Quotes from Paullina Simons

Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together.

Tatiana had imagined her Alexander since she was a child, before she believed that someone like him was even possible. When she was a little girl, she dreamed of a fine world in which a good man walked its winding roads, perhaps somewhere in his wandering soul searching for her.

Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I've never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I'll take care of you." His lips kissed her cheek.

Oh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.

If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, I WILL live through anything.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are— Unyielding.

When you die, you'll be wearing your white dress with red roses, and your hair will be long and falling around your shoulders. When they shoot you, up on your damn roof or walking alone on the street, your blood will look like another red rose on your dress, and no one will notice, not even you when you bleed out for Mother Russia.

Lazarevo drips you into my soul, dawn drop by moonlight drop from the river Kama. When you look for me, look for me there, because that's where I'll be all the days of my life.

This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.

We'll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…" Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.

Whenever you're unsure of yourself, whenever you're in doubt, ask yourself three questions. What do you believe in? What do you hope for? but most important, ask yourself, what do you love?

This Zippo read, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.. for I'm the baddest motherfucker in the valley.

Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everybody does. But my innocence is gone forever.

Tania," he whispers, "promise me you won't forget me when I die." "You won't die, soldier," she says. "You won't die. Live! Live on, breathe on, claw onto life, and do not let go. Promise me you will live for me, and I promise you, when you're done, I will be waiting for you." She is sobbing. "Whenever you're done, Alexander, I will be here, waiting for you.

Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.

Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him. Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness.

I know that sometimes the things we carry become too much for us. We are burned down, but somehow we have to pick ourselves up and keep going

He is just protective over me-" "Not protective, Tania. Consumed.

And then, because she was Tatiana and because she couldn't help herself, and because he wouldn't have it any other way, she ran to him and was in his arms.

Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me..." "Everything!" he whispered fiercely.

Shura, I'm yours. You may not like it today, you may not want it tonight, you may wish for it all to be different now, but it remains, and I remain, as always, only yours. Nothing can change that. Not your wrath, your fists, your body or your death.

Do you hear the stellar winds, carrying from the heavens a whisper, straight from antiquity... into eternity..." What are they whispering?" Tatiana... Tatiana... Ta...tiana..." Please stop." Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Perseus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you'll know that it's me, calling for you... calling you back to Lazarevo.

Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

Here I am, your one man circus freak show, having bled out for mother Russia, having desperately tried to get to you, now on top of you with this scourge marks, and you, who used to love me, who was sympathized, internalized, normalized everything, you are not allowed to turn away from me....this is what I am going to look like until the day I die. I can't get any peace from you ever unless you find away to make peace with this. Make peace with me. Or let me go for good.