“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“People belong to each other only as long as they both believe. He stopped believing.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“You are everything good and straight and fine and true—and I see that so clearly now, in the way you’ve carried yourself and listened to your own heart. You’ve changed me more than you know, and will always be a part of everything I am. That’s one thing I’ve learned from this. No one you love is ever truly lost.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“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.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian words that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn't have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“How unbelievably naive we both were that night. We clung hard to each other, making vows we couldn't keep and should never have spoken aloud. That's how love is sometimes. I already loved him more than I'd ever loved anything or anyone. I knew he needed me absolutely, and I wanted him to go on needing me forever.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“I knew that I could hate him all I wanted for the way he was hurting me, but I couldn’t ever stop loving him, absolutely, for what he was.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“He and I had already had our time, and though it was still very close and real to me, as beautiful and poignant as any place on a map, it was, in truth, another time—another country.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“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, quote from The Paris Wife
“Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
Paula McLain
Born place: in Fresno, California, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“The girl arrived; I thought her handsome; and as I doubted not that you would be mortified by my absence, I did most sincerely hope that she would be able to dissipate something of your ennui: for it is the fidelity of the heart alone that I value.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut
“Dan Lynch was chuckling, his hand around his small glass. 'I remember Billy saying that AA was a Protestant thing when you came right down to it. Started by a bunch of Protestants. He said he didn't like the chummy way some of them were always calling Our Lord by his first name. I drove him to the first meeting and waited to take him home, 'cause Maeve didn't want him driving, and when he came out he said you could tell who the Catholics were because they'd all been bowing their heads every ten seconds while the Protestants bantered on about Jesus, Jesus Jesus.'
(And sure enough, up and down our stretch of table, heads bobbed at the name.)”
― Alice McDermott, quote from Charming Billy
“Una estrategia de ganador Por ejemplo, tengo un amigo que usa su propia estrategia sencilla de riesgo-recompensa para hacer transacciones diarias en la bolsa. Sabe que las posibilidades indican que encontrará un movimiento del mercado en uno de cada 20 tratos. Por eso, establece lo que llama una estrategia de administración del dinero. Si tiene 20 mil dólares para meterlos en la bolsa, lo cual es la décima parte de los 200 mil dólares de efectivo total que tiene, sólo arriesga mil dólares en cada transacción. En otras palabras, su estrategia es tener siempre suficiente dinero para perder 19 de cada 20 veces. Lo he visto perder 14 mil dólares en 14 transacciones seguidas y”
― Robert T. Kiyosaki, quote from Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich: How to Get Rich Quickly and Stay Rich Forever!
“A los recién casados parece como si les volviera de repente todo el candor de la infancia.”
― Camilo José Cela, quote from The Family of Pascual Duarte
“It's asking for trouble to listen to music alone.”
― Janice Galloway, quote from The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Puckoon
Before Now
History
PopCo
Rubicon: The Last Ye...
Infinite Possibiliti...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
