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If Every Life Is A River, Then It's Little Wonder That We Do Not Even Notice The Changes That Occur Until We Are Far Out In The Darkest Sea. One Day You Look Around And Nothing Is Familiar, Not Even Your Own Face. My Name Once Meant Daughter, Grandaughter, Friend, Sister, Beloved. Now Those Words Mean Only What Their Letters Spell Out; Star In The Night Sky. Truth In The Darkness. I Have Crossed Over To A Place Where I Never Thought I'd Be. I Am Someone I Would Have Never Imagined. A Secret. A Dream. I Am This, Body And Soul. Burn Me. Drown Me. Tell Me Lies. I Will Still Be Who I Am.

-Alice Hoffman

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If Every Life Is

Alice Hoffman

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If Every Life Is A River, Then It's Little Wonder That We Do Not Even Notice The Changes That Occur Until We Are Far Out In The Darkest Sea. One Day You Look Around And Nothing Is Familiar, Not Even Your Own Face. My Name Once Meant Daughter, Grandaughter, Friend, Sister, Beloved. Now Those Words Mean Only What Their Letters Spell Out; Star In The Night Sky. Truth In The Darkness. I Have Crossed Over To A Place Where I Never Thought I'd Be. I Am Someone I Would Have Never Imagined. A Secret. A Dream. I Am This, Body And Soul. Burn Me. Drown Me. Tell Me Lies. I Will Still Be Who I Am.

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I Wept To Think That Life Went On Even When So Much Had Been Lost, That Rain Still Fell And Myrtle Grew Between The Rocks.

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We Are Only An Instant, That's True. But We Are Eternal.

Pride Is A Funny Thing; It Can Make What Is Truly Worthless Appear To Be A Treasure.

What Was A Rose But The Living Proof Of Desire, The Single Best Evidence Of Human Longing And Earthly Devotion. But Desire Could Be Twisted,after All, And Jealousy Was The Name Of The Rose That Did Well In Arid Souls.

What You Dream, You Can Grow. Someone Told Me That, But I Didn't Believe It. I Said I Had Nothing And That People With Nothing Are Unable To Dream. But I Was Wrong.

Here Is The Riddle Of Love: Everything It Gives To You, It Takes Away.

The Grass He Walked Through Was New And A Sweet Smell Clung To His Clothes. There Was Blue Dye On His Hands From The Wild Irises... That The Color Of The Sky Was A Shade That Could Never Be Replicated In Any Photograph, Just As Heaven Could Never Be Seen From The Confines Of Earth.

This Kind Of Knowing You Can Never Tell To Anyone. If You Want Us To Survive, You Cannot Trust A Soul'... 'not For Any Reason On This Earth. You Can Never Tell.

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.

It Was As Though I Had One Map Inside My Head And It Led To The Man Who Was Waiting For Me. Someone Who Was Alone - Maybe Even More Alone - Than I Was.

I Read Everything Of Ray Bradbury When I Was 12 Or 13, And I Think That's The Most Effective Time To Read Bradbury. He Built Such A Moral World, Where You Have To Make Decisions And Grow Up.

She Was So Busy Forgetting, She Couldn't Take A Single Step Into The Future.

You Don't Fight For Peace Sister,' Nahara Told Me, 'you Embrace It.

Our Rest Is Formed By Our Waking Life And Our Waking Life Is Formed By Our Sorrows.

If I Hadn't Learned My Lesson, I Would Have Wished We Could Stay There Forever. But I Knew Better Now. We'd Seen What We'd Come To See. The Way To Trick Death. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Watch As It All Rises Upwards, Black And Blue Into The Even Bluer Sky.

We Stood And Watched As God Abandoned Us, And Then We Did The Best We Could.

I'm A Really Eclectic Reader.

It Was The Sort Of Beauty You Feel So Deeply It Becomes Contagious And Somehow Makes You Feel Beautiful Too.

Feeling Beautiful

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.

I Know Who You Are In Your Heart,' Andres Said. 'that's All That Matters.' And That Was It. That Was The Moment. Now I Knew How I Would Feel If I Ever Lost Him. That Was How You Knew Love. My Mother Had Told Me That. All You Had To Do Was Imagine Your Life Without The Other Person, And If The Thought Alone Made You Shiver, Then You Knew.

I Never Even Believed In Happiness. I Didn't Think It Existed. Now Look At Me. I'm Ready To Believe In Just About Anything.

I'm Much Faster Now. When You Only Have A Certain Amount Of Time To Write, After A While You Learn To Use Your Time Well Or You Stop Writing

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.

The Voice That Arises Out Of The Silence Is Something No One Can Imagine Until It Is Heard. It Roars When It Speaks, It Lies To You And Convinces You, It Steals From You And Leaves You Without A Single Word Of Comfort.

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.

No One Knows How To Write A Novel Until It's Been Written

Unrequited Love Is So Boring. Weeping Under A Blue-black Sky Is For Suckers Or Maniacs.

Unrequited Love

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.

Some Things You Cannot Wish Away Or Think Away. They Become Part Of You When You Remember Them.

Holding A Tear Back Makes Them Drain Upward, Higher And Higher, Until One Day Your Head Just Explodes And You're Left With A Stub Of A Neck And Nothing More.

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.

Still, She Knows One Thing For Certain: Never Judge A Relationship Unless You Are The One Wrapped Up In Its Arms.

The Evening Had Turned Sweet And Blue.

I Dream Of A Love That Even Time Will Lie Down And Be Still For.

When All Is Said And Done, The Weather And Love Are The Two Elements About Which One Can Never Be Sure.

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.

Remember What I've Told You. Remember Me.

I Love Fairy Tales And Feel Very Affected By Them.

When The Cold Comes To New England It Arrives In Sheets Of Sleet And Ice. In December, The Wind Wraps Itself Around Bare Trees And Twists In Between Husbands And Wives Asleep In Their Beds. It Shakes The Shingles From The Roofs And Sifts Through Cracks In The Plaster. The Only Green Things Left Are The Holly Bushes And The Old Boxwood Hedges In The Village, And These Are Often Painted White With Snow. Chipmunks And Weasels Come To Nest In Basements And Barns; Owls Find Their Way Into Attics. At Night,the Dark Is Blue And Bluer Still, As Sapphire Of Night.

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If We Had Paid Attention, We Would Have Understood There Are Some Things In This World You Cannot Outrun.

The Frightened Walk Away When Love Is Difficult. I Know That Now. You Have To Be Willing To Give Everything Away. You Have To Be Willing To End Up With Nothing. Only Then Will Your Heart Be Whole.

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She Was Disappearing A Little More Each Day, So Thin, So Frail, A Wisp Of Smoke. One Day She Would Surely Vanish Altogether, And There Was No Way To Stop Her.

My Mother's Blood That Would Last Forever After. The Blood Of My Brother, My Grandfather, My Father.

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She Liked To Disappear, Even When She Was In The Same Room As Other People. It Was A Talent, As It Was A Curse.

Love Is Worth The Sum Of Itself, And Nothing More.

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Outside, The September Air Was Enticingly Fragrant, Yellow With Pollen And Rich, Lemony Sunlight.

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Forget Everything

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I Wasn't Good Company, That Was True, And People Avoided Me, But That Was All Right. I Was Too Busy Dreaming.

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She Can Feel His Blood, Just Beneath His Skin; When He Breathes, The Air Fills With Smoke. He's Like A Dragon, Ancient And Fearless.

A Boy Who Is Trouble Is Something Entirely Different As A Man.

Books May Well Be The Only True Magic.

Every Fairy Tale Had A Bloody Lining. Every One Had Teeth And Claws.

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Good Fortune Can Take Forever To Get To You, But As It Turns Out, Sorrow Is As Quick As A Shot.

I Just Finished Colson Whitehead's "the Underground Railroad," Which I Think Is A Work Of Genius.

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.

Feel Lucky For What You Have When You Have It. Isn't That The Point? Happily Ever After Doesn't Mean Happy Forever.

Our House Was Littered With Books- In The Kitchen, Under The Beds, Stuck Between The Couch Pillows--far Too Many For Her The Ever Finish. I Suppose I Thought If My Grandmother Kept Up Her Interests, She Wouldn't Die; She'd Have To Stay Around To Finish The Books She Was So Fond Of. "i've Got To Get To The Bottom Of This One," She'd Say, As If A Book Were No Different From A Pond Or A Lake. I Thought She'd Go On Reading Forever But It Didn't Work Out That Way.

I Didn’t Want To Be Prideful Anymore. I Wanted To Be As Hard As And Brittle As The Stones I Carted Into The Woods. Stones That Could Not Feel Or Cry Or See. I Wished Not To Feel Anything At All. In No Time, What I Wished For, I Became.

How Could I Have Been So Stupid To Ignore Everything I’d Had In My Life? The Color Red Alone Was Worth Kingdoms.

I Feel More Influenced In My Own Work By Dreams Than I Do By Other Writers' Works In A Way. Or By Popular Culture, Movies - What Else Is There To Write About Than Love And Loss?

And Then I Understood That She Had No Idea What She'd Done To My Family. She Thought Love And Hatred Were Equal.

Every Problem Has A Solution, Although It May Not Be The Outcome That Was Originally Hoped For Or Expected.

My Theory Is That Everyone At One Time Or Another Has Been At The Fringe Of Society In Some Way: An Outcast In High School, A Stranger In A Foreign Country, The Best At Something, The Worst At Something, The One Who's Different. Being An Outsider Is The One Thing We All Have In Common.

When I Looked At Her, She Appeared To Be A Different Person From The One I'd Known... She Had Rewritten Everything, Our History Together, Our Friendship. Now I Was The Girl Who'd Stolen Andres; The Girl Who'd Lied To Her About Who I Was. Therefore, She Owned Me Nothing.

He'd Thought He Was Lost, But Now He Recognized That Eternity Was Around Him, Like Salt From A Shaker Or Stars In The Sky.

I Think Love Is A Huge Factor In Fiction And In Real Life. Is There A Risk? Always. In Fiction And In Life

I Can't Really Work On More Than One Thing At A Time

One Thing At A Time

Margaret Thought Of All She Knew For Certain, That Day Would Always Follow Night That Love Was Never Wasted Nor Was It Lost.

I Thought You Were Supposed To Be The Champion Of Your People,' I Said. I Live Because I Need To Do That. For Anyone Who Is Left.' Don't You See? No One Will Be Left. Protect Them Now Or There Will Be No One To Protect!' This Is A Battle That Goes On And On. It Never Ends. You're Too Young To Understand. No! You're Too Much Of A Coward To Fight.' I Was Sick Of Lies And Secrets And Of Battles So Old We Had To Erase Who We Were To Fight Back. And Still We Lost. Still We Were Tied To Posts.

He Believed In Dreams, In Endings That People Told You Could Never Happen, In Disappointments Reversed And Luck That Lasted.

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.

Those You Love Will Not Drown Or Burn. They Will Fly Away.' ...'now We Both Have People We Love Who Are Like Birds. They Have Flown Far From Anything In This World That Can Hurt Them. They're Flying Away Still.

What Else Is There To Write About Than Love And Loss?

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

That Was The Way Illness Appeared In A House, In The Corners, In Between Floorboards, On The Hooks In The Closet, Along With The Sweaters And Coats.

People Hide Their Truest Nature. I Understood That; I Even Applauded It. What Sort Of World Would It Be If People Bled All Over The Sidewalks, If They Wept Under Trees, Smacked Whomever They Despised, Kissed Strangers, Revealed Themselves?

Once You Know Some Things, You Can't Unknow Them. It's A Burden That Can Never Be Given Away.

...but Now The Worst Crime Was Pretending To Be Something You Were Not.

It's Not Finding What's Lost, It's Understanding What You've Found.

I Thought That Love Was A River, Endless And Deep. I Thought It Merely Happened, Washing Over You Like Water. It Was Nothing To Search For, Nothing To Force. I Didn't Understand That Even When We Can't Control Our Fate, We Alone Have The Last Say In Matters Of The Heart. We Can Give It Freely, Even In The Worst Of Times, Even When It Isn't Returned.

I Feel As If When You Love A Book It Becomes A Part Of You Whether You Have It On Your Shelves Or Not.

My Mother, Abra, Had Taught Me That All People Are Made From The Same Dust. When Our Days Here Are Gone, All Men And Women Enter The Same Garden.

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.

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

Here's The Thing About Luck...you Don't Know If It's Good Or Bad Until You Have Some Perspective.

This Day Is Going To Be Awful. It's The Sort Of Day You Wouldn't Mind Losing Completely, Even If It Meant Your Life Would Be Twenty-four Hours Shorter.

Fairytales Were Maps Formed Of Blood And Hair And Bones; They Were The Knots Of The Sub-conscious Unwound. Every Word In Every Tale Was Real And As True As Apples And Stones. They All Led To The Story Inside The Story.

She Didn't Like Being Twelve. It Felt Like Someplace Between Who She'd Been And Who She Was About To Be. It Felt Like No Place At All.

You Cannot Dispute The Ridiculous. You Cannot Argue Reasonably With Evil.

Trouble Is Just Like Love, After All; It Comes In Unannounced And Takes Over Before You've Had A Chance To Reconsider, Or Even To Think.

Sally...can No Longer Think Of Love As A Reality, Or Even As A Possibility, However Remote.

Do What You Want, Do What You Will, Do What You Have To, Do What You Think You Cannot.

I Also Like The Whole Idea Of Fairy Tales And Folk Tales Being A Woman's Domain, Considered A Lesser Domain At The Time They Were Told.

The Sisters Were Glad To Be Together. They Had The Easy Sort Of Relationship Where They Didn't Have To Speak To Be Understood.

Mothers Always Find Ways To Fit In The Work - But Then When You're Working, You Feel That You Should Be Spending Time With Your Children And Then When You're With Your Children, You're Thinking About Working.

Another World Must Surely Exist Somewhere One Where She Would Be Known In Some Deep Way That Was Far Beyond Words.

Do People Choose The Art That Inspires Them — Do They Think It Over, Decide They Might Prefer The Fabulous To The Real? For Me, It Was Those Early Readings Of Fairy Tales That Made Me Who I Was As A Reader And, Later On, As A Storyteller.

It Was A Great Escape For Me And It Was A Way To Take A Break From What Was Going On In My Own World, To Go Into Another World.

Sometimes, Running Away Means You're Headed In The Exact Right Direction.

I Hate It When People Tell Me The End Of The Story Because My Mother Always Read The Last Page Of A Novel First To See Whether She Wanted To Read It. It Was A Strange Reading Habit.

You Can Be Betrayed In Your Sleep. The Whole World Can Tilt While You're Dreaming Of Butterflies.

Love Ambushed You, It Lay In Wait, Dormant For Days Or Years. It Was The Red Thread, The Peach Stone, The Kiss, The Forgiveness. It Came After You, It Escaped You, It Was Invisible, It Was Everything.

He Wanted Pain, I Saw That In Him, And What A Man Wants He Will Often Manage To Find.

Some Things, However, Are True No Matter How Hard You Might Try To Block Them Out, And A Lie Is Always A Lie, No Matter How Prettily Told. Some Doors, Once They're Opened, Can Never Be Closed Again, Just As Some Trust, Once It's Been Lost, Can Never Be Won Back.

When I Read Jerome D. Salinger's "the Catcher In The Rye" That Was The First Time I Felt My Mind Blow Open. I Thought That Book Was Speaking To Me. I Was 12 Or 13 When I Read That. I Read Everything On My Mother's Bookshelves.

Jill Told Me That When You're Really In Love, You Know Right Away. I'm Not Exactly Sure How This Happens. Is It Like A Flash Of Lightning? Like An Angel Tapping You On The Shoulder? Or Is It Similar To Choosing A Puppy? You Think You're Picking The Cutest One, But Really You Wind Up Going Home With The One Who Keeps Insisting On Climbing Into Your Lap.

In The Darkest Hour Of Winter, When The Starlings Had All Flown Away, Gretel Samuelson Fell In Love. It Happened The Way Things Are Never Supposed To Happen In Real Life, Like A Sledgehammer, Like A Bolt From Out Of The Blue. One Minute She Was A Seventeen Year-old Senior In High School Waiting For A Sicilian Pizza To Go; The Next One She Was Someone Whose Whole World Had Exploded, Leaving Her Adrift In The Milky Way, So Far From Earth She Was Walking On Stars.

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.

Maybe Some Love Was Guaranteed. Maybe It Fit Inside You And Around You Like Skin And Bones.

Maybe A Hundred Years Ago Our People Should Have Run Away From This Place, I Said... And Then Run From The Next Place And The Next Place And The Place After That? You Run Once, What Makes You Think You Won't Have To Run All The Rest Of Your Life?... We Love Moment To Moment... Everything Changes. One Minute We Are Part Of The River, And The Next We Are Joined With The Sea.

Sometimes Movies Really Are The Best Medicine.

Emily Brontë's "wuthering Heights" Was Extremely Important To Me.

Anyway, The Sort Of Love That Will Not Wait Is Probably Best To Pass By

They Say That Dogs May Dream, And When Topsy Was Old, His Feet Would Move In His Sleep. With His Eyes Closed He Would Often Make A Noise That Sounded Quite Human, As If Greeting Someone In His Dreams. At First It Seemed That He Believed Sara Would Return, But As The Years Went By I Understood That His Loyalty Asked For No Reward, And That Love Comes In Unexpected Forms. His Wish Was Small, As Hers Had Been -- Merely To Be Beside Her. As For Me, I Already Knew I Would Never Get What I Wanted.

I Could Hardly Get A Boy To Look At Me. All Right, They'd Look, They'd Even Take Me Out, But No One Asked For A Second Date. I Was Too Nasty, A Real Wise Guy, And All The Boys Could Tell What My Rotten Disposition Was. Deep Down, I Wanted A Commitment With A Capital C. To Get Anywhere With Me, A Boy Would Have To Sign His Undying Loyalty With His Own Blood.

They Weren't True Stories; They Were Better Than That.

I Love Science Fiction But Especially His Because It's So Humane.

Science Fiction

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.

Never Look At Other People's Bad Fortune,' My Mother Said. 'if You Do, It Will Come Back To Find You Instead Of Its Rightful Owner.

Hearts Were Made For Being Broken. There's Really No Way Around It If You Want To Be A Human Being.

The Only People Out At This Hour Were Ones Who Couldn't Sleep,those Haunted By One Thing Or Another:love Thwarted, Love Lost, Love Thrown Away. They Were The Sort Of People Who Didn't Want To Be Noticed, Who Wanted To Slip Through Shadows, Be Alone With Their Despair.

I Must Keep My Head And Not Give In To Desire, For Desire Is What Causes Women To Drown.

I Don't Think I Make Much Of A Distinction Between The 'real' And The 'fantastic.' They Both Seem To Be Threads In The Same Cloth As Far As I'm Concerned.

I Think We Are Bound To, And By, Nature. We May Want To Deny This Connection And Try To Believe We Control The External World, But Every Time There's A Snowstorm Or Drought, We Know Our Fate Is Tied To The World Around Us

Even As A Small Child, I Understood That Woman Had Secrets, And That Some Of These Were Only To Be Told To Daughters. In This Way We Were Bound Together For Eternity.

Most People Know That Ray Bradbury Is One Of My Favorite Authors.

Still Anyone Who Trusts A Serpent Deserves Its Bite. The Wise See A Creature For What It Is, Not What It Says It May Be.

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

Still, I Couldn't Help But Wonder If It Was A Mistake For People Like Us To Be Tied To A Place. If We Weren't Meant To Be Ready And Willing To Wander. If Everything We Needed Was Contained In Who We Were. And What We Remember.

Every Time Someone Forgets, Someone Else Disappears,' My Brother Wrote.

I Read "the Group" By Mary Mccarthy. It Had Tons Of Sex In It, Or So I Thought At The Time.

He Has The Ability To Catch Someone By The Way That He Looks At Her, And Make Her Wish He Would Go On Looking.

That's The Way Love Sounds, My Mother Told Me. You Think It Should Feel Like Honey, But Instead It Cuts Like A Knife.

I Loved Him Even Now, As He Took A Knife To My Throat, As I Drowned In Blood, As I Whispered "cousin, You Were Wrong. We Were Born To Live.

What People Read Revealed So Much About Them That She Considered Our Card Catalog A Treasure House Of Privileged Secrets; Each Card Contained The Map Of An Individual’s Soul.

Real Love, After All, Was Worth The Price You Paid, However Briefly It Might Last.

I Always Felt And Still Feel That Fairy Tales Have An Emotional Truth That Is So Deep That There Are Few Things That Really Rival Them

Others Said May Was Best, That Sweet Green Time When Lilacs Bloomed And Gardens Along Main Street Were Filled With Sugary Pink Peonies And Dutch Tulips.

You Build Your World Around Someone, And Then What Happens When He Disappears? Where Do You Go-into Pieces, Into Atoms, Into The Arms Of Another Man? You Go Shopping, You Cook Dinner, You Work Odd Hours, You Make Love To Someone Else On June Nights. But You're Not Really There.

You Have To Choose The Voice You Are Going To Trust. You Can't Listen To Everyone.

I Can Hurt Myself More Than Anyone Else Can, She Told Her Sister. I Can Do It With My Eyes Closed.

This Was What It Meant To Be Human, To Know That Time Moved And All Things Changed.

In Losing A Friend, She Is Reminded Of All She Has Lost And All She Stands To Lose Again. There Is Nothing To Be Done To Make It Any Easier. We All Grieve Alone.

Are People Drawn To Each Other Because Of The Stories They Carry Inside?

I Wasn't Quite As Certain That I Knew Her Soul. When It Came Right Down To It, I Wasn't Sure She Knew Me Either.

Young People Believe That Regret Is Something You Will Never Feel If You Simply Do As You Please, But Sometimes It Is A Matter Of Degree.

In A World Of Sorrow, Love Was An Act Of Will. All You Needed Were The Right Ingredients.

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.

I Think Growing Up Is Difficult And It's A Process That I'm Always Interested In, With Kids And Adults, They Are Often On Two Different Universes.

Young Sally Owens: He Will Hear My Call A Mile Away. He Will Whistle My Favorite Song. He Can Ride A Pony Backwards. Young Gillian Owens: What Are You Doing? Young Sally Owens: Summoning Up A True Love Spell Called Amas Veritas. He Can Flip Pancakes In The Air. He'll Be Marvelously Kind. And His Favorite Shape Will Be A Star. And He'll Have One Green Eye And One Blue. Young Gillian Owens: Thought You Never Wanted To Fall In Love. Young Sally Owens: That's The Point. The Guy I Dreamed Of Doesn't Exist. And If He Doesn't Exist I'll Never Die Of A Broken Heart.

Falling In Love

You Are Only Worthy Of What You Prove Yourself To Be.

Proving Yourself

Some People Say, 'save Yourself And You Save Your Ways.' I Say, 'be Yourself And You Save Your Soul.

...he Had A Way Of Taking Your Hand Which Made It Clear He'd Have To Be The One To Let Go." From Alice Hoffman's "local Girls", Pg.102.

Let Everyone See The Blood,' He Said. 'don't Clean It Up. That's The Only Way People Remember.'... I Could See The Blood Inside My Head. It Was With Me Forever, Whether Or Not I Wanted To Forget.

The Moon Is Always Jealous Of The Heat Of The Day, Just As The Sun Always Longs For Something Dark And Deep.

He Was In Love, And People In That Condition Did Stupid, Unfathomable Things. They Were All Flawed, Every Single One.

Everything We Knew Condemned Us, And Our Questioning Condemned Us Most Of All. Knowledge Was The Way Of Our People, And Knowledge Was Dangerous. It Was The First Thing That Freed You And The Thing That Put You In Peril. It Was The Key To The Ten Gates. I Saw Them Clearly Now, Each And Every One, The Gates That Were There For Me. Ashes, Bones, Grass, Heart, Stone, Love, Sorrow, Blood, Earth, Sky.

That Is The Joy Of Reading Fiction: When All Is Said And Done, The Novel Belongs To The Reader And His Or Her Imagination.

Only Her Death Could Prove Her Innocence; A Circle Of Impossible, Deathly Judgement.

I Knew What It Was To Yearn For A Life So Distant It Seemed That It Had Never Been Anything More Than A Dream.

I Feel Like My Eyes Are Killing Me At The End Of The Day And That I Shouldn't Use Them.

The End Of The Day

In "faithful," Ray Bradbury Is Discussed A Lot. The Characters Read "the Illustrated Man."

There Are Some Things, After All, That Sally Owens Knows For Certain: Always Throw Spilled Salt Over Your Left Shoulder. Keep Rosemary By Your Garden Gate. Add Pepper To Your Mashed Potatoes. Plant Roses And Lavender, For Luck. Fall In Love Whenever You Can.

Falling In Love

Some Fates Are Guaranteed, No Matter Who Tries To Intervene.

I Think Secrets Often Come Out. I Spoke To A Friend Who Is A Therapist And I Asked Her If There Were People Who Came To Her And Admitted To Doing Horrible Things And She Said, 'more Than You Know.'.

People Want To Ignore What They Can't Understand. They're Looking For Logic At Any Cost.

He Stepped Off The Pavement Like A Man Jumping Off A Bridge, As Calm As A Swimmer With An Ocean Out Below. Lucy Had Known What He Was Going To Do The Instant Their Eyes Met. She'd Know What He Intended Because She Would Have Done The Very Same Thing If She'd Had His Courage. Nothing Was Going To Break His Fall.

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Leighton Meester

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