“Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“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, quote from Blackbird House
“Everything seemed slow, molasses slow, lovesick slow.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“I read Greek myths. I read about far off places, Venice and Paris. I read about men who searched for things they could not find at home, and women who fell in love with the wrong person and waited for the arrival of their beloved for so long that a year was no different from a single day. The same thing was happening to me. Years were passing. I was already a woman, and I still wasn't done reading.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Somewhere there was a book of love, with all the symptoms written down in red ink: Dizziness and Desire. A tendency to stare at the night sky, searching for a message that might be found up above. A lurching in the pit of the stomach, as if something much too sweet had been eaten. The ability to hear the quietest sounds--snails munching the lettuce leaves, moths drinking nectar from the overripe pears on the tree by the fence, a rabbit trembling in ivy-just in case he might be there, which was what mattered all along. Real hunger, just to see him, as if this would ever be enough.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Everyone knows a white blackbird is nothing more than a ghost, a shadow of what it ought to be.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“WITCHES TAKE THEIR NAMES FROM PLACES, for places are what give them their strength. The place need not be beautiful, or habitable, or even green. Sand and salt, so much the better. Scrub pine, plumberry, and brambles, better still. From every bitter thing, after all, something hardy will surely grow. From every difficulty, the seed that’s sewn is that much stronger. Ruin is the milk all witches must drink; it’s the lesson they learn and the diet they’re fed upon.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“He thought about how love could move you in ways you wouldn’t have imagined, one foot in front of the other, even when you thought you had nothing left inside.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Even with her failing vision, Violet West could see the scars. They had turned purple, almost red, from the icy cold, the color of the pears on the tree in the yard, the color of blood that can't be washed away and of things that can never be undone.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Well, maybe that was fate. Maybe she was meant to be alone. She was a runner, and wasn't that the habit of a person who preferred to be on her own?”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“WITCHES TAKE THEIR NAMES FROM PLACES, for places are what give them their strength. The place need not be beautiful, or habitable, or even green. Sand and salt, so much the better. Scrub pine, plumberry, and brambles, better still. From every bitter thing, after all, something hardy will surely grow. From every difficulty, the seed that’s sewn is that much stronger.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“It was the farm they'd bought down at the edge of the Cape ... The very edge of the world, ... It was the light that Emma remembered as so very different from city light, thin and yellow, with flecks of gold as the afternoon stretched on. Apricot light, her mother used to call it. Peach light. Summertime light that made a person forget gray skies and city life. The air was sweeter there, the cardinals were a deeper scarlet than their city cousins, and when the crickets called, it was possible to feel the vibration of their song. Each time they opened the car doors and crossed the grass, it was as though they had stepped off the globe, as though the world had stopped turning, as though they might, for a little while at least, be safe.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“Lion had to kiss her then and there, even though when he kissed her he felt as though he were swallowing her sadness.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
“She liked soot, and heat, and grime, and she was beginning to realize, if she didn't actually like her aloneness, she was at least comforted by it. She should be grateful; she knew, she knew. She should be thrilled just to be alive. So why was it she preferred to expect nothing?”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House
Alice Hoffman
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
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“No; they nearly drowned you, and not even on purpose but only through carelessness. I am not letting them have you back,” Temeraire said.”
― Naomi Novik, quote from Victory of Eagles
“If a society thinks it needs weapons, it must accept killing. If it thinks it needs violent men, it must accept rapine and assault.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, quote from The Visitor
“Maybe I enjoy being pestered. Occasionally."
Sue Ellen rolled her eyes. " I can talk dirty to you, Hank. That takes no skill.”
― quote from Young, Only Once
“Though he sought simplicity, he dread dulness. Dimly conscious that he was dull himself, he craved the stimulus of a quicker mind; yet he feared a dull wife less than a brilliant one, for with the latter how could he maintain his superiority?”
― Edith Wharton, quote from The Buccaneers
“They are waiting for us again. My youngest lad and me. The crows around the floodlights. The dogs around the gates. They are waiting for us because we are late again. My youngest lad and me.”
― David Peace, quote from The Damned Utd
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