110+ Alice Hoffman Quotes On Education, Friendship And Earth

Alice Hoffman is an American novelist and author of more than 30 books. She is best known for her 1995 novel, Practical Magic, which was adapted into a major motion picture in 1998. Her other works include The Dovekeepers, The Rules of Magic, and The Marriage of Opposites. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alice Hoffman on life, education, friendship.

Top 10 Alice Hoffman Quotes

1. My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances
2. 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.
3. It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.
4. Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.
5. I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?
6. Books may well be the only true magic.
7. Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.
8. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.
9. I'm at the point where going forward is easier than going back.
10. Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

Alice Hoffman Short Quotes

• The evening had turned sweet and blue.
• Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight.
• You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.
• Here's the thing about luck...you don't know if it's good or bad until you have some perspective.
• Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.
• I just finished Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad," which I think is a work of genius.
• Just because something is unspoken doesn't mean that it disappears.
• They weren't true stories; they were better than that.
• Unrequited love is so boring. Weeping under a blue-black sky is for suckers or maniacs.
• Do what you want, do what you will, do what you have to, do what you think you cannot.

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Life

How could I have been so stupid to ignore everything I’d had in my life? The color red alone was worth kingdoms. — Alice Hoffman

Every problem has a solution, although it may not be the outcome that was originally hoped for or expected. — Alice Hoffman

That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all. — Alice Hoffman

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep. — Alice Hoffman

It wasn't right to have someone charge into you your world without even asking, acting as if you were nothing more than an egg to be flipped and flopped, sunny-side up or scrambled, depending on the whims on whoever ran your life..._ — Alice Hoffman

Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am. — Alice Hoffman

I wept to think that life went on even when so much had been lost, that rain still fell and myrtle grew between the rocks. — Alice Hoffman

I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream. — Alice Hoffman

Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows. — Alice Hoffman

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else? — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Love

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can. — Alice Hoffman

Do you ever just put your arms out and just spin and spin and spin? Well, that's what love is like; everything inside of you tells you to stop before you fall, but for some reason you just keep going. — Alice Hoffman

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure. — Alice Hoffman

Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however briefly it might last. — Alice Hoffman

Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often. — Alice Hoffman

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real.... Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible. — Alice Hoffman

Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you're gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold. — Alice Hoffman

I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. — Alice Hoffman

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. — Alice Hoffman

Trouble is just like love, after all; it comes in unannounced and takes over before you've had a chance to reconsider, or even to think. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Earth

The grass he walked through was new and a sweet smell clung to his clothes. There was blue dye on his hands from the wild irises... that the color of the sky was a shade that could never be replicated in any photograph, just as Heaven could never be seen from the confines of Earth. — Alice Hoffman

What was a rose but the living proof of desire, the single best evidence of human longing and earthly devotion. but desire could be twisted,after all, and Jealousy was the name of the rose that did well in arid souls. — Alice Hoffman

This kind of knowing you can never tell to anyone. If you want us to survive, you cannot trust a soul'... 'Not for any reason on this earth. You can never tell. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Books

Even in times when it's difficult to figure out, how do you go forward, art - and books - always help. — Alice Hoffman

I have nothing from my childhood. I think you carry those books with you. It's like in [Ray] Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Books are outlawed in this future society so people become the book they love by memorizing it. — Alice Hoffman

One of my favorites is "Time and Again" by Jack Finney. It takes place in Manhattan and goes back and forth between 1882 and the 1950s. It's really a cult book. — Alice Hoffman

I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved. — Alice Hoffman

When I read Jerome D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" that was the first time I felt my mind blow open. I thought that book was speaking to me. I was 12 or 13 when I read that. I read everything on my mother's bookshelves. — Alice Hoffman

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say. — Alice Hoffman

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head. — Alice Hoffman

All the characters in my books are imagined, but all have a bit of who I am in them - much like the characters in your dreams are all formed by who you are. — Alice Hoffman

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself. — Alice Hoffman

I did go there later, but I hadn't been there before I wrote the book. Sometimes I feel like the imagined can feel more real than the real? — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Magic

I never even believed in happiness. I didn't think it existed. Now look at me. I'm ready to believe in just about anything. — Alice Hoffman

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene. — Alice Hoffman

People want to ignore what they can't understand. They're looking for logic at any cost. — Alice Hoffman

He has the ability to catch someone by the way that he looks at her, and make her wish he would go on looking. — Alice Hoffman

Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods. — Alice Hoffman

They were written on cheap blue notebooks bought by poor women. I'm interested in folk tales in the way that medicine and magic in women's stories are all kind of combined. — Alice Hoffman

It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction. — Alice Hoffman

When you start writing the magic comes when the characters seem to take on a life of their own and write the words for themselves. — Alice Hoffman

What I like about fairy tales is the language and the matter-of-fact way of introducing magic, where it's accepted that a fox could talk or a gate could just appear in a wall. I think fairy tales are so psychological. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Fiction

I love science fiction but especially his because it's so humane. — Alice Hoffman

I think love is a huge factor in fiction and in real life. Is there a risk? Always. In fiction and in life. — Alice Hoffman

That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Feel

Mothers always find ways to fit in the work - but then when you're working, you feel that you should be spending time with your children and then when you're with your children, you're thinking about working. — Alice Hoffman

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

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

It was the sort of beauty you feel so deeply it becomes contagious and somehow makes you feel beautiful too. — Alice Hoffman

I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay. — Alice Hoffman

I love fairy tales and feel very affected by them. — Alice Hoffman

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction. — Alice Hoffman

I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled. — Alice Hoffman

I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss? — Alice Hoffman

The more you feel, the stronger you are. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Writing

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws. — Alice Hoffman

I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working. — Alice Hoffman

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist. — Alice Hoffman

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written. — Alice Hoffman

I'm much faster now. When you only have a certain amount of time to write, after a while you learn to use your time well or you stop writing. — Alice Hoffman

What else is there to write about than love and loss? — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About People

Some people say, 'Save yourself and you save your ways.' I say, 'Be yourself and you save your soul. — Alice Hoffman

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

People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves? — 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

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people. — Alice Hoffman

The only people out at this hour were ones who couldn't sleep,those haunted by one thing or another:love thwarted, love lost, love thrown away. They were the sort of people who didn't want to be noticed, who wanted to slip through shadows, be alone with their despair. — Alice Hoffman

Most people know that Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. — Alice Hoffman

I think secrets often come out. I spoke to a friend who is a therapist and I asked her if there were people who came to her and admitted to doing horrible things and she said, 'More than you know.' — Alice Hoffman

I hate it when people tell me the end of the story because my mother always read the last page of a novel first to see whether she wanted to read it. It was a strange reading habit. — Alice Hoffman

He was in love, and people in that condition did stupid, unfathomable things. They were all flawed, every single one. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Quotes About Real

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

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

Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller. — Alice Hoffman

We had to survive to remember. Otherwise everything we were would disappear. Those people we loved would fade as though we'd never loved them, as if they'd never walked and talked and burned, forgetting them was the real evil. That was the hole of darkness. — Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman Famous Quotes And Sayings

Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool fresh water. Seek shelter from the sun at noon. — Alice Hoffman

At midnight the wind in the tress can sound like the ocean. The moonlight can make a road appear as endless as the sea. — Alice Hoffman

My theory is that everyone at one time or another has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who's different. Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common. — Alice Hoffman

In losing a friend, she is reminded of all she has lost and all she stands to lose again. There is nothing to be done to make it any easier. We all grieve alone. — Alice Hoffman

The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world. — Alice Hoffman

Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don't think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. — Alice Hoffman

There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones. — Alice Hoffman

A red map isn't easy to follow. Any document made of blood and bones is tricky. Wrong turns are easily made, and there are often piles of stones in the road. A person has to disregard time and sorrow and all the damage done. If you follow, if you dare, the thread always leads to whomever or whatever you've forgotten. — Alice Hoffman

I think growing up is difficult and it's a process that I'm always interested in, with kids and adults, they are often on two different universes. — Alice Hoffman

...and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie. — Alice Hoffman

I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman's domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told. — Alice Hoffman

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us. — Alice Hoffman

And then I understood that she had no idea what she'd done to my family. She thought love and hatred were equal. — Alice Hoffman

Love ambushed you, it lay in wait, dormant for days or years. It was the red thread, the peach stone, the kiss, the forgiveness. It came after you, it escaped you, it was invisible, it was everything. — Alice Hoffman

Jill told me that when you're really in love, you know right away. I'm not exactly sure how this happens. Is it like a flash of lightning? Like an angel tapping you on the shoulder? Or is it similar to choosing a puppy? You think you're picking the cutest one, but really you wind up going home with the one who keeps insisting on climbing into your lap. — Alice Hoffman

If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun. — Alice Hoffman

Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over. — Alice Hoffman

What did you see?' he asked then. Nothing,' I told him. 'Because nothing is what you wanted me to see, though the man on the table might disagree. — Alice Hoffman

That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward. — Alice Hoffman

Remember what I've told you. Remember me. — Alice Hoffman

Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.'... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget. — Alice Hoffman

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed. — Alice Hoffman

Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become part of you when you remember them. — Alice Hoffman

He believed in dreams, in endings that people told you could never happen, in disappointments reversed and luck that lasted. — Alice Hoffman

I loved him even now, as he took a knife to my throat, as I drowned in blood, as I whispered "Cousin, you were wrong. We were born to live. — Alice Hoffman

Everything we knew condemned us, and our questioning condemned us most of all. Knowledge was the way of our people, and knowledge was dangerous. It was the first thing that freed you and the thing that put you in peril. It was the key to the ten gates. I saw them clearly now, each and every one, the gates that were there for me. Ashes, Bones, Grass, Heart, Stone, Love, Sorrow, Blood, Earth, Sky. — Alice Hoffman

You can't dispute the ridiculous. You can't argue reasonably with evil. — Alice Hoffman

I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I’d be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am. — Alice Hoffman

Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away. — Alice Hoffman

In "Faithful," Ray Bradbury is discussed a lot. The characters read "The Illustrated Man." — Alice Hoffman

[Fairy tales] are like a journey to the woods and the many ways you can get lost. Some people say it's not a good idea to read fairy tales to anyone under the age of eight because they are brutal and raw. When I was a kid I often felt that kids's books were speaking down to me, but I never felt that way about fairy tales. They are bloody and scary, but so is life. — Alice Hoffman

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more. — Alice Hoffman

Only her death could prove her innocence; a circle of impossible, deathly judgement. — Alice Hoffman

What people read revealed so much about them that she considered our card catalog a treasure house of privileged secrets; each card contained the map of an individual’s soul. — Alice Hoffman

She was disappearing a little more each day, so thin, so frail, a wisp of smoke. One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her. — Alice Hoffman

Crying wasn't like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done. — Alice Hoffman

Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more. — 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

You can never tell about a person by guessing...that's why language was invented. Otherwise, we'd all be like dogs, sniffing each other to find out where we stood. — 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

No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way. — Alice Hoffman

My grandmother was overwhelmed by what was happening to us. She ahd moved back into the past because the here and the now was too terrible. — Alice Hoffman

I was beginning to understand.My grandmother's love was cold because she was afraid of things;that was why everything had to be perfect. — Alice Hoffman

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

Abra DeMadrigal didn't look young enough to be my sister anymore. Her sorrow weighed her down and aged her. She was still beautiful, but she looked very far away. No wonder our people had raven eyes, so distant, so sad. No matter how wise she was, my mother looked like a woman who hadn't truely believed how much evil there was in our world. Not until this moment. — Alice Hoffman

The frightened walk away when love is difficult. I know that now. You have to be willing to give everything away. You have to be willing to end up with nothing. Only then will your heart be whole. — Alice Hoffman

My sorrow is I used to read all the time and now, as a writer, I don't have the time to read. — Alice Hoffman

Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure. — Alice Hoffman

Life Lessons by Alice Hoffman

1. Alice Hoffman's work emphasizes the power of hope, resilience, and the importance of forging meaningful connections with others.
2. She also encourages readers to take risks and embrace the unknown, as well as to be mindful of the beauty and power of nature.
3. Through her stories, Hoffman encourages readers to be brave and to find strength in their own unique stories.