Quotes from Blue Diary

Alice Hoffman ·  304 pages

Rating: (6.5K votes)


“Some things you carry around inside you as though they were part of your blood and bones, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do to forget

…But I had never been much of a believer. If anything, I believed that things got worse before they got better. I believed good people suffered... people who have faith were so lucky; you didn’t want to ruin it for them. You didn’t want to plant doubt where there was none. You had to treat suck individuals tenderly and hope that some of whatever they were feeling rubs off on you

Those who love you will love you forever, without questions or boundaries or the constraints of time. Daily life is real, unchanging as a well-built house. But houses burn; they catch fire in the middle of the night.

The night is like any other night of disaster, with every fact filtered through a veil of disbelief. The rational world has spun so completely out of its orbit, there is no way to chart or expect what might happen next

At that point, they were both convinced that love was a figment of other people’s imaginations, an illusion fashioned out of smoke and air that really didn’t exist

Fear, like heat, rises; it drifts up to the ceiling and when it falls down it pours out in a hot and horrible rain



True love, after all, could bind a man where he didn’t belong. It could wrap him in cords that were all but impossible to break

Fear is contagious. It doubles within minutes; it grows in places where there’s never been any doubt before

The past stays with a man, sticking to his heels like glue, invisible and heartbreaking and unavoidable, threaded to the future, just as surely as day is sewn to night

He looked at girls and saw only sweet little fuckboxes, there for him to use, no hearts involved, no souls, and, most assuredly no responsibilities.

Welcome to the real world. Herein is the place where no one can tell you whether or not you’ve done the right thing.

I could tell people anything I wanted to, and whatever I told them, that would be the truth as far as they were concerned. Whoever I said I was, well then, that’s who id be

The truths by which she has lived her life have evaporated, leaving her empty of everything except the faint blue static of her own skepticism. She has never been a person to question herself; now she questions everything

Something’s, are true no matter how hard you might try to bloc them out, and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told

You were nothing more than a speck of dust, good-looking dust, but dust all the same

Some people needed saving

She doesn’t want to waste precious time with something as prosaic as sleep. Every second is a second that belongs to her; one she understands could well be her last

Why wait for anything when the world is so cockeyed and dangerous? Why sit and stare into the mirror, too fearful of what may come to pass to make a move?

At last she knows how it feels to take a chance when everything in the world is at stake, breathless and heedless and desperate for more

She’ll be imagining everything that’s out in front of them, road and cloud and sky, all the elements of a future, the sort you have to put together by hand, slowly and carefully until the world is yours once more”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“My grandmother told me once that when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. Eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. There are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shines like heaven, so far above us we can never hope to reach such heights.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“Listen carefully. Listen and you'll hear everything you need to know.

a nightmare is a different case entirely, it's a box of black shadows and vicious red stars, something to keep carefully closed, lest the ground below be broken in two

now it's a time like any other, long minutes, tedious seconds, nothing more than flat time moving forward, like it or not

it is impossible to stop some things, rainfall, for instance, and love at first sight, and the slow and steady path of sorrow

the cruel and desperate variety that always accompanies yearning for someone you're bound to lose

when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. there are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shine like heaven, so far above us qw can never hope to reach such heights

sometimes those who love you best are the ones who leave you behind

hearts were made for being broken. there's really no way around it if you want to be a human being.


...consider what people are capable of going through in this world and how much courage it's possible to have

when someone kisses you with everything they feel, you don't stop thinking about it for a very long time.

you didn't think you were going to get married and live happily ever after did you? you're not that stupid...

a book of hope that has never been finished, a list of dreams left undone.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“even the most dependable of men will stumble every now and then

There are some people who insist that every time one door closes, another door opens, but this isn't always the case. There are doors that are meant to stay closed, ones that lead to rooms filled with serpents, rooms of regret, rooms that will lbind you if you dare to raise your eye to the keyhole in all innocence, simply to see what's inside

Silence doesn't frighten us. We can just look at each other and recognize that there is pain in this world, even on beautiful nights when twilight settles in our backyards , sifting through the grass and the hedges

you can't change what's means to be

I had found if you didn't expect much, you weren't disappointed as much

I'd simply have to live with the doubt hanging over me

You could tell she didn't want to, she was trying with all her might to hold it back, but sometimes it's impossible to do that. I know from personal experience. You have to turn yourself cold as ice in order to stop yourself, and then if anything falls from your eyes it will only be blue ice crystals, hard and unbreakable as stone

people who have faith were ao lucky, you didn't want to ruin anything for them. you didn't want to plant doubt where there was none. you had to treat such individuals tenderly and hope that some of whatever they were feeling rubs off on you

everything is stupid when you really think about it. people get up everyday and they act like whatever they do is so important , but they're all just going to die in the end, so none of it matters.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“Amazing where your life can deposit you before you know it. One, two, three, and you're on a completely different road than the one you'd always expected to be on at this point in your life. There is no compass when such things happen, no rules and no maps to guide you, and no one who cares if the sun is glaring or if the asphalt is melting beneath your tires.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary



“What she feels for him is so deep, she aches. She supposes this is what people refer to when they say the pangs of love, as if your innermost joy cannot help but cause you anguish as well.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“They sealed this promise by hooking pinkies, the way they used to, long ago, when promises didn't hurt as much.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“Some people believe that if you don't open your eyes to sorrow and you don't talk about it, you can pretend it never happened.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“I could tell people anything I wanted to and whatever I told them, that would be the truth as far as they were concerned. Whoever I said I was, well, then that's who I'd be.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


“She'll be imagining everything that's out in front of them, road and cloud and sky, all the elements of a future, the sort you have to put together by hand, slowly and carefully, until the world is yours once more.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary



“This is what happens when you stay in one place for thirteen years," Anne says. "First you own things. Then they own you.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


About the author

Alice Hoffman
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
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