Paul Hoffman > Quotes

“...the older I get, the more I believe that if love is to be judged by most of its visible effects, it looks more like hatred than friendship.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“... If the dead can come back to this earth and move unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or if the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“- Why you?
- (...) I’m the best.
- Modest of you.
- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Solitude is a wonderful thing in two ways. First, it allows a man to be with himself, and second, it prevents him being with others.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“You should never tell your best friend anything you wouldn´t be prepared to tell your worst enemy.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Get on your feet or die.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“(Arbell)The ungrateful gorgeous bitch.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’
‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (...)
‘And?’
‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Better a live dog than a dead lion.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...)And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?”
― paul hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Many are called, few are chosen.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.”
And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze.
“I understand,” she said.
It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he’d become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“The wicked have weakness other than their willingness to kill and maim. Even the bleakest, cruelest soul can have its tender spots. Even the harshest desert has its pools, its shady trees and gentle streams.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Even the bleakest, cruelest soul can have its tender spots. Even the harshest desert has its pools, its shady trees and gentle streams.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“You're the right colour for the Angel of Death, Mister Cale. But a little short.' 'I could cut your head off and stand on it. Then I'd be taller.”
― Paul Hoffman

“It's pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“That's how the world is, and there is nothing an insignificant nobody like you, or even a significant somebody like me, can do about it.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Mathematicians need only peace of mind and occasionally, paper and pencil.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth

“Think of how strange the colours and sights of the world would be for a blind man abruptly made to see or a man deaf from birth hearing the playing of a hundred flutes”
― Paul Hoffman