Paula McLain Quotes & Sayings

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, — Paula McLain

I wanted something grand and sweeping."
"The kind of love you find in novels?"
"Maybe. That makes me incredibly stupid, I suppose. — Paula McLain

The sky had taken Denys, but I knew there was life up there, too
a combination of forces suited to me, to how I was made, in powerful ways. That great soaring freedom and unimaginable grace came fully tethered to risk and to fear. Flying demanded more courage and faith than I actually posessed, and it wanted my best, my whole self. I would have to work very hard to be any good at it at all, and be more than a little mad to be great, to give my life over to it. But that's just what I meant to do. — Paula McLain

There wasn't anything simple about them, and I preferred that, and trusted it. My life wasn't simple either. — Paula McLain

Your age?" "My age? He has to be thirty." "Farm life is going to harden you, you know. You think you'll be young and beautiful for ever and that you'll have plenty of chances, but it doesn't work like that." "She's only sixteen, Em," my father said. "She has plenty of time." "That's what you think. We're not helping, keeping her out here with no company. School didn't do a thing - not that she was there long. She's wild. She doesn't know how to make conversation." "Why are we talking about manners and society, when there are real problems to think about? — Paula McLain

I love you now more than I ever have in some ways and though different people view their marriage vows differently, I meant mine to the death. I'm ready to be yours forever if you must know it, but since you've fallen in love and want to marry someone else, I feel I have no choice but to move aside and let you do that. — Paula McLain

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. I was hurting, too, and no one was running to me. — Paula McLain

I want to go and work for Delamere," I said quickly, before I could change my mind or take it back. "I can learn to train there. My father suggested it before he left and I think it's a sound move." "What? We have our own animals. Why go somewhere else?" "It isn't just the work, Jock. Nothing's right between us. You know it as well as I do." "We're just beginning. Give it time." "Time won't do a thing. You should have a proper wife, one who wants to care for you and have a dozen children and all of it. That's not me." He — Paula McLain

Walk through your sorrow, my daughter, it hardly matters as long as you walk to where you want to be. — Paula McLain

I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light. — Paula McLain

There are things I didn't see before, like how nice it is to have someone around. Not the white knight whisking you away, but the fellow who sits at your table every night and tells you what he is thinking. — Paula McLain

Bit burrs. Tongue-tying. Saddling for exercise and saddling for races. There was shoeing and bandaging, conditioning and equipment. I had to learn to read track surfaces and stakes sheets, and calculate weight allowances. I had to know the diseases and ailments forward and back - bowed tendons and splints, foundering, bucked shins, bone chips, slab fractures, and quarter cracks. Thoroughbreds were glorious and also fragile in very specific ways. They often had small hearts, and the exertion of racing also made them susceptible to haemorrhaging in the lungs. Undetected colic could kill them - and — Paula McLain

They failed at some important task and were banished to the heavens. The women themselves were wizened and toothless, or supple as polished ebony, with long-muscled limbs under pale shukas. I loved them and their tales, but I wanted more to join Kibii and the other totos who were becoming warriors, young morani. The role of girls in the village was entirely domestic. I had a different position - a rare one, free from the — Paula McLain

It was our favorite part of the day, this in-between time, and it always seemed to last longer than it should
a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds. — Paula McLain

I like to think I'm the kind of girl who'll drink anything," I said, " but maybe not from a shoe. — Paula McLain

I met the devil,' Ernest said, finishing his glass of wine, 'and he doesn't give a damn about art. — Paula McLain

I had never spent so much time by the sea, and hated the way the air thickened with salt and sat on my skin and made me always long for a bath. I was far more comfortable with dust. — Paula McLain

I saw him on the cover of Life magazine and heard about the wars he covered bravely and the other feats - the world-class fishing, the big-game hunting in Africa, the drinking enough to embalm a man twice his size.The myth he was creating out of his own life was big enough to take it for a time - but under this, I knew he was still lonely. — Paula McLain

I've sometimes thought that being loved a little less than others can actually make a person, rather than ruin them. — Paula McLain

Because it's not always easy to know how to live. — Paula McLain

I had forged her myself, out of brokenness, learning to love wildness instead of fearing it. To thrive on the exhilaration of the hunt, charging headlong into the world even when it hurt to do it. — Paula McLain

swallowed. My ears felt as if — Paula McLain

People belong together to each other only as long as they believe. He stopped believing. — Paula McLain

Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself. — Paula McLain

And yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way. — Paula McLain

Miwanzo is the word in Swahili for "beginnings." But sometimes everything has to end first and the bottom drop out and every light fizzle and die before a proper beginning can come along. — Paula McLain

I loved the deep smell of the horses and the track itself and the noises of the happy crowd taking its luck as it came. — Paula McLain

Getting married had been all his idea, but he hadn't told her how very afraid of it he was. He seemed to need to force his way through it anyway, as he did with everything that scared him terribly. He was afraid of marriage and he was afraid of being alone, too. — Paula McLain

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. — Paula McLain

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes. — Paula McLain

would be two days traveling, at least, and then he'd be — Paula McLain

There was only today to throw yourself into without thinking about tomorrow, let alone forever. To keep you from thinking, there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. Love is a beautiful liar. — Paula McLain

I liked feeling strong and was uncomfortable knowing that had vanished whne he left. was my happiness so completely tied to him now that i could only feel like myself when he was near? i had no idea. — Paula McLain

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. — Paula McLain

You've done it now, haven't you? It's too late to take anything back and you wouldn't anyway. You need to remember that later, when you see your wife and want to die for hurting her. Remember no one made you do anything. It's never anyone but you who does anything, and for that reason alone you shouldn't be sorry — Paula McLain

Things come that we never would have predicted for ourselves or even guessed at. And yet they change us for ever. — Paula McLain

On December 8, 1921, when the Leopoldina set sail for Europe, we were on board. Our life together had finally begun. We held on to each other and looked out at the sea. It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts-and we wanted it all. — Paula McLain

Oh." It seemed I'd surprised him. "There isn't a lot of that kind of thinking around here."
"Of course there is," I told him, trying to draw a smile. "It's just usually a man who's doing it. — Paula McLain

Only the day before, Cockie's dark joke wouldn't have included me, but now it did. "Is love always such a mess, do you suppose? — Paula McLain

I get suggestions all the time. People feel quite free at events or even on the street to tell me what they think I should be writing. What I've learned, though, is that this thing, this connection, has to be in place for me to be able to kind of launch into a world imaginatively. — Paula McLain

The very rich only admire themselves — Paula McLain

There was nowhere to go in the house to escape my dark thoughts. — Paula McLain

What do you mean to do?'
'Make literary history, I guess. — Paula McLain

He'd left me for a time. He'd doubted me, but now he was mine again and I wanted to keep him here in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets until I'd quieted every last voice and we were only right again. — Paula McLain

Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved — Paula McLain

He shook his head. "I see you trying to be tough skinned, but that makes sense. As a woman you'll have to work twice as hard for everything. I'm not sure I could do it." He lit a cigarette and drew on it, the end flaring red in the dark. When he released the held smoke, he looked at me. "I think you're rather brave, actually." Was — Paula McLain

I have fought for independence here, and freedom, too. More and more I find they're not at all the same thing. — Paula McLain

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. — Paula McLain

We knew what we had and what it meant, and though so much had happened since for both of us, there was nothing like those years in Paris, after the war. Life was painfully pure and simple and good, and I believed Ernest was his best self then. I got the very best of him. We got the best of each other. — Paula McLain

He stared into his coffee, thinking quietly. "But you've never been afraid of anything, have you?"
"I have, though," I said, surprised at my own emotion. "I've been terrified... I just haven't let it stop me — Paula McLain

When I turned to leave the groom to his work, I saw that D's ranch manager had been watching us. His name was Boy Long, and he was exotic-looking for these parts, with jet-black hair and a single gold hoop in one ear. His particular flair made me think of a pirate. "What's in the tincture?" he wanted to know. "Nothing unusual." He looked me up and down. "I don't believe you, but you can keep your secret." A — Paula McLain

I put some nice thick socks and my Alpine slippers and then curled up in a chair by the fire to read The Beautiful and Damned. 'Fitzgerald's a poet', Shakespear had said when she recommended it, [ ... ]. The writing was exquisite, I had to admit, but it was making me sad to read about Gloria and Anthony. They talked prettily and had nice things, but their lives were hollow. I didn't have the stomach for such a dire picture of marriage, not just now. — Paula McLain

How close people could be to us when they had gone as far away as possible, to the edges of the map. How unforgettable. — Paula McLain

This was my one brush with love. Was it love? It felt awful enough. I spent another two years crawling around in the skin of it, smoking too much and growing too thin and having stray thoughts of jumping from my balcony like a tortured heroine in a Russian novel. — Paula McLain

My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me. — Paula McLain

A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same. — Paula McLain

We stood there, locked and lovely as statues in a garden. — Paula McLain

This is why there is poetry. For days like these. — Paula McLain

Did you ever think it could be like this? The way we're happening to each other? — Paula McLain

He was such an enigma, really - fierce and strong and weak and cruel. An incomparable friend and a son of a bitch. In the end, there wasn't one thing about him that was truer than the rest. It was all true. — Paula McLain

I might just crawl under my bed and not come out until I'm old and doddering and can't remember feeling anything for anyone at all. — Paula McLain

My father died when I was young. We all thought it was rather fortunate at first. It simplified all sorts of things. But over time ... well. Let's just say I've developed a theory that only the vanished truly leave their mark. And I still don't feel I've sorted it out. Maybe we never do survive our families. — Paula McLain

reached behind me to adjust the stockings again. "Your mother doesn't like me." "She just doesn't want to lose me. That's how mothers are. — Paula McLain

Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them. Even something one would call unusual- if one things about it, it's really just a thing that was supposed to happen. Encountering unusual events often means you didn't think things through. — Paula McLain

Whatever they were, they were living their lives, out there doing it, making their mistakes. Somehow I'd gotten stuck along the way [ ... ] and I didn't know how to free myself exactly. — Paula McLain

I never thought I'd get married," I told Boy as he poured for us. Scotch spilled into the squat glasses with reassuring lapping noises. "I should have left well enough alone." "You don't need to explain. — Paula McLain

You earned him fair and square. He's not mine to take back." He rose to get himself a drink. The peaty odour of scotch flickered up and stung my nose. "I'd like one of those." He looked at me, surprised. "You'll have to go for water." I shook my head. "All right," he said. "I guess you've earned that, too." He handed me the rounded heavy glass, and we sat in silence as the sun retreated. I'd had wine and champagne, but this was different. It made me feel older. — Paula McLain

But in the end, fighting for a love that was already gone felt like trying to live in the ruins of a lost city. — Paula McLain

Men hear what they like and invent the rest. — Paula McLain

The accordion and the whores and the retching,' he said. 'That's our music. — Paula McLain

I miss good old-fashioned honorable people just trying to make something of life. Simply, without hurting anyone else. I know that makes me a sap. — Paula McLain

Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all. — Paula McLain

Books could be an incredible adventure. I stayed under my blanket and barely moved, and no one would have guessed how my mind raced and my heart soared with stories. — Paula McLain

It was terrible to feel so empty, as if I were nothing. Why couldn't I be happy? And just what was happines anyway? — Paula McLain

At Equator Ranch a decade before, his debut lambing had turned out only six surviving animals of four thousand ewes. Undaunted, he had burned through more of his inheritance (eighty thousand pounds, some claimed), replaced his stock, learned his hard lessons, and was now the most successful large-scale rancher in all of Kenya. Not — Paula McLain

Those early days in Paris were nearly forty years behind him and yet, in the final pages he writes of Hadley, I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her. — Paula McLain

he grinned a grin that began in his eyes and went everywhere at once. It was devastating. — Paula McLain

Ben isn't hard to manage, but Blix's wife, Karen, likes the title too much to part with it. He's made her a baroness." She sighed. "The whole thing has got rather baroque. Karen and I are friends, or were, in any case. Blix asked her for a divorce and told her he was in love with me, probably thinking it would soften the blow." She shook her head. "Now she won't speak to me. — Paula McLain

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 was referring to Jock, but her words made me think of other things, too. "Are you happy, Karen?" "Not yet. But I mean to be. — Paula McLain

I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park and wonder about the people who filled them, what kinds of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing. — Paula McLain

and was there for the birth, on 25 February — Paula McLain

I didn't want to be a sweet boy's sweet girlfriend. I wanted to be Fawn's equal, the kind of girl who stood up for herself and took care of business, who cut guys loose when it was required. — Paula McLain

In some ways, it was as if nothing had changed. Our bodies knew each other so well we didn't have to think about how to move. But when it was over and we lay still, I felt a terrible sadness come down because I loved him as much as I ever did. — Paula McLain

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

When I rode away from Jock's farm a week later, I took nothing that I couldn't tie onto the back of my saddle - pyjamas, a toothbrush and comb, a second pair of slacks, a man's shirt in heavy cotton. For Pegasus I carried a thick rug and brush, several pounds of crushed oats, and a small, tarnished blacksmith's knife. It felt wonderful to be riding out in the bush and travelling so lightly, but I was also leaving much unsettled behind me. It was a devil's bargain I had struck with Jock. — Paula McLain

The Philadelphia Story, but — Paula McLain

I'd had my share of rain. My mother's illness ... had weighed on me, but the years before had been heavy, too. I was only twenty eight. — Paula McLain

There are many days when I want to throw my computer out the window, when I tell myself I'd be better off selling shoes at the mall. But I always keep at it, because I have to. Writing is completely part of who I am. Even if I never published another book, I would keep at it - because it feeds my life and makes it richer. — Paula McLain

How dreadful it would be if everything toppled you and you folded in. — Paula McLain

There are things we find only at our lowest depths. The idea of wings and then wings themselves. An ocean worth crossing one dark mile at a time. The whole of the sky. — Paula McLain

In exchange for Pegasus's stall and my own bunk, D gave me two horses to train. They were both past their prime, dull eyed and recalcitrant, but I was trying to prove myself. I would have to treat them like royalty. I laboured over their exercise and feeding schedules, filling notebooks, trying to meet them on their own territory, and to find or understand something untapped in them, something no one had yet seen. Dynasty, — Paula McLain

We called Paris the great good place then, and it was. We invented it after all. We made it with our longing and cigarettes and Rhum St. James; we made it with smoke and smart and savage conversation and we dared anyone to say it wasn't ours. Together we made everything and then we busted it apart again. — Paula McLain

The pilgrims and the lost often did look the same, — Paula McLain

Because you can't chart a course around anything you're afraid of. You can't run from any part of yourself, and it's better that you can't. Sometimes I've thought it's only our challenges that sharpen us, and change us, too - a — Paula McLain

And after a time, I stopped struggling even internally against the prescribed quietness. — Paula McLain

Sometimes I've thought it's only our challenges that sharpen us, and change us, too - a mile-long runway and nineteen hundred pounds — Paula McLain

On the third evening, Jock finally sat down across from me, his eyes flat as chips of flint. "This isn't something you can bury in the sand and forget about, Beryl. Go and work for Delamere if that's what you're going to do, but you'll go as my wife." "We'll be pretending then? For how long?" He shrugged. "Don't forget you need me, too. Your father's horses are half mine now, and you can't care for them on a pauper's salary. — Paula McLain

I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant. — Paula McLain

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. — Paula McLain

You on the train and me here and everything emptier now you're gone. Tell me, are you real? — Paula McLain