Paullina Quotes & Sayings

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

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

The iron fettering on the gate read "Arbeit Macht Frei".
"What do you think that means?" asked a man from behind them in line.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here," replied Alexander.
"No," said Misnoy. "It means, 'Work will set you free,'"
"Like I was saying."
Misnoy laughed. "This must be a Class One camp. For political prisoners. Probably Sachsenhausen. In Buchenwald, the engraving didn't say that. It was for more serious, more permanent offenders."
"Like you?"
"Like me." He smiled pleasantly. "Buchenwald read, 'Jeden das Seine. To Each His Own.'"
"The Germans are so fucking inspiring," said Alexander. — Paullina Simons

Alexander Barrington, I want forever love in you. — Paullina Simons

I want you to know that should something happen to me, don't worry about my body. My soul isn't going to return to it, nor to God. It's flying straight to you, where it knows it can find you, in Lazarevo. I want to be neither with kings nor heroes, but with the queen of Lake Ilmen. — Paullina Simons

As Stepanov turned to go, Alexander said, "Sir ... " He was so weak he almost couldn't get the words out. He didn't care how cold the wall was, he could not stand on his own anymore. He pressed his body against the icy concrete and then sank down to the floor. "Did you see her?" He lifted his gaze to Stepanov, who nodded. "How was she?" "Don't ask, Alexander." "Was she - " "Don't ask." "Tell me." "Do you remember when you brought my son back to me?" Stepanov asked, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "Because of you I had comfort. I was able to see him before he died, I was able to bury him." "All right, no more," said Alexander. "Who was going to give that comfort to your wife?" Alexander put his face into his hands. Stepanov left. Alexander sat motionlessly on the floor. He didn't need morphine, he didn't need drugs, he didn't need phenobarbital. He needed a bullet in his fucking chest. — Paullina Simons

There were other things,too, to ask him. Always she tries to be less forward. Always she tried to find the right thing to say and didn't trust the etiquette pendulum swinging in her head, so she simply said nothing, which was perceived either as painful shyness of haughtiness. Dasha never had that problem. She just said the first thing that came into her head. Tatiana knew she needed to rust her inner voice more. It was certainly loud enough — 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

Mankind has never invented a weapon that they did not use sooner or later. — Paullina Simons

All Alexander hears is his mother pleading, screaming, crying into the closed face of the consulate guard, as he keeps trying to pull her away, Please please please help him, we have money, a place to live, help him, help him, help him - — 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

I saved you for me. — Paullina Simons

Alexander knew that before he had light instead of darkness, he had to deserve light instead of darkness. — Paullina Simons

there is one place I'm comforted. I wake up there, and I go to sleep there; I am at peace there, and loved there: your subsuming arms. Tatiana — Paullina Simons

Just a breath ago, an eighteen-year-old nurse was bending over Rebecca's father's father, a wounded soldier in a Soviet hospital, saying, yes, Shura, we are going to have a baby. — Paullina Simons

She held the money to her chest and tried to fathom Alexander's heart. He was the man who, a few meters away from freedom, from America, had chosen to turn his back on his lifelong drea. Feel one way. Behave one way, too. Alexander may have hoped for America, but he believed more in him-self. And he loved Tatiana most of all. Alexander knew who he was.
He was a man who kept his word.
And he had given it to Dimitri. — Paullina Simons

When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street. — Paullina Simons

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

The anecdote was funny, but as my father gazed across the river at the university of his youth, his Russian life was in his eyes. — Paullina Simons

He's not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine. — Paullina Simons

Tatiana hugged him and said, "And here's mine: 'Honey, what do you prefer - my beautiful body or my beautiful face?'"

"Your sense of humor," returned Alexander, holding her to him until she couldn't breathe. — 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

Memory - that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort. — Paullina Simons

I know how it works, Esther. I graduated from Harvard." "Book-smart, but life-stupid," said Esther. — Paullina Simons

Well, at least someone around here is getting pregnant," Alexander said through clenched teeth, bending in his own stricken fury. "And it didn't take fifteen fucking years."
"Like I'd keep any baby that was yours!" cried Tatiana. "I'd take a coat hanger to it before I kept one of your babies!"
Alexander hit her so hard across the face that she reeled sideways and fell to the ground. Blinded he stood over her. Guttural sounds were coming from his throat. Her arms covered her head. "You have stepped out of all bounds, all decency," he said, yanking her up. "I can't believe how much you hate me. — 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

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

The Russians were unparalleled in their suffering, the English in their reserve, the Americans in their love of life, the Italians in their love of Christ, and the French in their hope of love. — Paullina Simons

He hugged her. "Be strong for me, Tatiana," Alexander said hoarsely. "Save yourself for me." "That's what I do, Shura," Tatiana said. "I save myself for you." Alexander bent to her, but she couldn't even look up. He kissed the top of her hat. They held on for a few more seconds. — Paullina Simons

She was entrenched. She had dug a trench all around herself called Alexander , and she couldn't leave. — Paullina Simons

When I was in Colditz, that impenetrable fortress, whittling away my life, I wanted to know this."
"Looks like you're still there, Shura."
"No," he said. "I'm in New York, a fly on the wall, trying to see you without me. — Paullina Simons

You are still not fucking immortal, sir. And your men certainly aren't, but I don't give a shit about the men. It's you we can't replace. And I'm supposed to be here to protect you. How can you engage in hand-to-hand combat in the water when you are supposed to be in the rear? What do you think you are made of, Captain? Until just now when I saw you bleed red blood like the rest of us, I wasn't sure."
"It's not my blood," Alexander said.
"What?"
But Alexander shook his head. — 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

You sweet thing," he murmured. "You're the sweetest thing. I don't know what to do, what to do, Tania." He kissed her lips — Paullina Simons

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

Tatiana realized she was too young to hide well what was in her heart but
old enough to know that her heart was in her eyes. — Paullina Simons

Experiment with this - on such and such a day I slept so many hours and felt this way afterward. I ate x amount of food and was able to work for this long. In my forties my face began to line - science has told us this is the beginning of old age. How can the science that measures and combines and mixes and observes tell us what is behind the sleep?" Alexander laughed. "Ouspensky, science can measure how long we sleep, but can it tell us what we dreamed about? It will observe our reactions, it can tell if we twitched or laughed, or cried, but can it tell us what was inside our own head? — Paullina Simons

Harry nearly prayed it wasn't one of her friends who smelled like the beach and books and brine. He inhaled when they stopped for the light, and was simultaneously relieved and agitated to realize, no, it was her. — Paullina Simons

Tatiana heard Alexander say, "Don't bother with shots. Pour mine straight into a glass." "Good man," said Papa, pouring him a glass. — Paullina Simons

There was nowhere for her to go. Not in the kitchen, not in the hallway, not in the bedroom. What she wanted was a little room of her own where she could go and jot down small things in her diary. Tatiana had no little room of her own. As a result she had no diary. Diaries, as she understood them from books, were supposed to be full of personal writings and filled with private words. Well, in Tatiana's world there were no private words. All private thoughts you kept in your head as you lay down next to another person, even if that other person happened to be your sister. Leo Tolstoy, one of her favorite writers, wrote a diary of his life as a young boy, an adolescent, a young man. That diary was meant to be read by thousands of people. That wasn't the kind of diary Tatiana wanted to keep. She wanted to keep one in which she could write down Alexander's name and no one would read it. She wanted to have a room where she could say his name out loud and no one would hear it. Alexander. — Paullina Simons

Come on, he said quietly, bending to her and lifting her whole into his arms. He carried her inside. After setting her down next to the sink, he crushed five trays of ice into it and filled it with cold water. Tatiana thought he was going to tell her to put her face into it, and was about to meekly impotently protest - when Alexander submerged his own head into the ice. — Paullina Simons

Emotion was pressing hard on her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. I don't need to breathe now, she thought. I've breathed all my life. — Paullina Simons

He was breathing heavily. "I honestly don't understand what's wrong with you," he said. "You're telling me to pack my bags, to leave our house, knowing you're going to have a baby?"
"And this surprises you why? Have you seen what's been happening in our house?"
"Stop talking to me like this in our bed, Tatiana. My white flag is up," said Alexander. "I have no more."
"My white flag is up, too, Shura," she said. "You know when mine went up? June 22, 1941. — Paullina Simons

I told you," Harry was saying to Ben. "I warned you. As soon as I saw her from distance, do you remember what I said to you?"
"Yes, yes. You said she was trouble. You where wrong there, and you're wrong now."
"Benjamin, I know about these things. She is trouble."
"You know nothing except the idiocy you glean from your insipid books that tell you nothing about life. You don't know how to live."
"And you do?"
"Yes, I do. She is no trouble. She is Life!"
Harry rolled his eyes to the heavens. "More fool you. How else do you define trouble?"
"Like a femme fatale," Ben said.
"Give her time, Benjamin. She is a fille fatale. Quattordici indeed!"
Ben moved away from mocking Harry, his shoulders dropping. — Paullina Simons

Love is when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry. — Paullina Simons

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. — Paullina Simons

I can't brethe."
She was embracing him the way he used to embrace her in Lazarevo. And for the same reason. "Open your mouth," she whispered, leaning onto his face. "I'll breath for you. — 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

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

Tatiana sat on the bench by the bay, by the morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o'clock in the morning. Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go? No. It wasn't possible. Something's happened. He can't cope, can't make it, can't find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over - but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out - there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander? — Paullina Simons

Please don't die," she whispered. "I don't think I can bury
you. I already buried everyone else."
"How can I die," Alexander said, his voice breaking, "when you
have poured your immortal blood into me? — 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

I just don't know how I'm going to survive you, Tatiana. — Paullina Simons

Marx himself wrote that capitalism produces above all its own gravediggers. Do you think that perhaps he wasn't talking about capitalism? — Paullina Simons

Hello, Tatiana. I'm Alexander. Have we met before? — Paullina Simons

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. — Paullina Simons

Do you see the Field of Mars, where I walked next to my bride in her white wedding dress, with red sandals in her hands, when we were kids?"
"I see it well."
"We spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana," said Alexander. "We were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now."
Her hands went on his face. "That's all any of us ever has, my love," she said. "And it all flies by."
"Yes," he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. "But what a five minutes it's been. — 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

Daughters are supposed to be friends to their mothers in their old age. — 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

Courage, Alexander.....
Courage, Tatiana — Paullina Simons

We thought the hard part was over - but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out - there is nothing harder. — 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

Do you remember what you're supposed to do now? Kiss the palm of your hand and press it against your heart. — 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," 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. — Paullina Simons

To lead a life so wholly happy, so wholly unexamined that she could be dying, could be betrayed, could be besieged on all sides and never even know it. — Paullina Simons

A tall, thin, middle-aged man with a long, gray Jovian beard stood outside the Hermitage Museum with an expression of absolute shattered regret.
Tatiana instantly reacted to his face. What could make a man look this way? He was standing next to the back of a military truck, watching young men carry wooden crates down the ramp from the Winter Palace. It was these crates the man looked at with such profound heartbreak, as if they were his vanishing first love.
"Who is that man?" she asked, tremendously affected by his expression.
"The curator of the Hermitage."
"Why is he looking at the crates that way?"
Alexander said, "They are his life's sole passion. He doesn't know if he is ever going to see them again. — 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

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

The power you have over someone who loves you is greater than any other power you'll ever have. — Paullina Simons

He stared at her fists and at her face and said with upset incredulity, "You promised me you would forgive me-"
"Forgive you,"Tatiana hissed through her teeth, tears streaming down her face, "for your brave and indifferent face, Alexander!" She groaned in pain. "Not for your brave and indifferent heart. — Paullina Simons

Harry leaned back, his hat over his inscrutable face.
"Well?" Ben nudged him. "Thomas Paine, or a nubile beauty from Sicily?"
"Clearly Thomas Paine. I'd be asleep now in my bed."
"Do you remember the name of the street they live on?"
"Let's see ... Crazy Street? Cuckoo Street? Commitment Street? Cranial Injury Inflicted by Enraged Sibling Street?"
"Canal Street! Thank you."
"I'm going to stop speaking."
"Harry, admit it, if you weren't so utterly uninterested in all women save Alice, you would be sitting on this train yourself."
"Ben Shaw, I hate to point out the startlingly obvious, but I am sitting on this train myself."
"Exactly!"
"Ugh."
"I'm surprised to learn that Lawrence is the world leader in the production of cotton and woven textiles. Are you?"
"Stunned. — 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

How do you manage?" she asked in a low voice. "How do you manage to carry your weapon, to stand guard, to go and fight, to be strong for all of us?"
"I give you," said Alexander, glancing at her, "what you need most from me. — Paullina Simons

The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz. Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time. With Pasha's death came the death of faith. Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free. The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally. But not quite. — Paullina Simons

Tatiana hooked an IV to Alexander's vein herself and fed him morphine and fed him plasma. And when that wasn't enough, she gave Alexander her blood. And when that wasn't enough, and it looked as if nothing was going to be enough, she trickled blood from her arteries into his veins.
Drop by drop.
And as she sat by him, she whispered. All I want is for my spirit to be heard through your pain. I sit here with you, pouring my love into you, drop by drop, hoping you'll hear me, hoping you'll lift your head to me and smile again. — Paullina Simons

But I'm telling you, something happens to beautiful people. They think that something extra is owed to them by life, by God, by all the people around them. They think their life has to be better, more dramatic, happier - in color, not black and white. — Paullina Simons

Here, take this, she would say, take this, and tell me where he is. Tell me whether he's dead or alive, so I can walk as his widow or his wife.
No one would, or could, tell her, and so she continued to cook, and to learn new things all the while searching for an answer among the outcasts.
The way he carried his body, the way he walked in my life, Tatiana thought, declared that he was the only man I had ever loved, and he knew it.
And until I was alone without him, I thought it was all worth it. — 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

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

I don't want this life to end," said Alexander. "The good, the bad, the everything, the very old, to ever end. — Paullina Simons

Tania, I was spellbound by you from the first moment I saw you. There I was, living my dissolute life, and war had just started. My entire base was in disarray, people were running around, closing accounts, taking money out, grabbing food out of stores, buying up the entire Gostiny Dvor, volunteering for the army, sending their kids to camp - " He broke off. "And in the middle of my chaos, there was you!" Alexander whispered passionately. "You were sitting alone on this bench, impossibly young, breathtakingly blonde and lovely, and you were eating ice cream with such abandon, such pleasure, such mystical delight that I could not believe my eyes. As if there were nothing else in the world on that summer Sunday. — Paullina Simons

Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and you will know who you are. Ask: What do believe in? What do you hope for? What do you love? — Paullina Simons

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

He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus's mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs her most. She stands mutely in front of him and doesn't see the blood, doesn't see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows; he is not cast out. He is loved. — 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

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

Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow. — 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

I have maybe a half-hour before the next surgery. Want to go and get a cup of coffee?
What I want is to meander eight kilometres down the canals with you from Kirov to your Fifth Soviet door. I want to get on the tram with you, the bus with you, sit in the Italian Gardens with you. That is what I want. I will take the cup of coffee in your hospital cafeteria. — 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 will make you insane, her memory screamed at her near the winter window sill as Tatiana smelled the brine of eternity. On the outside you will walk and smile as if indeed you are a normal woman, but on the inside you will twist and burn on the stake, I will never free you, you will never be free. — 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'm getting off the boat at Coconut Grove. It's six and you're not on the dock. I finish up, and start walking home, thinking you're tied up making dinner, and then I see you and Ant hurrying down the promenade. He is running and you're running after him. You're wearing a yellow dress. He jumps on me, and you stop shyly, and I say to you, come on, tadpole, show me what you got, and you laugh and run and jump into my arms. Such a good memory.
I love you, babe. — Paullina Simons

She hadn't meant to do it. Falling this crashingly in love with Spencer didn't take Lily by accident. It took her by storm. — Paullina Simons

Love is, to be loved," said Alexander, "in return. — Paullina Simons

Why do you enjoy torturing yourself? Do you feel life has been too good to you?"
Tatiana stared at him. "Life has," she said slowly, "been too good to me. — Paullina Simons