How could I have been so stupid to ignore everything I’d had in my life? The color red alone was worth kingdoms.

Alice Hoffman

Categorized in : Kingdoms Stupid Color

There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.

rain blue clouds

[Fairy tales] are like a journey to the woods and the many ways you can get lost. Some people say it's not a good idea to read fairy tales to anyone under the age of eight because they are brutal and raw. When I was a kid I often felt that kids's books were speaking down to me, but I never felt that way about fairy tales. They are bloody and scary, but so is life.

journey kids book

I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley J... by Alice Hoffman

I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved.

brooklyn tree book

Everything was red, the air, the sun, whatever I looked at. Except for him. I fell in love with someone who was human. I watched him walk through the hills and come back in the evening when his work was through. I saw things no woman would see: that he knew how to cry, that he was alone. I cast myself at him, like a fool, but he didn't see me. And then one day he noticed I was beautiful and he wanted me. He broke me off and took me with him, in his hands, and I didn't care that I was dying until I actually was.

air beautiful hands

Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however brief... by Alice Hoffman

Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however briefly it might last.

lasts real might

...and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie.

afternoon village pie

When I write for teens, I feel I can cut through everything and get to the bare bones. I can get straight into the emotional world of the character.

cutting writing character

The adults don't know what's happening on the kids' universe and the kids don't know what's happening on the adults' universe

adults knows kids

Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother... by Alice Hoffman

Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.

disappear brother forget

Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods.

magic-realism dark thinking

How could I tell the doctor what was wrong with me? I didn't understand it myself. I couldn't articulate the pain; it was the pain of nothingness. My fear was of the weather, the atmosphere, the very air. What good did safety tips do me now? 'Avoid water, metal objects, rooftops; stay off the telephone in a storm, don't think glass can protect you; even if a storm was 8 miles away, you're still not safe from a strike. Avoid life perhaps that was the answer. The number one safety tip, stay away from it all.

pain fear thinking

We had to survive to remember. Otherwise everything we were would disappear. Those people we loved would fade as though we'd never loved them, as if they'd never walked and talked and burned, forgetting them was the real evil. That was the hole of darkness.

real evil people

You have to choose the voice you are going to trust. You can't li... by Alice Hoffman

You have to choose the voice you are going to trust. You can't listen to everyone.

voice

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist

novelists different writing

I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay

pain half joy

The nature of love had totally escaped her until now. She had thought that if you lost it, you could never get it back, like a stone thrown down a well. But it was like the water at the bottom of the well, there when you can't even see it, shifting in the dark.

stones dark water

She knows where she's going, and what she has to do. She could, after all, find her way to Route 95 South blindfolded. She could do it in the dark, in fair weather or foul; she can do it even when it seems she will run out of gas. It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

home running mean

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene. by Alice Hoffman

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.

fate matter trying

You don't fight for peace sister,' Nahara told me, 'You embrace i... by Alice Hoffman

You don't fight for peace sister,' Nahara told me, 'You embrace it.

embrace fighting

Weapons are kept from women, but such a naming suggests that perhaps men fear our talents in war as well as our desire for peace.

desire men war