Top 94 Quotes & Sayings by Paullina Simons

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.

Here I am, your one man circus freak show, having bled out for mother Russia, having desperately tried to get to you, now on top of you with this scourge marks, and you, who used to love me, who was sympathized, internalized, normalized everything, you are not allowed to turn away from me....this is what I am going to look like until the day I die. I can't get any peace from you ever unless you find away to make peace with this. Make peace with me. Or let me go for good.

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

Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.

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?

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.

He is just protective over me-” “Not protective, Tania. Consumed.

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

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.

He sent you to redeem me, to comfort me, and to heal me—and that’s just so far,” he added with a smile.

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.

There are some battles, no matter how much you don’t want to fight them, that you just have to fight. That are worth giving your life for.

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.

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.

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.

We can’t forget that I owe you my life.” She gazed at him. “We can’t forget that I belong to you.” “I like that sound of that,” Alexander said, hugging her tighter.

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

"Alexander, were you looking for me?" "All my life."

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.

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

Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me..." "Everything!" he whispered fiercely.

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.

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.

Memory - that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort.

Tania, there is so much still ahead of you. Be patient with life

Dear God, Tatiana prayed in bed that night, turning to the wall and pulling the white sheet and the thin brown blanket over herself. If You are there somewhere, please teach me how to hide what I never knew how to show.

....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.

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.

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?

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-

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

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

Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together.

All good things come to those who wait.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tatiana: "Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?" Alexander: "That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.

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.

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

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.

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.

Not bombs nor my broken heart can take away from me walking barefoot with you in jasmine June through the Field of Mars.

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

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.

The days of idealism had gone. Only life was left.

I'll take your breath any way you give it to me, Shura.

He came over in long pur­pose­ful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a ten­der, pos­ses­sive ges­ture wiped the lip­stick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked. “All the other girls wear it,” Ta­tiana said, quickly wip­ing her mouth, breath­less at the sight of him. “In­clud­ing Dasha.” “Well, I don’t want you to have any­thing on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.

Love is when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry.

I was blinded by stupidity for a brief moment in our life, for a flicker in the eternity in which you and I live, and I stumbled.

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?

Shura...are you...in love with me?" "Turn to me," Alexander said. She turned. "Tatia, I worship you. I'm crazy in love with you. I want you to marry me.

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.

Shura, I’m yours. You may not like it today, you may not want it tonight, you may wish for it all to be different now, but it remains, and I remain, as always, only yours. Nothing can change that. Not your wrath, your fists, your body or your death.

I love you breathlessly, my amazing man.

You are my hand grenade, my artillery fire. You have replaced my heart with yourself.

Love is, to be loved,” said Alexander, “in return.

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.

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.