Quotes from Paula McLain

Mwanzo inseamna "inceputuri" in swahili. Dar uneori trebuie ca totul mai intai sa se sfarseasca, sa se prabuseasca si toate luminile sa palpaie si sa se stinga inainte sa avem parte de un inceput ca la carte.

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

They're trying to kill me. Death by indignity, the nastiest kind of all.

The Philadelphia Story, but

would all trickle through my fingers like so much red dust, for as long as childhood lasted it was a heaven fitted

Avea o busola care nu dadea gres si un fel de a privi totul de parca stia ca nimic nu ravea sa mai fie vreodata exact la fel. Mai mult decat oricine altcineva, Denys intelegea ca nimic nu ramane in loc pentru noi, ori ca n-ar trebui sa ramana. Secretul e sa iei lucrurile asa cum vin si sa le accepti intru totul, fara sa te opui sau sa-ti fie frica, fara sa le tii prea strans sau sa le indoi.

Dust billowed around us, creeping under our loose-tied handkerchiefs and into our noses and mouths. It was fine and silty, red as ochre or the brush-tailed fox,

Obviously he'd seen my own failings in the pages, though I'd only meant to show him how clever my dialogue was, and how gaspingly well I'd described the sea.

about the biting white ants that moved in menacing ribbons over the plains, or the vipers or the sun, which sometimes pulsed so brightly it seemed to want to flatten you or eat you alive.

Is everything propaganda?" I shuddered and looked again at the pilot, who was here in this godforsakenly frigid place, and probably thought he was going to be shot at any moment. All because his government had told a great lie. He was living that lie, and didn't even know.

I found myself feeling differently about marriage, and about the damage lovers could do to one another, irreparable damage sometimes, and almost without thinking.

I wanted my parents to be proud of me and to take me seriously. I also wanted to be well past caring, complete and needing only my own validation.

small gully where the red mud had dried and cracked in a system of parched veins.

we'd given up trying to fool anyone, even ourselves.

When you love someone, there's risk.

All of that should have sent me running in the opposite direction, but I felt only intrigued, and then dazzled by his hunger for me, and the desperation we felt trying to be together when it was impossible. His wife, Marcelle, wouldn't grant a divorce.

Denys had a way of seeing everything as if he knew it would never be there exactly the same again. He understood how nothing ever holds still for us, or should. The trick is learning to take things as they come and fully, too, with no resistence or fear, not trying to grip them too tightly or make them bend.

He kept his emotions locked away behind a wall, which made him a wonderful negotiator.

In the distance, a dust devil churned like a dervish, whirling into a patch of flame trees and unhousing a fat band of vultures.

We each have to make our choices, and then find a way to live with them. And if we can't, well, then, that's when we know something has to change.

And men always seem to have a more difficult time compartmentalizing at these times than women, I've found. Women are stronger because they have to be.

Write, and do it now instead of capitalizing on your nice figure and your pretty hair. Stop being so charming." The sting of his words made me dizzy. My ears rang. "If I am charming it's your fault and Mother's." "You're just afraid to be lonely.

He said nothing as the sun continued its descent. This close to the equator, we had almost no twilight. Day turned to night in minutes, but they were lovely ones. Around us the yellow grasses stretched and moved like the sea, sometimes dipping into antbear burrows and pig holes, or lifting towards the knuckled spires of termite mounds, but never truly ceasing.

The tuba was a golden blur. The horn player seemed to be winking at me. And then there were the other partnered girls sailing by us in silk dresses, gardenias tucked like stars into their hair.