Skip to content
Quotlr
Paula McLain

American author

48+ Paula McLain Quotes On Education, World And Historical

Updated: by

Paula McLain is an American author best known for her novel The Paris Wife. She is also the author of Circling the Sun, Love and Ruin, and When the Moon is Low. Her work often focuses on historical fiction, with a focus on female protagonists. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Paula McLain on education, leadership, world.

Born
1965
Known as
American Author

Top 10 Paula McLain Quotes

  1. 1.
    Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.
    — Paula McLain 13 Image Share
  2. 2.
    If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied.
    — Paula McLain 12 Image Share
  3. 3.
    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 9 Image Share
  4. 4.
    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 2 Image Share
  5. 5.
    The way I see it, how can you really say you'll love a person longer than love lasts?
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  6. Advertisement
  7. 6.
    At twenty-eight I'd had a handful of beaux, but had only been in love once, and that had been awful enough to make me doubt men and myself for a good long while.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  8. 7.
    Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  9. 8.
    Dogs are easy. If their tails are up and their eyes are soft, you're in.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  10. 9.
    I'd had my share of rain. My mother's illness ... had weighed on me, but the years before had been heavy, too. I was only twenty eight.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  11. 10.
    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.
    — Paula McLain Image Share

Paula McLain Short Quotes

  • Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • Nothing hurts if you don't let it.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • Maybe no one can know how it is for anyone else.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • People belong to each other only as long as they both believe. He stopped believing.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • Advertisement
  • Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.
    — Paula McLain Image Share

Paula McLain Quotes About Love

  • 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 23 Image Share
  • 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 3 Image Share
  • 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.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • Advertisement

Paula McLain Famous Quotes And Sayings

  • 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 44 Image Share
  • 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 1 Share
  • On December 8, 1921, when the Leopoldina set sail for Europe, we were on board. Our life together had finally begun. We held on to each other and looked out at the sea. It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts-and we wanted it all.
    — Paula McLain 1 Image Share
  • In Paris, you couldn't really turn around without seeing the result of lovers' bad decisions. An artist given to sexual excess was almost a cliché, but no one seemed to mind. As long as you were making something good or interesting or sensational, you could have as many lovers as you wanted and ruin them all.
    — Paula McLain Share
  • A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same.
    — Paula McLain Share
  • 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 Share
  • 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 Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • ... and yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • Advertisement
  • 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 Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • The very rich only admire themselves
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • 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 Image Share
  • My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • And that's when he finally tells me his name is Ernest. I'm thinking of giving it away, though. Ernest is so dull, and Hemingway? Who wants a Hemingway?
    — Paula McLain Image Share
  • I didn't want to be a sweet boy's sweet girlfriend. I wanted to be Fawn's equal, the kind of girl who stood up for herself and took care of business, who cut guys loose when it was required.
    — Paula McLain Image Share

Life Lessons by Paula McLain

  1. Paula McLain's work emphasizes the importance of resilience in the face of adversity. She demonstrates how, through hard work and dedication, one can overcome obstacles and achieve success.
  2. McLain also shows that it is possible to find joy and beauty in even the most difficult of circumstances. She encourages readers to find the courage to embrace life's challenges and to remain hopeful in the face of adversity.
  3. Finally, McLain's work highlights the importance of understanding and appreciating one's own unique experiences, as well as the experiences of others. She encourages readers to be open to new perspectives and to learn from the stories of others.

Cite this page