Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.
Paullina SimonsEach 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.
Paullina SimonsI 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.
Paullina SimonsUp 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.
Paullina SimonsDo 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?โ โI see it well.โ โWe spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana,โ said Alexander. โWe were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now.โ Her hands went on his face. โThatโs all any of us ever has, my love,โ she said. โAnd it all flies by.โ โYes,โ he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. โBut what a five minutes itโs been.
Paullina Simons