Alice Hoffman Quotes

A woman always remembers. Remember that.

The one who throws the stone forgets; the one who is hit remembers forever.

Scars are memory. Like sutures. They stitch the past to me.

without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life.

My son tells me, 'Do you realize you are the last one? The last person who was an eyewitness to the golden age?' Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, 'Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?' 'Well, yes, I think I was,' I reply. You realize yourself when you start reflecting - because I don't live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are - that you can't ignore it. But I don't look at scrapbooks. I could show you some, but I'd have to climb ladders, and I can't climb

You probably wouldn't remember. I probably couldn't forget.

I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.

We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.

You think you're safe. Until you see a picture like that. And then you know you'll always be a slave to the present because the present is more powerful than the past, no matter how long ago the present happened.

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.

You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, 'Oh yes, I remember how that feels.' But you can't.

Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. It is only later that they claim remembrance, when they show their scars.

...who we are and what we do it is fundamentally a function of what we remember.

All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.

The past is not a package one can lay away.

I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains.

How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten.

Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.

Tell me about your family," I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about the family - who was related to whom - and I struggled. I couldn't remember. A big chunk of our history had been buried with my mother. You should never let your past disappear that way.

The memory of man is as old as misfortune

Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.

You can always forgive, you just can't really forget.

But one does not forget by trying to forget. One only remembers.

Forgetting lets you live without the pain for a moment but remembering hits hard.