Green Heart Quotes

“She was disappearing a little more each day, so thin, so frail, a wisp of smoke. One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“The frightened walk away when love is difficult. I know that now. You have to be willing to give everything away. You have to be willing to end up with nothing. Only then will your heart be whole.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“Although I am no longer caught in the past, the future seems like a ridiculous thing to me. Try to catch it, hold it in your hand. It disappears every time.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“But can you measure someone's love? I want to know. You think you can measure love? She's kind not to laugh at me...No scale would be strong enough, she tells me. It would break to pieces under the weight.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“I want the difficult stories, the ones that aren’t easy to believe, the twisted ones, the sorrowful ones, the ones that need telling most of all.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“He’s so kindhearted no dog has ever barked at him. No child has ever cried in front of him. No bee has ever tried to sting him.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“thought that love was a river, endless and deep. I thought it merely happened, washing over you like water. It was nothing to search for, nothing to force. I didn’t understand that even when we can’t control our fate, we alone have the last say in matters of the heart. We can give it freely, even in the worst of times, even when it isn’t returned. The frightened walk away when love is difficult. I know that now. You have to be willing to give everything away. You have to be willing to end up with nothing. Only then will your heart be whole.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“I thought that love was a river, endless and deep. I thought it merely happened, washing over you like water. It was nothing to search for, nothing to force. I didn’t understand that even when we can’t control our fate, we alone have the last say in matters of the heart. We can give it freely, even in the worst of times, even when it isn’t returned. The frightened walk away when love is difficult. I know that now. You have to be willing to give everything away. You have to be willing to end up with nothing.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“Once I saw him crying over a deer a hunter had shot and left to die. I was stunned to see my strong father cry. But now if he were here, he would tell me that real strength has no boundaries. The more you feel, the stronger you are, I hear him say to me.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“Loss does different things to different people. Some fall apart. Some, like the Finder, rebuild. I have done both. I have crawled under my table and refused to come out. I have covered myself with thorns and tattoos. I have planted a garden, reached out to my neighbors, begun to write down my story. Surely, I can never sit in judgment of the lost or the found.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“Loss does different things to different people. Some fall apart. Some, like the Finder, rebuild. I have done both. I have crawled under my table and refused to come out. I have covered myself with thorns and tattoos. I have planted a garden, reached out to my neighbors, begun to write down my story.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart

“You could be who you wanted to be in the city. You could be whoever you were deep inside. It was like a garden of people, the only place where I didn’t feel alone in a crowd.”
― Alice Hoffman, Green Heart