Alice Hoffman Quotes

I don't think it's a good idea to compare yourself to anyone. You are who you are and no one can write the way you do. I always want to tell that to young writers. The most important thing is to tell your story.

She was finally here, in the place where she had found a future. Still, night after night, the past was with her. (p197)

She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.

If you are loved, you never lose the person who loved you. You carry them with you all your life.

I have no guilt regarding my love of fantasy and science fiction, only pleasure. I grew up reading the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I chuckle over how this “genre” has become mainstream and how time travel, alternative universes and magic are now so everyday. Plus, no one could ever feel guilty about reading writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick.

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.

I think that I always wanted to tell the stories of women who were not able to tell their own stories.

Every now and then a crow would soar past with a gold ring or coat button in its beak, a shiny souvenir of murder. (p298)

This is how it began, out of water, out of clay, out of air, when it was not expected, when it should have never happened, when no one else understood who she was. (p113)

That was how evil spoke. It made its own corrupt sense; it swore that the good were evil, and that evil had come to save mankind. It brought up ancient fears and scattered them on the street like pearls. To fight what was wicked, magic and faith were needed. This was what one must turn to when there was no other option.

"We must hope for the best," she told the girl. She might have said more if she'd had the freedom to speak her mind, but in her formation she hadn't been given the choice to confide what she felt. If she could do so there would have been much she would have said: how green the verdant countryside was, how bright the light had become, how grateful she was to her maker each and every minute, how the birds in the treetops could be heard even when the train rumbled by, how the first of the season's bees hit against the windowpanes as if searching for flowers, how absolutely marvelous it was to be in the world. (p72)

that was kind of the '60s mentality, too—you didn't need to be published, that was mainstream. You just wanted to be an artist and create something.

I 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.

Witches are outsiders, and those among us who have been bullied and ostracized can relate to their plight. Part of our fascination with witches is that they are the only female mythic figures with power. These are women who don't need to be rescued by a prince or a king but, instead, can save

He realized how little he knew of this world, but he knew this: If you could love someone, you possessed a soul. (p348)