Paullina Simons
Paullina Simons
Paullina Simonsis a Russian-born American writer and the international best-selling author of the novels Tully, Red Leaves, Eleven Hours, The Bronze Horseman, Tatiana and Alexander, Lily and The Summer Garden...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionWriter
CountryRussian Federation
years months minutes
This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.
loneliness lucky world
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.
moving mouths sound
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-
eye heart enough
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.
writing two knowing
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.
sorrow ghost ecstasy
Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow.
despair body shattered
Awash in a flood of hostility and despair, they battled and railed and shattered their bodies on one another, unable to find one strand, one sobering swallow of solace.
father son cells
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.
doors sky wings
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.
pain heart brave
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.
pain tree growing
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.
eye faces gorgeous
....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.
growing-up book favourite
When I was growing up, 'Anna Karenina' was one of my favourite books.
writing years wish
I wish I could spend six years writing one novel.