Melanie Benjamin Quotes & Sayings

I also enjoyed praying at night for forgiveness, secure in the knowledge I'd not really done anything in need of forgiving. — Melanie Benjamin

My head grew muddled with it all; the silly ways adults acted with one another, never saying what they meant, trusting in sighs and glances and distance to speak for them instead. How dangerous that was! How easy it must be to misinterpret a sigh or a look. — Melanie Benjamin

For I can think of no fate drearier than sitting at home ... for the rest of my life, watching all of you go off one by one. — Melanie Benjamin

His eyes were so blue as to be startling; I decided I'd never seen blue eyes before, until that moment. They were the color of morning, the color of the ocean; the color of the sky. — Melanie Benjamin

And this was the greatest gift that aviation could ever give me; not the sense of freedom but the sense of permanence, coupling, of being absolutely worthy, absolutely necessary to the one person in the world who hadn't needed anyone. Before. — Melanie Benjamin

Never before had I imagined leaving home, but that wasn't because of lack of desire, only lack of possibility. — Melanie Benjamin

Unlike men, women got less sentimental as we aged, I was discovering. — Melanie Benjamin

His death notice included the mention that in 1880, he had married Alice in Wonderland. I like to think he would have been pleased at that, but the truth is he was the only one to whom this didn't matter at all. — Melanie Benjamin

I like to imagine the "what ifs" of history. — Melanie Benjamin

The swans swam ahead, always ahead, their bodies gliding so that none could see the effort of their feet beneath the surface, paddling, moving, propelling them forward, forward, to that beautiful spot far ahead, an incandescent curtain of light, a shower of moonbeams, a heavenly constellation of stars. — Melanie Benjamin

The New York of the plays, the movies, the books; the New York of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and Vogue. It was a beacon, a spire, a beacon on top of a spire. A light, always glowing from afar, visible even from the cornfields of Iowa, the foothills of the Dakotas, the deserts of California. The swamps of Louisiana. Beckoning, always beckoning. Summoning the discontented, seducing the dreamers. Those whose blood ran too hot, and too quickly, causing them to look about at their placid families, their staid neighbors, the graves of their slumbering ancestors and say - I'm different. I'm special. I'm more. They all came to New York. — Melanie Benjamin

But they all recognized the steady, no-nonsense influence Jack had had on Truman; he was the ballast to Truman's airy sails. — Melanie Benjamin

My stomach was so full of butterflies and other insects with busy, brushing wings - entirely appropriate under the circumstances, I couldn't help but think! - that I could hardly fall asleep. And when at last I did, I know I slept lightly. As if I remembered, even in my slumber, that I had a dream beneath my pillow that I did not wish to crush. — Melanie Benjamin

Despite all that I had taught, I had learned nothing about the world. — Melanie Benjamin

'it's not that you are too small, my little chick,but rather that the world is too big. — Melanie Benjamin

At times I couldn't recognize my own words, because I was still so often afraid in my life. — Melanie Benjamin

old-fashioned flowers, it looked like an English garden. — Melanie Benjamin

My intellect, my wit - I'd forgotten I'd even possessed them, and they were dull and neglected, to be sure. But in the company of others who prized thought over action, laughter over brooding, they blossomed and sharpened. My tongue fairly tripped with sparkling phrases, insightful comments. — Melanie Benjamin

Dana taught me that the ability to grieve deeply also meant that a person had the capacity to love deeply, laugh deeply, live deeply
and that this was a capacity to be cherished. — Melanie Benjamin

My breath sour against my fist, which I still held to my mouth as if this was a sorrow that could be stifled. — Melanie Benjamin

Days are very mysterious things, of course. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. — Melanie Benjamin

I saw myself through her eyes, I saw myself through Charles's eyes, always; I never looked into a mirror and saw myself through my own. So I did, one evening after a couple of glasses of Dubonnet. — Melanie Benjamin

How does one know that, before the first hello? It's a heaviness in the air combined with a lightness of step. It's a slowing down of the past, and a speeding up of the future. — Melanie Benjamin

There was something about his eyes - the color of the periwinkle that grew at the base of the trees in the Meadow, such a deep blue - that made me feel as if he could see my dearest wishes, my darkest thoughts, before they made themselves known to me. And that simply by seeing them, he was also giving me permission to follow them. Perhaps he was even showing me the way. — Melanie Benjamin

I will fly, alone. Wearing my own pair of goggles, my view of the world just as unique, just as wonderful, and his was, but different. Mine. — Melanie Benjamin

Sit up straight." "Don't fidget." "Write a thank-you note the minute you receive a gift or return home from a party." "Always have fresh flowers, no matter the cost." "Clean gloves and shoes are the sign of a lady." "Never let the help get the upper hand." "Be discreet." "Be above gossip. — Melanie Benjamin

That's just it, don't you see? I don't want to be taken care of! I don't want be hidden away, a burden! I want to make my own way! To have a greater purpose!' — Melanie Benjamin

A woman's life, always changing, accommodating, then shedding, old duties for new; one person's expectations for another until finally, victoriously, emerging stronger. Complete. — Melanie Benjamin

Now and adult, allowed a glimpse of these first cracks in my family's perfect surface, I couldn't help but wonder what else I didn't understand about us all.
p 60 — Melanie Benjamin

It was early in their friendship, those days when they had to catch each other up on everything that had happened to them, so that they could mark their lives - Before. And After. — Melanie Benjamin

Afraid of everything because nothing truly terrible had happened to me, yet. — Melanie Benjamin

Marriage breeds its own special brand of loneliness, and it's far more cruel. You miss more, because you've known more. — Melanie Benjamin

What need was there for words, when we had just shared the sky? — Melanie Benjamin

Desire to know more. I hope my novel accomplishes this, and I highly recommend the following books that I found very useful: Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh's collected published diaries and books, including Gift from the Sea and The Spirit of St. Louis; A. Scott Berg's monumental biography, Lindbergh; Susan Hertog's biography, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Her Life; and Reeve Lindbergh's memoir, Under a Wing. — Melanie Benjamin

Were we women always destined to appear as we were not, as long as we were standing next to our husbands? — Melanie Benjamin

Dreams may have been the paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows. — Melanie Benjamin

Only the weak need ... heroes ... and heroes need ... those around them to remain weak. — Melanie Benjamin

I suppose at some point, we all have to decide which memories - real or otherwise - to hold on to, and which ones to let go. — Melanie Benjamin

My dear, simple little sister! Every mood so fleeting, yet so obvious; there was no mystery to Minnie, none at all. She loved whom she knew, distrusted everyone else, and shared her emotions, her thoughts, as freely as they occurred to her. — Melanie Benjamin

We are in receipt of numerous communications concerning the Harper's Ferry affair, and the various topics connected with it ...
We must decline to publish them all,-simply because we see no possible good which they could accomplish. — Melanie Benjamin

Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead I would define it. — Melanie Benjamin

I see things beyond what other people see. I am always looking for hidden corners and closets of a life that I feel aren't explored either by the person who lived it or the people writing about it. — Melanie Benjamin

When you write things down, they sometimes take you places you hadn't planned. — Melanie Benjamin

Who was this woman before me, her face imprinted with the expectations of others? I was Mom. I was Wife. I was Tragedy. I was Pilot. They all were me, and I, them. That was a fate we could not escape, we women; we would always be called upon by others in a way men simply never were. But weren't we always, first and foremost
woman? Wasn't there strength in that, victory, clarity
in all the stages of a woman's life? — Melanie Benjamin

What very mysterious things days were. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There's quite a lot we don't know about them. — Melanie Benjamin

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be one of those dried-up matrons you see at bridge parties, scowling at the younger generation. I want to be one of those marvelous old ladies covered in scarves who rock in their chairs with mysterious smiles, remembering the scandalous affairs of their youth! — Melanie Benjamin

All his smiles were just a little sad around the edges, as if he knew happiness never could last very long — Melanie Benjamin

Babe Paley simply never made an empty gesture, and here she was, assembling a parade of them. But her feet, her hands, her mind, her heart, were all restless. Truman. — Melanie Benjamin

Now there were no more stories to tell, to soothe, to comfort, to draw strangers close together; to link like hearts and minds. — Melanie Benjamin

I had wanted to live forever as a gypsy girl; I had wanted to live forever as a child, tumbling down a rabbit hole. I had been granted both wishes, only to find immortality was not what it had promised to be; instead of a passport to the future, it was a yoke that bound me to the past. — Melanie Benjamin

Wonderland was all we had in common, after all; Wonderland was what was denied the two of us. I had denied him his; he had denied me mine. — Melanie Benjamin

No, this was the career I wanted; a writer could be employed for as long as she could hold a pencil; for as long as her mind still held out. But an actress - even an actress like Mary - had a fleeting shelf life. — Melanie Benjamin

It was her style, that indefinable asset. It was said that the others had style but Babe was style. — Melanie Benjamin

I certainly incorporate facts into my fiction. I take the basic facts from the life of my subject and I pick and choose what to use to construct a really interesting novel. I don't let facts get in the way of my imagination and my exploration of the subject's emotions and relationships. — Melanie Benjamin

Stuyvesants and Vanderbilts and Roosevelts and staid, respectable Washington Square. Trinity Church. Mrs. Astor's famous ballroom, the Four Hundred, snobby Ward McAllister, that traitor Edith Wharton, Delmonico's. Zany Zelda and Scott in the Plaza fountain, the Algonquin Round Table, Dottie Parker and her razor tongue and pen, the Follies. Cholly Knickerbocker, 21, Lucky Strike dances at the Stork, El Morocco. The incomparable Hildegarde playing the Persian Room at the Plaza, Cary Grant kneeling at her feet in awe. Fifth Avenue: Henri Bendel, Bergdorf's, Tiffany's. — Melanie Benjamin

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful? It is. Only I do get tired. — Melanie Benjamin

JEALOUSY IS A TERRIBLE THING. It keeps you up at night, it demands tremendous energy in order to remain alive, and so you have to want to feed it, nurture it - and by so wanting, you have to acknowledge that you are a bitter, petty person. It changes you. It changes the way you view the world; minor irritations become major catastrophes; celebrations become trials. — Melanie Benjamin

There is always so much talk about the sins of the fathers but it is the sins of the mothers that are the most difficult to avoid repeating. — Melanie Benjamin

So now he was throwing a party. The most swellegant, elegant party evah. — Melanie Benjamin

Why were there so many barriers between us, always? Barriers of clothing, of etiquette, of time and age and reason. — Melanie Benjamin

she knew the effort it took to keep one's exterior self together, upright, when everything inside was in pieces, broken beyond repair. One touch, one warm, compassionate hand, could shatter that hard-won perfect exterior. And then it would take years and years to restore it. So — Melanie Benjamin

He appreciated it, to a point. He also had no intention of having a second marriage like his first, a marriage in which the wife taught the husband, and didn't care who knew it; in fact, took pains to let others see how much she had taught him, how much more she knew about art and politics and all the rest. That had been Dorothy Hearst Paley's fatal flaw, one she recognized too late. Babe — Melanie Benjamin

Would my son love me, when he was old enough to know what love meant?
p 181 — Melanie Benjamin

I did not want to be forgotten. More than that, I wanted, desperately - I fell to my knees and began to tear out the weeds, the vines, by their very roots - to be remembered. — Melanie Benjamin

I knew that no matter what I said, it would not be enough; when you're on the other side of the looking glass, nothing is as it seems. — Melanie Benjamin

Mother shook her head impatiently. 'You need to ... stop looking for heroes, Anne.' Her speech was slow, slurred, but understandable. 'Only the weak need ... heroes ... and heroes need ... those around them to remain weak. You're ... not weak.' I remembered those words. I knew they were true, all of them. True about me, and true about Charles. I brought them out, every now and then, as I kept working
on both the manuscript and myself. And, perhaps on my definition of my marriage. No, my prayer for my marriage; a marriage of two equals. With separate
but equally valid
views of the world; shared goggles no more, but looking at the same scenery, at the same time. — Melanie Benjamin

I still can't stop marveling that this same boy chose me; and I'm glad that I can't, for we should rejoice in being seen, needed. Loved. — Melanie Benjamin

The moment before he started to suspect that there were punishments for those who dared to dream so big, to fly so high. — Melanie Benjamin

Party of the Century by Deborah Davis, about Truman Capote's famous Black and White Ball. Capote by Gerald Clarke. Truman Capote by George Plimpton. Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson. Slim, the memoir of Slim Keith. And The Sisters by David Grafton, about Babe Paley and her sisters. — Melanie Benjamin

Just when had I become so self-absorbed? I was a form of self-preservation, I realized now; I had resolved that ... I could survive Colonel Wood's cruelty if my heart, my mind, had shrunk to a size designed to absorb my own troubles only. — Melanie Benjamin

All of this was mine, simply for agreeing to marry a man I did not love but who was, in the end, the only man who had ever asked. — Melanie Benjamin

The girls we'd believed to have been lost in the haze of regret and recrimination that comes with surviving in the unscrupulous business; this unjust world. But it turned out they'd been here all along, these two; caught forever in a shared moment, preserved together in a silver frame. — Melanie Benjamin

Why, then, did I always feel as if his happiness was my responsibility? It wasn't fair for him to burden me with that. It had never been fair. — Melanie Benjamin

I resigned myself to looking for that face that I clearly recalled - until the day when I couldn't. It happened so suddenly. — Melanie Benjamin

To live for oneself is a terrifying prospect; there is comfort in martyrdom ...
p 364 — Melanie Benjamin

Still, we all found it easier to love and admire him when he was gone. The — Melanie Benjamin

Unlike men, women got less sintimental as we aged, I was discovering. We cried enough, when we were young; vessels overflowing with the tears of everyone we loved. — Melanie Benjamin

Sorrow was my constant companion, even though I no longer wept. It was the shadow that followed me on sunny days, the weight pressing down upon my spirits on cloudy ones. — Melanie Benjamin

Most readers of historical fiction are content to just get caught up in a good story, and that is what I want to do as an author. I am not concerned with people knowing exactly what I made up and what is real. — Melanie Benjamin

At the age of twenty-five, he had conquered not only the entire planet but all the sky above it. — Melanie Benjamin

I understand, Bill. Because I tell myself a lot of stories to help me sleep at night. Stories about how Babe was my dearest friend, and I never betrayed her. Stories about how you and I had a great love, not just an occasional roll in the hay whenever she was out of town. Stories about how wonderful life was back then, when none of us told each other the truth, but so what? It was all so beautiful, wasn't it? It was all so lovely and gracious. Not like it is now. — Melanie Benjamin

Contemplation, rather than action; that seemed to be my lot in life, and I was ashamed of it even as I craved it. — Melanie Benjamin

Both black and gleaming, ostentatiously so. I was acutely aware of our luggage piling up on the platform, matching and initialed and gleaming with comfortable wealth. I couldn't help but — Melanie Benjamin