Quotes from Paula McLain

We held on to each other and looked out at the sea. It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts—and we wanted it all.

And if I tried to talk to him or, God forbid, ask him to take it easy on the whisky, he'd lash out. "Oh, sod off, Beryl. It's all easy for you, isn't it?

There was a feeling, as you sat and ate your nice sandwich or had your tea, that you were on the slowly tipping edge of nothingness and might fall forward at any moment, and that if you did, it was possible that nothing would know you'd ever been there at all. Jim

excuses. There was plenty of room for magic in any race, too, for

I went out into the open country running fast, just to feel myself do it.

Without any further ceremony, Denys tipped his hat to me, and then the two men moved off down the road, turning a corner and passing out of sight. They might have been headed to another party, or to white steeds waiting to whisk them off to an enchanted palace. I would have believed a magic carpet as well, or any storybook ending. They were that lovely, and now they were gone. —

Away in the distance I could see the cloud-softened crags of Mount Kenya and thought of how wonderful it would be to run there, a hundred miles away.

don't know what it is about Africa, but champagne is absolutely compulsory here." Without any further ceremony, Denys tipped his hat to me, and then the two men moved off down the road, turning a corner and passing out of sight. They might have been headed to another party, or to white steeds waiting to whisk them off to an enchanted palace. I would have believed a magic carpet as well, or any storybook ending. They were that lovely, and now they were gone. —

Some nights I would try to close the distance and make love to Jock.

don't know how she made her money. I didn't help her out, I can tell you that. I knew she'd drink whatever I gave her, or whatever else she was snorting or shooting. I stopped asking.

then, hardly daring to breathe, lowered myself onto him. But it was too late. Before I had even begun to move, he softened inside me. I tried to kiss him, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

All women like a little flattery from time to time." "What if they didn't? What if they simply liked themselves and no one needed to bend backwards to flatter them? Wouldn't it all be simpler then?" "We're only talking about compliments, Denys," Berkeley said. "Don't be so dramatic.

Not every place has a story

I've been looking for you everywhere," he said, taking my arm. Without

But I'm not sure I believe in wars anymore. They only make ghosts and they don't change anything.

Do you think I'll stop worrying when I know he loves me for sure?" "Just listen to yourself." "There's so much to lose." "There always is," she said.

Several editors speculated about the causes, and the Nairobi Leader even published a jeering little poem: They speak of a trainer named Clutterbuck Who enjoyed the most absolute an' utter luck, Now he's turning his tables, And selling his stables, In fact he is putting his shutter up. My

The whip shouldn't have been more than a gnat for Paddy," Bishon Singh told me. "What do you mean?" "What is a whip to a lion? He must have been ready to let you go. Or perhaps you weren't ever meant for him." I

How personal this life was, and how every time we grazed against one another even for a moment, we weren't the same afterward.

Without saying anything I reached for the champagne flute he held and downed it in one go. It was a dramatic gesture, but there were bits of verse still swirling in my head like the milky trails of stars.

Because it's not always easy to know how to live.

His words were another kind of current. "What am I meant for then?" "How wonderful that question is, Beru." He smiled mysteriously. "And as you did not die on this day, you have more time in which to answer it." —

The auction process dragged on for several gruelling months.

He was never yours, a voice in my head said. But what did that matter? I had lost him just the same.