Alice Hoffman

“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.”

“Interesting, but she could see that the boy didn't have a single lie in him. A very rare condition, especially for the male of the species.”

“You can get addicted to trouble if you're not careful.”

“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.”

“But now I understood that, although words were God's first creation, silence was closer to His divine spirit, and that prayers given in silence were infinitely greater than the thousands of words men might offer up to heaven.”

“Pain was something to get used to, to inure yourself against. I would rather hurt myself than be hurt by someone else, and so I took up this practice with a sense of purpose and without remorse.”

“I'm trying to find someone who doesn't want to be found.""That can be as hard as looking for a shadow.”

“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.”

“Shelby watched the books burn. She wonders if words are pouring down on other people's houses,sad words, like beast and mourn and sorrow and mother.”

“But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone.”

“... a man always revealed his own inner story in his actions and expressions. A man's past deeds foretold his future and allowed anyone with half a brain to divine the path he would take.”

“Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.”

“Life was beautiful, everyone knew that, but it was also bitter and bleak and unfair as hell and where did that leave a person? On the outs with the rest of the world. Someone who sat alone in the cafeteria, reading, escaping from his hometown simply by turning the page.”

“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.”

“Although she'd never believe it, those lines in Gillian's face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she's gone through and what she's survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.”

“The stars are reflected from within the black water in the cistern. I find comfort in the omen I glean from this: light in the darkness, truth when it seems there is none.”

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