Quotes from The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Alice Hoffman ·  368 pages

Rating: (38.4K votes)


“(Love) walks up to you,and when it does, you need to recognize it for what it is and, perhaps more important, for what it might become.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“The truth frightens people because it isn't stable. It shifts every day.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Eddie had come to understand that what a man saw and what actually existed in the natural world often were contradictory. The human eye was not capable of true sight, for it was constrained by its own humanness, clouded by regret, and opinion, and faith. Whatever was witnessed in the real world was unknowable in real time. It was the eye of the camera that captured the world as it truly was.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“You were the one who taught me that love was never what we expected it to be and that it was all that we needed.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



“the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go. Fate was both what we were given and what we made for ourselves.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Love like this was all consuming. I found that I was jealous of the strangest things - sunlight, streets, curtains, even her clothing, anything that was close to her.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Listen, and you'll hear a story being told, one you may need to know.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“People will disappoint you with their cruelty every time”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“... people can surprise you in so many ways, both with cruelty and with kindness.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



“For love changes everything and forces us into lives we never imagined we might lead”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“A lifetime is a lifetime whether it lasts one night or a hundred years.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“It’s not finding what’s lost, it’s understanding what you’ve found.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“If you tried to right all the wrongs in the world you'd exhaust yourself in under an hour.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Men are men, with all their flaws, as we have ours, that’s true, but the best among them manage to discover who we really are.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



“Love like this wasn't what he'd planned or wanted or expected, surely it was indeed a trap, for even when you tried to run away, it followed you through the grass and lay down beside you, it overtook common sense and willpower.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“I knew that men told you the truth for one of two reasons: when they wished to be rid of what they couldn’t bear to carry, or when they wished to include you in what they knew so their stories wouldn’t be lost.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“... a man has many lives. Each day we chose the path we would take by our own actions... the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go. Fate was both what we were give and what we made for ourselves.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Men will be men," Maureen told me when I wondered aloud where my father went in the evenings. "Don't complain," she advised. "That's how women find their freedom. When there's no one else at home.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“... the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



“The air was soft, as it often was in this lovely month, and Eddie inhaled its sweetness. He found himself uplifted as he worked, caught up in something outside himself and his petty wants and needs. The clouds drifted like ice in a tumbler. Through his lens the river seemed made of light, there was the shimmer, and for a moment the world seemed whole to him.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“The truth frightens people because it isn’t stable. It shifts every day. If you’d prefer to remain in the dark, I would understand.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“You know what love is?...It's what you least expect.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“Hochman had been right, the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go. Fate was both what we were given and what we made for ourselves.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“My father was both a scientist and a magician, but he declared that it was in literature wherein we discovered our truest natures.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



“You are the one who taught me that love was never what we expected it to be and that it was all we needed. For that, and for a thousand other things, I send my gratitude.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“When all was said and done, it was conceivable that a being's purpose remained the same throughout his life, and Eddie's purpose was exactly what it had been when he was a boy, to pursue the light and find what was lost."
Page 87”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“And what of monsters? Can they love too? We know quite well they can. For we know that they do.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“You are the one who taught me that love was never what we expected it to be and that it was all we needed.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things


“In good time every secret must be shared and every miracle called into question.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Museum of Extraordinary Things



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About the author

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