives.

Some things aren't destined to be no matter how you might want them.

Owens women ignored convention; they were headstrong and willful, and meant to be that way.

You lose people sometimes, you know. You don't expect to, but then it happens and you can't get them back.

unless you allowed them to mean something.

the logic of fairy tales was that there was no logic: bad things happened to the innocent, children were set out in the woods by their parents, fear walked hand in hand with experience, a wish spoken aloud could make it so.

People all over town had listened for my grandfather's cries, but there were none. Only silence.

A crow can recall every route it has ever taken, and Cadin had been this way before. Crows are messengers, spies, guides, companions, harbingers of luck, deliverers of trinkets and treasures, tireless in all ways, more loyal than any other man or beast.

She shuffled her feet as she was told that she had been taken in by the family as an infant, and that every family in town without a daughter adopted a girl infant or child. She was raised to inherit the laundry and the housekeeping, the cooking and the sorrow, and the kindling of the fire in the early morning when no one else would even think of getting out from beneath the mountains of blankets and quilts.

Lydia went over and handed him a paper napkin. Conner stared at the napkin as if it were something delivered directly from the moon.

Real love was dangerous. It got you from inside and held on tight. And if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.

when somebody's that nasty, it's because she must have walked through fire. Those comments you're getting are flying off her like sparks without her even knowing she's all burned up inside.

Women were hurt every day and kept the cause to themselves.

this occurred only once in a person's life, and then only if he was lucky. It happened the way things happen in a dream. A door opens, a person calls your name, your heart beats faster, and everything is familiar, yet you don't know where you are. You are falling, you're in a house you don't recognize and yet you want to be here, you have actually wanted to be here all of your life

A familiar is such a creature, an animal or bird that sees inside to the very soul of its human companion, and knows what others might not. What fears there might be, and what joys, for it shares the emotions of its human partner.

The garden was burning, the air sparked with specks of flame as they say it will be in the World-to-Come when we walk beside the angels and have no fear of their illuminations or of their might.

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

She said this world was a hole of darkness, of black light and evil and loss. But if that were true, there would never have been any bright light in our lives. My mother would never have existed, my brother would never have been such a fine man, Andres would not be waiting for me somewhere, though I didn't know where.

Love could do that to some people and they wouldn't even know much they'd missed out on; they simply remained in the place where love had left them, while the whole world spun around.

Life was like a book, Jet thought, but one you would never finish. You would never know how people would wind up; the good often suffered and the wicked prospered and there was no explanation for the way in which fate was meted out as there was in novels.

knew that from now on she would be held hostage by her responsibilities.

They sat in the light of a lantern and drank cups of Courage Tea, a blend of currants, spices, and thyme, made for protection and healing, a mixture that needed to steep for a long time. It was an elixir that made it clear one should never hide who one was. That was the first step toward courage. In this way, magic began.

You walk into the dark and the darkness abides within you.

She kissed him first, and all the rest followed.