Quotes from Paula McLain

We can only go to the limits of ourselves—I've learned that if nothing else. Anything more and we give too much away. Then we're not good for anyone.

Ahead lies the Irish Sea, all that dark, dark water ready to grip and stop my heart.

as if whatever life she's had before now doesn't take up space or trouble her in the least.

Sometimes when you're hurting, it helps to throw yourself at something that will take your weight.

There's no secret, just keep your eyes open. Open all the time, but especially when you think you can't be surprised. That's when you learn to pay attention, to listen to your own voice.

to stitch my name on the sky

Many other dear ghosts were glinting from the past, winks of light playing along the rims of our wineglasses, reminding us of how reckless they'd been and how magnificent.

We were newlyweds, after all—but when evening came things fell apart. We'd been married for several weeks now, and I could count on one hand the number of times we'd actually had sex.

I can't expect him to be as tuned in to Cameron's vulnerabilities as I am. He's never been a throwaway kid. Never experienced the world in a woman's body, or a girl's. Never had a reason to confuse love with suffering.

Dense clouds have swallowed the moon and stars—the

Not everyone believed in marriage then. To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too—that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.

was only to anchor him until morning. There

The first had been on the voyage to India. I'd been seasick for much of it, particularly when we launched away from land at the Gulf of Aden and headed out into the Arabian Sea. The horizon stretched and pitched, when I could stand to look at it. Before the nausea set in, we had managed to make love on my narrow bunk, but the whole thing was such a tangle of elbows and knees and bumping chins, I barely knew the thing was happening before it was over. Afterwards,

All I could do was hope that at some point his central loyalty would shift to me. This house could help, I knew. If I threw everything into it, he would see how absolutely wonderful our life could be together.

C'mon, Anna. You don't mean that. It's too soon. You should only be thinking about your family right now, and taking care of yourself.

People interest me so much. They're such wonderful puzzles. Think of it. Half the time we've no idea what we're doing, but we live anyway.

Everyone deserves to belong somewhere.

I close my eyes an lean into Ernest, smelling bourbon and soap, tobacco and damp cotton - and everything about this moment is so sharp and lovely, I do something completely out of character and just let myself have it.

In a small place like Mendocino, I know all too well, any act of violence is personal. Everyone will be feeling this. Everyone will be affected.

Before the nausea set in, we had managed to make love on my narrow bunk, but the whole thing was such a tangle of elbows and knees and bumping chins, I barely knew the thing was happening before it was over. Afterwards, he kissed my cheek and said, "That was lovely, sweetheart." Then he crawled out of my bunk and into his, while I was left feeling just as lost and confused as I had been on our wedding night. Jock

No matter how resilient children can be, or how wanted, loved, and nurtured they are by their new parents, the original wounds of abandonment and rejection aren't just magically healed. Grit and inner strength don't altogether heal those wounds, either, because the parenting piece is primal. Mothers and fathers are supposed to stay. That's the original human story, in every culture, since the beginning of time.

I haven't been drunk in over a year—not since my mother fell seriously ill—and I've missed the way it comes with its own perfect glove of fog, settling snugly and beautifully over my brain. I don't want to think and I don't want to feel,

Mine hadn't, and neither had Cameron's. All the scars I still carry, she carries, too. Trust issues, attachment trouble, identity problems, feelings of emptiness, isolation, alienation, and despair—cracks in the soul that can't be mended. I've seen it. I've lived it. How anyone with a hole inside them will search on and on, sometimes all their lives, for ways to fill it.

I was thinking about how I had struggled and strained for years, as Karen had, and toward things that were disastrous for me. And maybe that was unavoidable. The pilgrims and the lost often did look the same, as Denys had once told me. And it was possible everyone ended up in the same place no matter which path we took or how often we fell to our knees, undoubtedly wiser for all of it.