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

Categorized in : Blood Done Sorrow

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

arms love-is fall

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.

Alice Hoffman

strong weak needs

Some things, however, are true no matter how hard you might try to block them out,

Alice Hoffman

block doors lying

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

Alice Hoffman

burden given knows

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

Alice Hoffman

may inspirational life

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

Alice Hoffman

changed humans all-things

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

Alice Hoffman

being-yourself soul people

Books may well be the only true magic.

Alice Hoffman

reading inspirational book

Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Alice Hoffman

running sometimes mean

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

childhood persons way

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

Alice Hoffman

aunt magic girl

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

dream character book

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

grandmother sky thinking

Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

Alice Hoffman

silent speech silence

I feel as if when you love a book it becomes a part of you whether you have it on your shelves or not.

Alice Hoffman

shelves feels book

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

Alice Hoffman

done feels sometimes

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

real writing inspirational

I'm at the point where going forward is easier than going back.

Alice Hoffman

moving-on novelists moving-forward

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.

Alice Hoffman

walks

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

magic writing character