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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.

-Alice Hoffman

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This Day Is Going

Alice Hoffman

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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.

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Being An Outsider Is The One Thing We All Have In Common.

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

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

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.

I Love Fairy Tales And Feel Very Affected By Them.

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.

It Was As If Hope Had Appeared Out Of Nowhere To Settle Beside Her And It Wasn't Going Anywhere, It Wasn't Going To Desert Her Now.

The Original Fairy Tale Was About The Youngest Sister Going Into A Room In The Castle And Finding All The Bodies Of The Wives That Came Before Her - She Is Confronted With Truth, Thinking About How Often We Think We Know People And We Really Don't.

...and So Many Orchards Circled The Village That On Some Crisp October Afternoons The Whole Wold Smelled Like Pie.

I Saw The End Of His Life Right There In That Single Moment. His Pride, His Decency, His Secrets, His Death.

Certain Things Need Not Be Said, And There’s Nothing, Not A Whisper, Prayer, Not A Sacrifice, Not A Payment Of Any Price, That Would Change What’s About To Happen.

The Evening Had Turned Sweet And Blue.

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

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

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.

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

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

One Thing At A Time

I'm At The Point Where Going Forward Is Easier Than Going Back.

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

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.

Avoid Men Who Call You Baby, And Women Who Have No Friends, And Dogs That Scratch At Their Bellies And Refuse To Lie Down At Your Feet. Wear Dark Glasses; Bathe With Lavender Oil And Cool Fresh Water. Seek Shelter From The Sun At Noon.

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

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.

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

What Men Yearn For They Often Destroy.

I Thought Of The Bowl Of Water My Mother Taught Me To Look Into. It Was True, Everything A Person Ever Needed To Know Was Right There In A Single Bowl Small Enough To Fit In The Palm Of One Hand.

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

My Grandmother Was Overwhelmed By What Was Happening To Us. She Ahd Moved Back Into The Past Because The Here And The Now Was Too Terrible.

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.

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.

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

You Can Try To Take Sorrow And Make It Into Something Enduring, Meaningful And Beautiful. I Always Feel Guilty That This Is My Job, That I Get To Do This

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

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

Sometimes The Right Thing Feels All Wrong Until It Is Over And Done With.

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.

I Always Quit At Three When My Kids Come Home From School So I Feel Pretty Spoiled

That Was The Way Love Was, Invisible, There Whether Or Not You Wanted To See It Or Admit To It.

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.

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.

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

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

Abra Demadrigal Didn't Look Young Enough To Be My Sister Anymore. Her Sorrow Weighed Her Down And Aged Her. She Was Still Beautiful, But She Looked Very Far Away. No Wonder Our People Had Raven Eyes, So Distant, So Sad. No Matter How Wise She Was, My Mother Looked Like A Woman Who Hadn't Truely Believed How Much Evil There Was In Our World. Not Until This Moment.

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

Unrequited Love

Among Men And Women, Those In Love Do Not Always Announce Themselves With Declarations And Vows. But They Are The Ones Who Weep When You're Gone. Who Miss You Every Single Night, Especially When The Sky Is So Deep And Beautiful, And The Ground So Very Cold.

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

Every Time I Finish A Book, I Forget Everything I Learned Writing It - The Information Just Disappears Out Of My Head

Forget Everything

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.

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.

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

Some Stories Stayed With You Even When You Wanted To Forget Them.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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The Weak Are Cruel. The Strong Have No Need To Be.

You Can't Dispute The Ridiculous. You Can't Argue Reasonably With Evil.

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.

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

Science Fiction

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

Be Careful What You Wish For. I Know That For A Fact. Wishes Are Brutal, Unforgiving Things. They Burn Your Tongue The Moment They're Spoken And You Can Never Take Them Back.

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.

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

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

Love Was Like Rain: It Turned Into Ice, Or It Disappeared. Now You Saw It, Now You Couldn't Find It No Matter How Hard You Might Search. Love Evaporated; Obsession Was Realer; It Hurt, Like A Pin In Your Bottom, A Stone In Your Shoe. It Didn't Go Away In The Blink Of An Eye. A Morning Phone Call Filled With Regret. A Letter That Said, Dear You, Good-bye From Me. Obsession Tasted Like Something Familiar. Something You'd Known Your Whole Life. It Settled And Lurked; It Stayed With You.

Remember What I've Told You. Remember Me.

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

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.

After A While, The Characters I'm Writing Begin To Feel Real To Me. That's When I Know I'm Heading In The Right Direction

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

But Most Important Of All, She Explained That It Was All Right To Say 'no. I Disagree.' That Was A Gift. I Understood It Was Power. The Power To Think My Own Thoughts. The Power To Believe In Myself.

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

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

Proving Yourself

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

Women Know Things That Men Will Never Know. We Keep The Best Secrets. We Tell The Best Stories.

Being Human Means Losing Everything We Love Best In The World," She Murmured As She Released Me. "but Would You Ask To Be Anything Else?

Losing Everything

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

No Barrier Was Strong Enough To Keep Out The Movement Of Time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Ironically, Now That My Children Are Older And Gone Quite A Bit, I Find It Harder To Work When They're Not Around. Too Much Free Time!

Books May Well Be The Only True Magic.

It's Not The Lie That's The Problem; It's The Distance The Lie Forges Between You.

Sometimes Movies Really Are The Best Medicine.

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

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

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.

What I Like About Fairy Tales Is The Language And The Matter-of-fact Way Of Introducing Magic, Where It's Accepted That A Fox Could Talk Or A Gate Could Just Appear In A Wall. I Think Fairy Tales Are So Psychological.

The Sky Is Already Purple; The First Few Stars Have Appeared, Suddenly, As If Someone Had Thrown A Handful Of Silver Across The Edge Of The World.

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

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

Jill And I Have Known Each Other Our Whole Lives. One House Separates Our Houses But We Act As If It Doesn't Exist. We Met Before We Were Born And We'll Probably Still Know Each Other After We Die. At Least, That's The Way We're Planning It.

Crying Wasn't Like Riding A Bike. Give It Up, And You Quickly Forget How It's Done.

My Sorrow Is I Used To Read All The Time And Now, As A Writer, I Don't Have The Time To Read.

The More You Feel, The Stronger You Are.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

You Can Never Tell About A Person By Guessing...that's Why Language Was Invented. Otherwise, We'd All Be Like Dogs, Sniffing Each Other To Find Out Where We Stood.

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.

The Best Way To Die Is When Your Living

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.

Always Keep Mint On Your Windowsill In August, To Ensure That Buzzing Flies Will Stay Outside, Where They Belong. Don't Think The Summer Is Over, Even When Roses Droop And Turn Brown And The Stars Shift Position In The Sky. Never Presume August Is A Safe Or Reliable Time Of The Year.

Feel Lucky For What You Have When You Have It. Isn't That The Point? Happily Ever After Doesn't Mean Happy Forever. The Ever After, What Precisely Was That? Your Dreams, Your Life, Your Death, Your Everything. Was It The Blank Space That Went On Without Us? The Forever After We Were Gone?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

My Grief Was Cold. It Was Nothing To Share. It Was Nothing To Speak About, Nothing To Feel.

At Midnight The Wind In The Tress Can Sound Like The Ocean. The Moonlight Can Make A Road Appear As Endless As The Sea.

I'm A Really Eclectic Reader.

...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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

I Never Plot Out My Novels In Terms Of The Tone Of The Book. Hopefully, Once A Story Is Begun It Reveals Itself

It Wasn't Right To Have Someone Charge Into You Your World Without Even Asking, Acting As If You Were Nothing More Than An Egg To Be Flipped And Flopped, Sunny-side Up Or Scrambled, Depending On The Whims On Whoever Ran Your Life..._

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

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

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

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

Feeling Beautiful

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Cleaning Up After Themselves Was A Low Priority For Margo And My Mother. They Had Both Recovered From Cancer Scares, Failed Marriages, And Lost Hope; In Their Opinion, Dirt Could Wait.

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.

Some Things, When They Change, Never Do Return To The Way They Once Were. Butterflies For Instance, And Women Who've Been In Love With The Wrong Man Too Often.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Sometimes Words Drew Blood, They Cut Your Tongue, They Made You Know Things You Couldn't Unknow.

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

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

Unfinished Business Always Comes Back To Haunt You, And A Man Who Swears He'll Love You Forever Isn't Finished With You Until He's Done.

Unfinished Business

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

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

Are People Drawn To Each Other Because Of The Stories They Carry Inside? At The Library I Couldn’t Help But Notice Which Patrons Checked Out The Same Books. They Appeared To Have Nothing In Common, But Who Could Tell What A Person Was Truly Made Of? The Unknown, The Riddle, The Deepest Truth. I Noticed Them All: The Ones Who’d Lost Their Way, The Ones Who’d Lived Their Lives In Ashes, The Ones Who Had To Prove Themselves, The Ones Who, Like Me, Had Lost The Ability To Feel.

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.

That Is How You Know You've Left Childhood Behind-when You Wish For Time To Go Backward.

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

Even In Times When It's Difficult To Figure Out, How Do You Go Forward, Art - And Books - Always Help

One Of My Favorites Is "time And Again" By Jack Finney. It Takes Place In Manhattan And Goes Back And Forth Between 1882 And The 1950s. It's Really A Cult Book.

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.'.

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 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 Don't Really Read As Much As I Used To. A Lot Of What I Was Looking For As An Escape I Find In Writing. And The Other Thing Is That I Don't Want To Get Into Someone Else's Language When I'm Working

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.

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

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

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?

[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.

Any Institution Becomes A Community - Whether It's A High School Or A Boarding School Or A Publishing Company Or A Small Town Where Everybody Knows Certain Things About People.

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.

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.

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

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