Quote

To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too-that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.

Paula McLain

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Paula McLain
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 7
Author
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Fresno
California
History
Knit
Past
Marry
Together
Believed
Tradition
Stay
Hold
Future
Hope

More quotes by Paula McLain

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My life was my life I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.
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Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved
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Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.
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More and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
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I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
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You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through.
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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.
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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.
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But when Bumby nursed, his fist clutching the fabric of my robe, his eyes soft and bottomless and locked on mine, as if I were the very heart of his universe, I couldn't help but melt into him.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.
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Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.
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All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.
Paula McLain
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Nothing hurts if you don't let it.
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And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.
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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.
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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
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I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant.
Paula McLain