The Invisible Hour

by Alice Hoffman

“You have everything I want,” he told her. “You are the apple, you are the tree, you are the orchard.”

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.

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

“You do not belong to him,” Constance said firmly. “You belong to 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.”

Are you a man or an angel? she had asked him, and he’d replied, Only a man. And one who is often lost, he thought. One who couldn’t seem to find his way in the world.

She’d had the habit of running away, she’d done it all her life, and now she remembered how much it hurt to do so. She remembered that you could never look back, because if you did, you would understand just how much you were about to lose.

Worse than never having had something was to have had it and then have it taken away.

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.

I love you enough to let you go.

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