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 βBefore 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 β 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
The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'
Gore VidalRead
Wanting to play the guitar was neither a wild dream nor a realistic ambition. It was simply inevitable.
Julian BreamRead
The fun for me musically is that you never quite know what works and why. So why pretend you do? Why not just put things together and discover, in the creative process, if and why they work? That approach has served me well.
Thomas NewmanRead
I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life.
Tim O'BrienRead
Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally.
Mary GaitskillRead