The Invisible Hour

by Alice Hoffman

In a place where books were banned there could be no personal freedom, no hope, and no dreams for the future.

In books, no one helped a girl who didn’t help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your enemy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself.

Some people are who you think they are. Some people hide the wolf inside of them, but you can hear them howl.

“Real life is unbelievable. Souls are snatched away from us, flesh and blood turn to dust, people you love betray you, men go to war over nothing. It’s all preposterous. That’s why we have novels. To make sense of things.”

A treasure is a treasure if you think it is.

She was reminded that nothing was written in stone, and that fate could change, and that not everyone who filled her pockets with river rocks drowned.

once a girl walked into a library she could never be controlled again.

Life can be long or short, it is impossible to know, but every once in a while an entire life is spent in one night, the night when the windows are open and you can hear the last of the crickets’ call, when there is a chill in the air and the stars are bright, when nothing else matters, when a single kiss lasts longer than a lifetime, when you do not think about the future or the past, or whether or not you are walking through a dream rather than the real world, when everything you have always wanted and everything you are fated to mourn forever are tied together with black thread and then sewn with your own hand, when in the morning, as you

wake and see the mountain in the distance, you will understand that whether or not you’ve made a mistake, whether or not you will lose all that you have, this is what it means to be human.

Sometimes walking away is the bravest thing you can do. When you get there, you’ll know where you are.