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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.

-Alice Hoffman

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You Build Your World

Alice Hoffman

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Burn Me. Drown Me. Tell Me Lies. I Will Still Be Who I Am.

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

Just Because Something Is Unspoken Doesn't Mean That It Disappears.

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

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

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

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

He Fell In Love With The Way She Closed Her Eyes, Long Before He Fell In Love With Her.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Any Weapon Touched By A Woman, Even By Accident, Must Be Cleansed With Both Water And Prayer So That Her Essence Would Not Linger, Diverting The Warrior Who Might Use It Next, For Even The Faintest Touch Could Bring Lust To That Man's Heart. Perhaps That Meant A Woman Who Was Well Trained In Arms Would Be The Superior Warrior, Her Attention Never Wavering From Her Task.

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

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.

Before She Realized He Was Next To Her, He Had Placed His Hands Over Hers On The Countertop, Then Hooped His Fingers Through Hers. Gretel Looked Up At Him, So Startled She Might As Well Have Been Shot. 'i Just Wanted To Wake You Up', He Said. Which Is Exactly What He Did. One Look At Him And Her Heart Was Racing. One Look, And Whatever Had Been Before Was All Over.

What Men Yearn For They Often Destroy.

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

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

Feeling Beautiful

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

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

Unrequited Love

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.

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

Remember What I've Told You. Remember Me.

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

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.

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.

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

Forget Everything

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.

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.

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

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.

I Heard A Sigh, As Though The Books Were Breathing. I Felt That This Was Where I Belonged. This Was Where I Lived.

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?

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.

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.'.

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.

They Were Written On Cheap Blue Notebooks Bought By Poor Women. I'm Interested In Folk Tales In The Way That Medicine And Magic In Women's Stories Are All Kind Of Combined.

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

[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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Was Beginning To Understand.my Grandmother's Love Was Cold Because She Was Afraid Of Things;that Was Why Everything Had To Be Perfect.

I've Been A Screenwriter For Twenty-five Years. Every One Of My Books Have Been Optioned For Movies And I Have Written A Few Of Those Screenplays.

I Have Nothing From My Childhood. I Think You Carry Those Books With You. It's Like In [ray] Bradbury's "fahrenheit 451." Books Are Outlawed In This Future Society So People Become The Book They Love By Memorizing It.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Evening Had Turned Sweet And Blue.

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

But What We Are Given Is Taken As Well, So That We Know God's Glory Comes To Us From His Will Alone.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Sometimes Movies Really Are The Best Medicine.

I Wrote To Find Beauty And Purpose, To Know That Love Is Possible And Lasting And Real, To See Day Lilies And Swimming Pools, Loyalty And Devotion, Even Though My Eyes Were Closed, And All That Surrounded Me Was A Darkened Room. I Wrote Because That Was Who I Was At The Core, And If I Was Too Damaged To Walk Around The Block, I Was Lucky All The Same. Once I Got To My Desk, Once I Started Writing, I Still Believed Anything Was Possible.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

...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.

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

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

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

Proving Yourself

Books May Well Be The Only True Magic.

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

Love Was Like That, Like A Dream You Didn't Quite Understand, One In Which You Didn't Necessarily Know What You Were Looking At Until It Was Right In Front Of You.

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.

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

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.

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 Wonder How A Lioness Will Manage In A Dovecote. Can You Put Away Your Teeth And Claws?

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.

What Did You See?' He Asked Then. Nothing,' I Told Him. 'because Nothing Is What You Wanted Me To See, Though The Man On The Table Might Disagree.

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

Science Fiction

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

That's Why There Are Ten Gates To Pass Through Before You Reach The Garden. If Life Were Easy There Would Be One Gate. There Would Be No Gates At All.

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

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Laurie Anderson

Ahmed Ben Bella

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