Alice Hoffman

Sometimes movies really are the best medicine.

The original fairy tale was about the youngest sister going into a room in the castle and finding all the bodies of the wives that came before her - she is confronted with truth, thinking about how often we think we know people and we really don't.

I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay.

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.

I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival them.

I'm much faster now. When you only have a certain amount of time to write, after a while you learn to use your time well or you stop writing.

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.

Even in times when it's difficult to figure out, how do you go forward, art - and books - always help.

I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman's domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told.

I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?

Mothers always find ways to fit in the work - but then when you're working, you feel that you should be spending time with your children and then when you're with your children, you're thinking about working.

I can't really work on more than one thing at a time.