Paullina Simons Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Paullina Simons.
Famous Quotes By Paullina Simons
If she breathed, a part of her would touch a part of him. Tatiana was too overwhelmed to speak, as her intense feelings dropped into the brightly lit well inside her. — Paullina Simons
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. (Alexander) — Paullina Simons
GENERAL RAGINSKY: Mr. President, in order to exhaust fully the presentation of evidence in regard to the subject-matter of my report, I ask your permission to examine witness Josif Abgarovitch Orbeli - Tatiana dropped the cup of tea she was drinking, and it fell on the tile floor and broke, and Tatiana fell on the floor, too, on her knees, and began to pick up the pieces, every moment or so emitting cries of such distress that Vikki, who was nearby, jumped up, backed away and said in a stunned voice, "What's wrong with you?" Tatiana waved her off with one hand, her other hand holding a ceramic shard which covered her mouth as she continued to listen to the bare echo that was the radio broadcast as it ceaselessly continued. A crash on the road, but the radio still plays music, still transmits sounds no matter how incongruous it is that the ear can somehow hear, that the brain can somehow listen - — Paullina Simons
It wasn't first love. It wasn't a first kiss. But it was love nonetheless. And the kiss was sweet. And the heart still pounded. And the girl went on. — Paullina Simons
Tatiana: "Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?"
Alexander: "That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay. — Paullina Simons
We walk alone through this world, but if we're lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness. — Paullina Simons
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. — Paullina Simons
Tatiana said. "Go on with Dasha. She is right for you. She is a woman and I'm-" "Blind!", Alexander exclaimed. Tatiana stood, desolately failing in the battle of her heart. "Oh, Alexander. What do you want from me ... "
"Everything", he whispered fiercely. — Paullina Simons
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. — Paullina Simons
And when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I'll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face. — Paullina Simons
When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street. — Paullina Simons
What little I had was all for you. It was you who was everybody else's. But I was only yours. — Paullina Simons
Tatiana: I found my true love on Ulita Saltykov-Schedrin, while I sat on a bench eating ice cream.
Alexander: You didn't find me. You weren't even looking for me. I found you.
Long pause.
Tatiana: Alexander, we're you ... looking for me ?
Alexander: All my life. — Paullina Simons
He soaped her like he loved her, held her like he loved her, loved her like he loved her. — Paullina Simons
Each
day brought just another minute of the things they could not leave behind. Jane Barrington sitting on the
train coming back to Leningrad from Moscow, holding on to her son, knowing she had failed him, crying
for Alexander, wanting another drink, and Harold, in his prison cell, crying for Alexander, and Yuri
Stepanov on his stomach in the mud in Finland, crying for Alexander, and Dasha in the truck, on the
Ladoga ice, crying for Alexander, and Tatiana on her knees in the Finland marsh, screaming for
Alexander, and Anthony, alone with his nightmares, crying for his father. — Paullina Simons
I know how it works, Esther. I graduated from Harvard." "Book-smart, but life-stupid," said Esther. — Paullina Simons
There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior. — Paullina Simons
Lowering his voice, he said, "In America we have a custom. When you're given presents for your birthday, you're supposed to open them and say thank you."
Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. "Thank you." Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.
"No. Open first. Then say thank you."
She smiled. "What do I do? Do I take the paper off?"
"Yes. You tear it off."
"And then what?"
"And then you throw it away."
"The whole present or just the paper?"
Slowly he said, "Just the paper."
"But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?"
"It's just paper."
"If it's just paper, why did you wrap it?"
"Will you please just open my present?" said Alexander — Paullina Simons
You have amazing gifts. Don't squander them. Don't give them out meaninglessly, don't abuse them, don't take them for granted. You are the weapon you carry with you till the day you die.
-Tatiana and Alexander — Paullina Simons
This late afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the masthead, watching the dockhands tie up the boat. Though she was four years younger and a girl, they were nearly the same height, Gina and Salvo. Gina was actually taller. No one could figure out where she got the height; her parents and brothers were not tall. Look, the villagers would say. Two "piccolo" brothers and a "di altezza" sister. Oh, that's because we have different fathers, Gina would reply dryly. Salvo would smack her upside the head when he heard her say this. Think what you're saying about our mother, he would scold, crossing himself and her at her impudence. — Paullina Simons
Simply, this is what she believed: she believed that the universe showed each of us certain things, that it made certain things open.
Many people lived a peace life with nothing ever happening to them. But into some families other things fell. Some families were afflicted with random tragedies - car accidents, plane accidents, hang gliding accidents, bus crashes, knifing, drownings, scarves getting caught under the wheels of their Rolls Royces, breaking their necks. — Paullina Simons
I want to meet this one," he said. "I need to meet the girl who has taken our wandering Alexander's horse and cart. — Paullina Simons
Everything comes at a price. Everthing in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is, what price are you willing to pay? — Paullina Simons
I'm not hungry," Alexander whispered. "I'm famished. Watch out for me. Now, don't make a single sound," he said, moving on top of her. "Tania, God ... I'll cover your mouth, just like this, and you hold on to me, just like this, and I'm going to-just like this- — Paullina Simons
Up on the roof Tatiana thought about the evening minute, the minute she used to walk out the factory doors, turn her head to the left even before her body turned, and look for his face. The evening minute as she hurried down the street, her happiness curling her mouth upward to the white sky, the red wings speeding her to him, to look up at him and smile. — Paullina Simons
In the dark room she sits and in front of her is a plate and on the plate lies a black hunk of bread the size of a deck of cards. The bread has sawdust in it, and cardboard. She takes a knife and a fork, and cuts it slowly into four pieces. She eats one, chews it deliberately, pushes it with difficulty through her dry throat. eats another and another and finally the last one. She lingers especially on the last one. She knows after this piece is gone there will be no more food until tommorow morning. She wishes she could be strong enough to save half of the bread until dinner, but she isn't, she can't. When she looks up from her plate, her sister Dasha, is staring at her. Her plate is long empty.
" I wish Alexander was coming back" says Dasha. " He might have food for us"
I wish Alexander was coming back, thinks Tatiana. — Paullina Simons
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. — Paullina Simons
I think you kept three credits, consciously or subconsciously, so that you could hang on to something, hang on and not move forward. I think you want to feel that you're still unfinished.
She wanted to tell her grandmother that she was still unfinished. Unfinished, unanswered, unformed. — Paullina Simons
I'd like an armchair for the bedroom," he murmured. "What do we need an armchair in the bedroom for?" she said. "We have a couch outside." "Buy the chair and I'll show you." After the chair was delivered, he undressed her and kneeled between her legs upraised on the chair arms. Afterward she agreed it was money well spent. — Paullina Simons
Ouspensky, do you ever think of how many things you don't know?"
Ouspensky laughed. "I like the beginning already".
"Think of how many things you stumble to and say, how should I know?"
"I never say that, sir" said Ouspensky. "I say, how the fuck should I know? — Paullina Simons
m young and fit to toil long — Paullina Simons
Pregnant. You come to see me for one weekend, and here — Paullina Simons
Alexander: "First we will send the frontovik into the streets with guns. When they are dead, we will send me, with a tank, like the one you've been making me. When I'm dead, all the barricades down, all the weapons and tanks gone, they will send you with a rock."
Tania: "And when I'm dead?"
Alexander: "You're the last line of defense. When you're dead, Hitler will march through Leningrad the way he marched through Paris. Do you remember that?"
Tania: "That's not fair the French didn't fight"
Alexander: "The didn't fight Tania, but you will fight. For every street and for every building. And when you lose - — Paullina Simons
They had no past. They had no future. They just were. — Paullina Simons
Ladies," Alexander said, his arm around Tatiana's neck, "we're newlyweds." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you really want us in your house? — Paullina Simons
He heard bombs exploding like fireworks, and as if in a dream his father's face flashed before him, wanting to know what Alexander was doing near death's door before it was his time. He said, Dad, I'm going for her. — Paullina Simons
The weary Italian woman nodded at her children behind her. "Where we came from, everybody lives only one kind of life. Alessandro said he wanted his children to choose the life, not the life to choose the children. And also," she added, panting, slowing down and wiping her brow, "he said America is the only place in the world where even the poor can be smart. — Paullina Simons
Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together. — Paullina Simons
All she had to do was stay where she was, go on as she was.
But there was no Tatiana here. Tatiana remained with Alexander. Her arms were around him in Lake
Ladoga, where she lay down with him every night. Her arms were holding him bleeding out into the Lake
Ladoga ice. She could have let go of him then, could have given him to God; God was certainly calling
for him.
But she didn't.
And because she didn't, she was here in America, sitting on the ledge of the rest of her life. It certainly
felt that way, that seminal moment where she knew that whatever her decision, her life would take either
one course or it would take another.
One way the path was plain and vivid.
And the other was black and fraught with doubt — Paullina Simons
This is the best time, Tatiana," Alexander said. "Do you want to know why?" "Please don't tell me." "There will never be a time like this again. Never this simple, this uncomplicated." "You call this uncomplicated?" Tatiana shook her head. "Of course." Alexander paused. "We're just friends, walking through Leningrad in the lucent dusk. — Paullina Simons
A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is. — Paullina Simons
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. — Paullina Simons
I can't do it," Tatiana said "I can't walk down the streets of our life with you."
"I know." They turned back to the reflections in the mirror. — Paullina Simons
I have a certain sensibility that I bring to my writing that comes from knowing two things: what I as a reader like to read, and what as a writer I am capable of. I know my own limits. I know there are things I cannot do. — Paullina Simons
We're not nomads, we're not gypsies! We have a home! — Paullina Simons
I didn't know how to live my life, and suddenly I was thrust into it and had no choice but to live it. — Paullina Simons
With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work. — Paullina Simons
Maybe that's what grown-ups did. They kissed your breasts and then pretended it meant nothing. And if they could pretend really well, it meant they were really grown-up.
Or maybe they kissed your breasts and it really was nothing.
How was that possible? To touch another human being that way and have it mean nothing?
But maybe if you could do that, it meant you were really grown-up. — Paullina Simons
You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing! — Paullina Simons
Breathing in Shepelevo was like hitting the right note on the piano. There was only one note. When I was young, Shepelevo was the smell of nettles, of salted smoked fish, of fresh water from the Gulf of Finland, and of burning firewood, all wrapped up in one Shepelevo. — Paullina Simons
Tania, when I found you, I felt for that hour or two we were together - before Dimitri, before Dasha - that somemhow I was going to right my life." Alexander smiled bitterly. "I had a sense of hope and destiny that I can neither explain nor understand. — Paullina Simons
Thank you," she whispered, "for keeping yourself alive, soldier."
"You're welcome," he whispered back. — Paullina Simons
Tatiana and the soldier were having a silence — Paullina Simons
Alexander tilted his head and kissed her deeply on the lips. He let go of her hands, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. They kissed as if in a fever ... they kissed as if the breath were leaving their bodies. — Paullina Simons
The power you have over someone who loves you is greater than any other power you'll ever have. — Paullina Simons
Courage, Alexander.....
Courage, Tatiana — Paullina Simons
Love is when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry. — Paullina Simons
Do I think she has forgotten me; found a new life? Assumed that I was dead, accepted that I was dead. Alexander shrugged. I think about it all the time. I live inside my heart. But what can I do? I have to move toward her. — Paullina Simons
Why was this more difficult for me than for my father? I didn't know for certain that it was. But where I wanted to linger, he wanted to speed up. He wanted to rush through his Shepelevo, so he could again leave it behind and forget. With our American eyes we saw our past life. There was so much that needed to be forgotten. I was crushed by the relentless poverty of it. But the smell, the heady, intoxicating smell, more powerful even than the sight of Shepelevo. The sight of Shepelevo tore us up inside. Yet the smell was nothing but bliss. — Paullina Simons
I could have lived through it all if only I continued to have the feeling that at the end of childhood, at the end of adolescence, there was something else in this life that would be mine, that I could make with my bare hands, and once I had made it, I could say, I did this to my life. I made my life so. — Paullina Simons
Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow. — Paullina Simons
She paused when he did not speak. "I know what I would do if I were you." Frantically, Tatiana chewed her lip. It was love or truth.
Love won.
Steeling herself, she said, "Yes," in a fragment of a voice. "I would choose America over you."
Alexander broke down. "Come here, you lying wife," he said, bringing her close, encompassing her. — Paullina Simons
I love you. I'm blind for you, wild for you. Sick with you. I told you that our first night together when I asked you to marry me, I am telling you now. Everything that's happened to us, everything, is because I crossed the street for you. I worship you. You know that through and through ... — Paullina Simons
That I have no idea what good old Dr. Ha-ha-so-fucking-funny Bradley is thinking when he touches your back? When he kisses your hand, pretending it's just a joke, you think I don't know what he's thinking? When he stands close to you, looks into your nice red lips as you talk, when his eyes shimmer at the mention of your name? He's gone soft in the head, you think I don't know? I was the one with the hat in my hands, standing for hours waiting for you to get out of Kirov. What, said Alexander. — Paullina Simons
I'm going to die with Alexander's hand on my face, Tatiana thought. That is not a bad way to die. I cannot move. I can't get up. Just can't. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. Through the haze in front of her she heard Alexander's voice. 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. — Paullina Simons
Though outwardly Kristina maintained that a clean room was a symptom of a diseased mind (for how could she, while studying the world's greatest thinkers, be bothered with such mundane earthly issues as cleaning?), inwardly she hated untidyness and made a point of spending as little time in the room as possible. — Paullina Simons
If there is God, I thought ... Please some day let me make love to this girl while she wears that dress." "Oh ... " "Tatiasha ... isn't it nice to know there is a God? — Paullina Simons
Tania ... where did you get all those freckles?" he asked softly. "I know, they're so annoying. It's the sun," she replied, blushing and touching her face as if wanting to scrub off the freckles that covered the bridge of her nose and spread in sprinkles under her eyes. Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart. "What about your blonde hair?" he continued, just as softly. "Is that the sun, too? — Paullina Simons
This was all given to me, he seemed to say. My body, my face, my height, my strength. I did not ask for it, I did not make it, I did not build it. I did not fight for it. This is a gift, for which I say my daily thanks as I wash and comb my hair, a gift I do not abuse or think of again as I go through my day. I am not proud of it, nor am I humbled by it. It does not make me arrogant or vain, but neither does it make me falsely modest or meek. — Paullina Simons
Tania, we desperately need to have a minute," he said. "And you know it." She knew it. "This isn't right." "It's the only thing that's right." "All right. Go." "Will you come?" "I will try. Now, go." "Lift your - " Before he stopped speaking, Tatiana raised her face to him. They kissed deeply. "Do you have any idea what I feel?" Alexander whispered, his hands in her hair. "No," Tatiana replied, holding on to him, her legs numb. "I only have an idea what I feel. — Paullina Simons
I couldn't wait to get out of the car. The first thing I did was smell the air. I closed my eyes and took a breath, the biggest breath of my life, knowing I was taking the biggest breath of my life. I was taking a breath to smell Shepelevo. Breathing in Shepelevo was like hitting the right note on the piano. There was only one right note. When I was young, Shepelevo was the smell of nettles, of salted smoked fish, of fresh water from the Gulf of Finland, and of burning firewood, all wrapped up in one Shepelevo. As it had been, so it was. Across two continents, a dozen countries, twenty cities, three colleges, two marriages, three children, three books, and twenty-five years of another life, I breathed it and smelled the air. Nowhere else in the world had it. "Papa," I said, my voice breaking. "Do you think we could photograph the smell?" He gave me a look and then laughed. — Paullina Simons
The Field of Mars, June, death, life, white nights, Dasha, Dimitri, the all came ...
And went.
But there Alexander still was, standing on that street, on that curb, in the sun, looking at her under the elms, looking at provenance across from him provenance in a white dress with red roses, licking her ice cream with red lips, singing. His and only his for one hundred minutes, blink of an eye and gone. It all was. — Paullina Simons
Well, Alexander thought, any minute now, one of the girls he had carelessly discarded was going to come by the barracks with a gun and blow his brains out and on his tombstone the epitaph would read, Here lies Alexander, who couldn't remember the name of any girl he had fucked. — Paullina Simons
I tend to be a great optimist when it comes to the United States and the American way of life, I think precisely because I wasn't born into it. — Paullina Simons
Not bombs nor my broken heart can take away from me walking barefoot with you in jasmine June through the Field of Mars. — Paullina Simons
Sanchez got the phone call, listened carefully, glanced over at Spencer, in Whittaker's office, having his morning coffee. Hung up the phone, got up, went and knocked on the door, asked if he could see Spencer a moment, and lowering his voice said, "Carl downstairs just called me because someone wants to file a vagrancy report.
Spencer slapped him on the back. "Detective Sanchez, thank you for bringing the particulars of your job description to my attention. Well done. Go to it.
Sanchez hemmed and said, "The young woman says she is Lily Quinn. Specifically asked for me, Carl says.
Spencer didn't slap him on the back this time. He stared at Carl and then said, "All right smart-ass, go back to you desk.
"That's what I thought," said Sanchez. — Paullina Simons
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 — Paullina Simons
She wasn't afraid of random war. It was like being struck by lightning, even if the lightning did strike a thousand times a day. No, it wasn't war that terrified Tatiana. It was the resolute chaos of her broken heart. — Paullina Simons
Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life. — Paullina Simons
No! he wanted to cry out. No, Tania, please come back. What can I leave her with, what can I say, what one word can I leave with her, for her? What one word for my wife?
"Tatiasha," Alexander called after her. God, what was the curator's name ... ?
She glanced back.
"Remember Orbeli- — Paullina Simons
But on that sunlit Sunday, Alexander knew nothing, thought nothing, imagined nothing. He forgot Dimitri and war and the Soviet Union and escape plans, and even America, and crossed the street for Tatiana Metanova. — Paullina Simons
It wasn't this soldier's uniform that affected her, and it wasn't his looks. It was the way he had stared at her from across the street, separated from her by ten meters of concrete, a bus, and the electric wires of the tram line. — Paullina Simons
He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands. By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned. They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back. She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first. In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him. — Paullina Simons
War was the ultimate chaos, a pounding, soul-destroying snarl, ending in blown-apart men lying unburied on the cold earth. There was nothing more cosmically chaotic than war. — Paullina Simons
Alexander - " "Now that it's morning, I'm suddenly Alexander again?" Gazing up at him, Tatiana whispered, "Oh, Shura ... " And Alexander could no longer bear it. He bent to her face and kissed her. Her lips were as soft and young and full as he had imagined them to be. Tatiana's whole body started to tremble as she kissed him back with such tenderness, such passion, such need that Alexander involuntarily emitted a small groan. He was bewildered by her hands pressing his head into hers and not letting go. "Oh, God ... " he whispered into her parted mouth. — Paullina Simons
Only one bear eats from this honey pot, Tatia — Paullina Simons
Mimoo shook her head. "Too sleepy for her maybe, but ideal for her mother, who worries too much. I don't need excitement in my life. I've had enough of it, thank you." She shrugged. "Gia will be fine. She'll be fine anywhere."
"Gia?"
"It's Gia when I love her," said Mimoo. "My husband never called her anything but that. Me, I love her, but she drives me crazy. So headstrong. To call her stubborn like a mule is an injustice to mules. The mules are St. Francis compared to her."
Harry laughed. — Paullina Simons
I don't want to die," whispered Marina. "and not feel just once what you feel." She struggled for her breath. "Just once in my life, Tania!"
"Tanechka ... " she whispered. What does it feel like?" Tatiana continued to gently caress Marina's forehead. "It feels," she whispered, "as if you're not alone. — Paullina Simons
Tania." Her voice was soothing. "There is a second love. And a third love. And if you're lucky, a fourth and a fifth, too. — Paullina Simons
Dasha introduced Alexander to Marina. They shook hands and both stared at each other for longer than was appropriate. Marina, embarrassed, stepped away, averting her gaze. Alexander smiled, putting his arm around Dasha. "Dasha," he said, "so this is your cousin Marina." Tatiana wanted to shake her head at him, while a perplexed Marina remained speechless. Later on in the kitchen, Marina said to Tatiana, "Tania, why did Dasha's Alexander look at me as if he knew me?" "I have no idea." "He is adorable." "You think so?" said Dasha, who was heading past the girls to the bathroom, leaving Alexander in the corridor. "Well, keep your hands off him," she added cheerfully. "He's mine." "Don't you think?" Marina whispered to Tatiana. "He's all right," said Tatiana. "Help me wash this frying pan, will you?" Adorable Alexander stood in the doorway, smoking and grinning at Tatiana. — Paullina Simons
You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us,' Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young. — Paullina Simons
I wish I could spend six years writing one novel. — Paullina Simons
Do you remember what you're supposed to do now? Kiss the palm of your hand and press it against your heart. — Paullina Simons