Quotes By Alice Hoffman

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by.

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.

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.

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?

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.

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.

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.

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.

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.

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.

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!

I think love is a huge factor in fiction and in real life. Is there a risk? Always. In fiction and in life.

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.

I did go there later, but I hadn't been there before I wrote the book. Sometimes I feel like the imagined can feel more real than the real?

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.

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.

I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled.

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 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.

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.

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.