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
Alice HoffmanRead
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself
Interpretation
What this quote means
The creative process should be organic and guided by the story itself rather than predetermined.
Alice Hoffman's quote suggests that when writing a novel, the author should allow the story to unfold naturally rather than conforming to a fixed plan or tone. This reflects the belief that creativity thrives when it is free to evolve and reveal its own direction, leading to a more authentic narrative that resonates with readers.
Themes
CreativityStorytellingNarrativeWritingInspiration
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, I shared a quote by Alice Hoffman to encourage participants to let their stories flow without the fear of strict structure.
More from Alice Hoffman
All quotes →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.
Alice HoffmanRead
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.
Alice HoffmanRead
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.
Alice HoffmanRead
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.
Alice HoffmanRead
It was the sort of beauty you feel so deeply it becomes contagious and somehow makes you feel beautiful too.
Alice HoffmanRead
Similar quotes
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Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
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My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.
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You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.
Jerry GarciaRead
if a violin string could ache, i would be that string.
Vladimir NabokovRead
An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except, perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn.
Lewis HydeRead