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Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him. Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness.

Paullina Simons

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Paullina Simons
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 1
Translator
Writer
St. Petersburg
Madness
Stump
Tree
Stumps
Growing
Smoked
Asks
Bench
Pain
Benches
Nothing
Alexander
Would
Reply
Watched

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Whenever you're unsure of yourself, whenever you're in doubt, ask yourself three questions. What do you believe in? What do you hope for? but most important, ask yourself, what do you love?
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I'll take your breath any way you give it to me, Shura.
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Tatiana: Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this? Alexander: That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.
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Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and you will know who you are. Ask: what do you believe in? What do you hope for? But most important - ask: what do you love? ... I know who I am, she thought, taking his hand and turning to the altar. I am Tatiana. And I believe in, and hope for, and love Alexander for life.
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And that's my point: all great things worth having require great sacrifice worth giving.
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Alexander knew that before he had light instead of darkness, he had to deserve light instead of darkness.
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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.
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In Alexander's life there was one thread that could not be broken by death, by distance, by time, by war. Could not be broken. As long as I am in the world, she said with her breath and her body, as long as I am, you are permanent, soldier.
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Thank you, she whispered, for keeping yourself alive, soldier. You're welcome, he whispered back.
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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
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Memory - that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort.
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Good-bye, my moonsong and my breath, my white nights and golden days, my fresh water and my fire. Good-bye, and may you find a better life, find comfort again and your breathless smile, and when your beloved face lights up once more at the Western sunrise, be sure what I felt for you was not in vain. Good-bye and have faith, my Tatiana.
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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.
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You are my hand grenade, my artillery fire. You have replaced my heart with yourself.
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This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.
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When I was growing up, 'Anna Karenina' was one of my favourite books.
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And then, because she was Tatiana and because she couldn’t help herself, and because he wouldn’t have it any other way, she ran to him and was in his arms.
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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
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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.
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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!
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