Top 500 Alice Hoffman Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Each morning when I arrive, the doves know me; their song rises and falls with pleasure and acceptance. It is always there, a river of sound.”

— Alice Hoffman

252. “When I write for teens, I feel I can cut through everything and get to the bare bones. I can get straight into the emotional world of the character.”

— Alice Hoffman

253. “My expectations of what I wanted in a man I learned from a dog: loyalty and kindness.”

— Alice Hoffman

254. “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.”

— Alice Hoffman

255. “You never know what you want or need until you are old, for old age is a mystery that is impossible to unwind until you step into its maze.”

— Alice Hoffman

256. “I didn’t understand that when I closed myself to her, I took a part of her bitterness inside me. It was green and unforgiving, and as it grew it made me more like her. It gave me my strength, but it gave me my weakness as well.”

— Alice Hoffman

257. “Maria Owens did what she did for a reason. She was young and she thought damning anyone who loved us would protect us. But what she had with that terrible man wasn’t love. She didn’t understand that when you truly love someone and they love you in return, you ruin your lives together. That is not a curse, it’s what life is, my girl. We all come to ruin, we turn to dust, but whom we love is the thing that lasts.”

— Alice Hoffman

258. “My father told us that our people had been slaves in the desert and because God had seen fit to set us free, none among us should ever own another man. It had been written that every man belonged to God and no one else. But did women belong to God or to the men of their family? They could not own property or businesses; only their husbands could have that honor.”

— Alice Hoffman

259. “In a world of sorrow, love was an act of will. All you needed were the right ingredients.”

— Alice Hoffman

260. “Truth felt light and green, but a lie sunk to the floor, heavy as metal, a substance she always avoided for it made her feel as though she was trapped behind bars.”

— Alice Hoffman

261. “When you were young you were afraid of ghosts, and when you were aged you called them to you.”

— Alice Hoffman

262. “Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous. In the aunts’ opinion, it could sneak up on a grown woman and turn her from a sensible creature into something as foolish as a flea that keeps chasing after the same old dog.”

— Alice Hoffman

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

— Alice Hoffman

264. “Never look at other people’s bad fortune,′ my mother said. ‘If you do, it will come back to find you instead of its rightful owner.”

— Alice Hoffman

265. “In my memories I have set my life in Brooklyn between pieces of glass, separate from my current existence, and this has enabled me to move forward. The past cannot tie me in knots, nor can it cause me to drown. And yet what is stored in glass belongs to me still. Each piece is a part of me: the hummingbirds, the locked doors, Mr. Morris in the yard, the pear tree, the woman covered by bees, and you. Especially you.”

— Alice Hoffman

266. “I saw the end of his life right there in that single moment. His pride, his decency, his secrets, his death.”

— Alice Hoffman

267. “I’m fated to lose everyone I ever love,” April said. “I already know that.” “Of course you are,” Jet responded in her calm, measured tone. “That’s what it means to be alive.”

— Alice Hoffman

268. “The truth was written upon us, as they say men’s sins are written on their bones so that when they die their wicked deeds can be read as if written upon parchment.”

— Alice Hoffman

269. “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

270. “She had wanted to be a bird, but now she knew, as she looked out the window to see Lewis following, that even birds are chained to earth by their needs and desires.”

— Alice Hoffman

271. “What is broken can also be mended.”

— Alice Hoffman

272. “Crying wasn’t like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it’s done.”

— Alice Hoffman

273. “After living with his art in my own chamber, I saw there was more than mere mimicry, and that art was a world unto itself, with its own symbols and language. A leaf seen in a certain light might be gray or violet as well as purple, and a latticework of twigs might easily turn red as the sky paled above the city.”

— Alice Hoffman

274. “The day had begun, cool and clear and absolutely impossible to avoid.”

— Alice Hoffman

275. “Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by.”

— Alice Hoffman

276. “I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.”

— Alice Hoffman

277. “Lightning, like love, is never ruled by logic.”

— Alice Hoffman

278. “Fairytales were maps formed of blood and hair and bones; they were the knots of the sub-conscious unwound. Every word in every tale was real and as true as apples and stones. They all led to the story inside the story.”

— Alice Hoffman

Featured in: Real Quotes

279. “Her gift with wild birds allowed her to bring them to her merely by lifting her hand. From a distance, when she ran so fast she was nearly flying, it seemed as if she spoke their language, and was meant for their world more than her own.”

— Alice Hoffman

280. “She thought she could have what she wanted; she thought she could see the world from above, as if it were a distant blue ball whose sorrows had nothing to do with her. She had wanted to be a bird, but now she knew, as she looked out the window to see Lewis following, that even birds are chained to earth by their needs and desires.”

— Alice Hoffman

281. “I don’t think I make much of a distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘fantastic.’ They both seem to be threads in the same cloth as far as I’m concerned.”

— Alice Hoffman

Featured in: Real Quotes

282. “As Gary understands it, the greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself, and he and Sally have both served themselves from the same table tonight, the only difference being that he knows what he’s missing, and she has no idea what is causing her to cry as she drives down the Turnpike.”

— Alice Hoffman

283. “Finding your soul mate is like coming home to a house where everything is familiar. You can walk in the dark and know where everything is.”

— Alice Hoffman

284. “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.”

— Alice Hoffman

285. “It was believed that all creation came from thought, language, and mathematics.”

— Alice Hoffman

286. “Don’t waste time when there’s someone you love.”

— Alice Hoffman

287. “I think of life as a book of stories. You move through the stories and the characters change. But once you have a name on your skin you are stuck with one story, even if it’s a bad one.”

— Alice Hoffman

288. “Men and women rarely speak to each other, though they often talk.”

— Alice Hoffman

289. “She wondered if dreamers knew they were in a dream while it was happening, or if they had no idea that everything around them was purely imagined until the dream had gone.”

— Alice Hoffman

290. “He carried so much suffering that it radiated out in waves. Sorrow is like that: whenever a person runs, it comes after him; it leaves an endless trail of pain.”

— Alice Hoffman

291. “All things change, for that is the way of the world we walk through.”

— Alice Hoffman

292. “You rescue something and you’re responsible for it. But maybe that’s what love is. Maybe it’s like a hit-and-run accident; it smashes you before you can think. You do it no matter the cost and you keep on running.”

— Alice Hoffman

293. “It had been better to have viewed him from a distance, so that his flaws were left unseen.”

— Alice Hoffman

294. “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

295. “Love is the one thing that’s not easy to find. It’s an achievement, Eddie, to feel such a glorious emotion, whether it’s returned or not. Some men never do.”

— Alice Hoffman

296. “Nowadays, she doesn’t even look in a mirror. She’s afraid no one will be staring back at her.”

— Alice Hoffman

297. “If a woman is in trouble, she should always wear blue for protection.”

— Alice Hoffman

298. “You don’t need wealth to appreciate something beautiful.”

— Alice Hoffman

299. “The original fairy tale was about the youngest sister going into a room in the castle and finding all the bodies of the wives that came before her – she is confronted with truth, thinking about how often we think we know people and we really don’t.”

— Alice Hoffman

300. “For some, witchery was a choice, but not for them.”

— Alice Hoffman