The Invisible Hour

by Alice Hoffman

Freedom is not what you think it is. It’s cold and hard and bright.

up the ashes and let them blow in the wind.

believed that a single dream was more powerful than a thousand realities.

Want to confirm that this was a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Fanshawe.

I only had a life that I lived here, but I had found other possibilities every time I read a book.

Sometimes when you read a book it’s as if you were reading the story of your own life.

the world was beautiful. It was beautiful even in the dark,

Travel light. Don’t look back. Take only what you need most of all.

In every fairy tale the girl who is saved is the one who rescues herself.

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.

The worst that can happen often happens in silence.

It is not the explosion, but the aftermath, when you see through smoke and ash, that you know how much you have lost.

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

“You cannot have what is not meant to be and if you try, you will break your own heart,

Some men think too much of themselves, and some see only their flaws.

For a writer not to write was the worst malady.

“Is it possible that we dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep?”

“We can never know what is possible.”

He knew that all things begin with kindness and that all hope began with trust.

Love was cruel and unpredictable, and yet he wanted it more than words, more than anything.

Still, fishing and writing had a good deal in common. You had to wait and be prepared to catch what came your way. You had to know the difference between a shadow and the real thing.

A treasure is a treasure if you think it is.

Goodbyes were too final,

Travel light. Don’t look back. Take only what you need most of all.

Someone always gets hurt.”

A novel was made of personal experience and raw emotion.

The last time of everything was painful, no matter how beautiful it might be. The

Mia thought of all the years when she had been certain she would never be able to love anyone, and now here she was. Not only did she have a heart, but it was already breaking.

the end came before you knew it, it came so fast that all you could do was breathe.

Open your heart, open your eyes, be grateful for what you’ve had. Nothing was promised in this world, nothing lasted, yet what truly mattered always remained.

What was eternal could not be captured, yet it flickered in the dark there beside you, the memory of all that had been.

West of the moon was where you journeyed to meet the person you loved, the one you would never forget.

loved you enough to find whatever awaits us, no matter what it might be, no matter where. We can go as far as we need to, even if it’s west of the moon.

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