Alice Hoffman Quotes

I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

Dee's search for knowledge was always his greatest strength... and his weakness.

For you, my darlings, freedom to do what you like is the discovery of how unlikable what you like to do makes you. Not that that stops you doing what you like, since you like doing what you like more than you like liking what you do... [Lucifer]

Read carefully, then don't read; work hard, then forget about it; know your tradition, then liberate yourself from it; learn language, then free yourself from it. Finally, know at least one form of magic.

Half of humanity has been accepting the inner world but denying the outer world.

When you've managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown - either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude - there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free

Peace can be reached through meditation on the knowledge which dreams give. Peace can also be reached through concentration upon that which is dearest to the heart.

Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape.

Every human being has the right to ask the reason, why, and to have his question answered by himself, if he only takes the trouble.

Having to be different is the same trap as having to be the same.

In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.

I am sending back the key that let me into bluebeard's study; because he would make love to me I am sending back the key; in his eye's darkroom I can see my X-rayed heart, dissected body: I am sending back the key that let me into bluebeard s study.

What if the key to unlocking your true authentic power, to opening up your heart deeply to love, to finding the confidence to go after everything you want in your life lies hidden in your shadow?

To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart, which holds the key to the mystery of life

There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious.

Those five fingers and that palm were like a display case crammed full of everything I wanted to know--and everything I had to know. By taking my hand, she showed me what these things were. That within the real world, a place like this existed. In the space of those ten seconds I became I tiny bird, fluttering in the air, the wind rushing by. From high in the sky I could see a scene far away. It was so far off I couldn't make it out clearly, yet something was there, and I knew that someday I would travel to that place.

All wisdom ends in paradox.

I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.

A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.

I freely admit I'm confused. I'm a confused and troubled individual but at the same time...Its Free!

Experiment with this a little. During these days that you are here with me, don't nourish any desire for happiness, and then see how your heart becomes filled with happiness. Don't have any desire for peace, and see how the turmoil within you vanishes. Don't beg for contentment and see how contentment showers down on you. Please try this - only then will you understand.

There is but one man who can believe himself free from envy; and it is he who has never examined his own heart.