Paula McLain Quotes
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More and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
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Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.
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I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant.
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Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.
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And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.
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... and yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way.
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How unbelievably naive we both were that night. We clung hard to each other, making vows we couldn't keep and should never have spoken aloud. That's how love is sometimes. I already loved him more than I'd ever loved anything or anyone. I knew he needed me absolutely, and I wanted him to go on needing me forever.
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At twenty-eight I'd had a handful of beaux, but had only been in love once, and that had been awful enough to make me doubt men and myself for a good long while.
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In Paris, you couldn't really turn around without seeing the result of lovers' bad decisions. An artist given to sexual excess was almost a cliché, but no one seemed to mind. As long as you were making something good or interesting or sensational, you could have as many lovers as you wanted and ruin them all.
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She was also incredibly confident, with a way of moving and talking that communicated that she didn't need anyone to tell her she was beautiful or worthwhile.
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If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied.
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All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.
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My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.
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I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
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But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.
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People belong to each other only as long as they both believe. He stopped believing.
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You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through.
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Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.
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Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved
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There was only today to throw yourself into without thinking about tomorrow, let alone forever. To keep you from thinking, there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. Love is a beautiful liar.
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The very rich only admire themselves
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But when Bumby nursed, his fist clutching the fabric of my robe, his eyes soft and bottomless and locked on mine, as if I were the very heart of his universe, I couldn't help but melt into him.
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I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.
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I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.
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You are everything good and straight and fine and true—and I see that so clearly now, in the way you’ve carried yourself and listened to your own heart. You’ve changed me more than you know, and will always be a part of everything I am. That’s one thing I’ve learned from this. No one you love is ever truly lost.
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A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same.
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Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all.
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Dogs are easy. If their tails are up and their eyes are soft, you're in.
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Nothing hurts if you don't let it.
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Knowing he was suffering pained me. That’s the way love tangles you up. I couldn’t stop loving him, and couldn’t shut off the feelings of wanting to care for him— but I also didn’t have to run to answer his letters. I was hurting, too, and no one was running to me.
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