Quotes from Paula McLain

instantly, tense and on guard. I can't help thinking of that rape charge during his undergrad years, and how violence against women is almost never about sex, but about domination. About crushing a woman's autonomy with total control, driven by hate.

Maybe he considers the kiss a moment of weakness or bad judgment, or maybe he's still attracted to me but trying to shut off the feelings—as practiced as I am at ignoring difficult emotions and hoping they'll go away.

Nature demands our respect, Anna. It has a brutal side for sure, but if you can learn its language, there's peace to be found, and comfort too. The best kind of medicine I know.

Maybe the moment I decided to come back to Mendocino, this was always going to happen. All of this, just the way it is unfolding.

My mother in that awful parking lot, dead on Christmas Day. Jenny's murder and Eden's cancer. Hap's disappearance. My daughter's accident. The dark abyss of my work and how it connects in an awful and yawning way to everything else.

She wouldn't have seen any of the dinginess, because no one ever does until they're on he outside of a place, looking in.

Memory couldn't be counted on. Time was unreliable and everything dissolved and died—even or especially when it looked like life. Like spring. All around us, the grass grew. Birds made a living racket in the trees. The sun beat down with promise. From that moment forward, Ernest would always hate the spring.

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.

If the women in Paris were peacocks, I was a garden-variety hen.

Still, I don't trust a man I haven't seen tight.

His brogue tipped the ends of his sentences up expectantly. I always thought he was about to say something more, but then he didn't. Jock

When his weight was on me fully, and I could feel every bump and contour of the roof against my shoulders and hips through the blankets, there were moments of pure crushing happiness I knew I'd never forget. It was as if we'd pressed ourselves together until his bones passed through mine and we were the same person, ever so briefly.

There never seemed to be any spontaneity with Pauline. If she saw you, she meant to. If she spoke to you, she'd already planned what to say so it came out sharply and perfectly.

We're all of us afraid of many things, but if you make yourself smaller or let your fear confine you, then you really aren't your own person at all—are you? The real question is whether or not you will risk what it takes to be happy." She

Life is full of messes. Your mistakes aren't bigger than anyone else's.

I'm paralyzed for an instant as it all lands, everything that's escaped me, like a bomb detonating in my mind. How Caleb's profile is a perfect fit for the kind of man who might flip violently, becoming a killer, a monster. A childhood fractured by abandonment and chaos, his father a tyrant and an alcoholic. The way he'd lost Jenny, the person he loved best in the world, completely powerless to save her. Then the case going unsolved, her killer never found.

The very rich only admire themselves.

Not at all. But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.

I'm beginning to think you couldn't make up a woman like this except as a character in a movie.

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.

Oh, Rabbit, no. Not that. I only want to be sensible and listen to myself." "Enjoy yourself, then," he said flatly. "I've heard enough." He went off to bed, slamming the door as he entered our room.

On the street, it was dark in the way only Africa can be.

I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.

Family life worked most clearly for us when we were alone, at the end of the day, reconnecting and shoring each other up.