While You Were Mine Quotes
"An electric restlessness filled the air, encapsulating us like a fog."
"My heart hammered inside my chest from time to time, and I would find myself clutching my blouse over my sternum."
"The worst war in history was finally over. How uncomplicated and free our days would be in the future."
"A bright white arrow of happiness struck me then, straight into my center, a point of glory that told me the world and everything in it had changed."
"Mary made a sound in her sleep, and I turned. Looking at her, I remembered my sister when she was little."
"Mary didn’t ask for more than any other baby did. She didn’t demand more than what her mother should have been doing."
"But there was something in Mary’s eyes that spoke to me of that place, something solemn and adult in her haunting blue gaze, a bottomless quality that held me still."
"The city was the smell of seafood and sewers, flower gardens, and Guerlain."
"In the San Luis Valley of my birth, there had once been a freshwater spring where the Utes went after winter hunts for rest and feasts."
"I couldn’t imagine what they’d do. Maybe they would’ve taken her to some horrible place."
"The army probably doesn’t even know he has a child."
"The cold wind stung my face, and as I ran, the inside of me began to tremble, as if an odd quivering clamp had come inside and grabbed a hold."
"There was so much randomness in luck and life."
"Love had crept up on me with the stealth of a cat and then pounced with an astonishing embrace."
"I had not told the men as much as I should have."
"Every day she changed. Every day we loved each other more."
"I stood up straight and then looked up into a black sky chipped with thousands of blinking stars, and I waited for those sharp star points to rain down on me, tossed angrily by the hand of God."
"Nothing horrible had happened to me, and yet I was selfish, effectively claiming someone else’s child as my own."
"I couldn’t tell him that I had loved her as my own, had become convinced she was my own, and that nothing else had ever been so sweet."
"I went back upstairs, and Dot left shortly afterward without saying a word. I sat down on our small sofa and put my head in my hands."
"It was true that one can be sick with grief."
"A good, stiff drink might be just what the doctor ordered."
"Beyond the scent of the baby detergent maybe I’d always be able to breathe in the delicious baby smell of her."
"How could love be anything but good for a baby, an innocent child?"
"America has emerged from this war as the most powerful country on earth."
"How weak men were, doing battle with each other endlessly."
"I hadn’t seen this coming, but why hadn’t I? Through Mary we were more bound to each other than many wartime couples had been before they married."
"I couldn’t marry for convenience, not even to keep Mary as my daughter."
"The only thing that got me through it was thinking about the future."
"The woman was special and she put him at ease."
"If she knew it all . . . but then again, how dare she blame me for loving an abandoned child?"
"I’d held out a long time for something better. I didn’t know exactly what that was yet, but I was sure I’d know it when I found it."
"What was the big hurry? Dot was so giddy that I feared she wasn’t thinking straight."
"In the recovery room, our patients ranged from civilians having appendectomies, gall bladder removals, and hernia repairs, to soldiers having surgical revisions to improve on or correct hasty operations that had been done in field hospitals under much worse conditions."
"Something reckless lay just under his skin, ready to jump out and pounce."
"The sun was hot on my skin. I stepped into the shallows and found it colder than I’d expected, or maybe the water felt cold because my skin was so hot."
"Our fingers brushed, and something pulsed through me, ardent and intense."
"Life was so fragile. I had taken my eyes off her for one second, just one second."
"I had to do the right thing here, to help John, but I also had to protect myself."
"He saw what I’d done as strength instead of weakness."
"It’s your fault, you know. John, you have to know that you’re a handsome man."
"I had to keep telling myself that he was way too good-looking, worldly, and charming."
"I wanted to feel his sweet lips on mine, his arms around my waist, pulling me close into his hips."
"It gets worse by the hour, Gwen. You’re going to be aching for a few days; trust me."
"Some not-so-fresh air could be just what the doctor ordered."
"I think the lights are beautiful. They make me believe man is capable of lovely, new, innovative things."
"How quickly a life could change, how quickly hopes could die."
"I could scarcely remember the days of their courtship."
"How could I be this happy? How could this gorgeous and kind gentleman love little ole me?"
"But I forgot about all that when I looked back at John. He couldn’t stop smiling."
"The future had played a devious little trick on her."
"I listened to all he wanted to tell me, and he listened to me with equal enthrallment."
"The damn thing peed all over my pants. Everyone found it hilarious, except my teacher."
"I couldn’t face the other girls at school with it like that, so I cut it even shorter."
"We talked about faith, our hopes for humanity and the future, the anguishes that would haunt us, and the dreams that had kept us muddling through."
"I was ready to sweep away every last bit of its remaining brick and mortar."
"For that night the world shrank down to the two of us, time stopped for us, and life waited for us."
"The painting made me feel as I did on those sleepless nights... when the night itself is the dream."
"It’s hard to understand... That he could’ve been so unhappy, and yet he painted such a promising night."
"I’ll be a monkey’s goddamn uncle," Dot said through a long sigh. "What now?"
"I rolled over in bed and found that it was finally morning."
"Sometimes you know something, even when you don’t want to know it."
"But friends couldn’t be gifted; you had to stumble upon them yourself."
"Life did go on, and even though I felt hollowed out inside, I had decisions to make."
"I had never returned it to him. Maybe subconsciously I had wanted to hold on to it."
"I could stand it no longer, I shrugged out of the coat and tossed it on the bed, only to collapse on top of it and finally cry."
"The only woman who can help me through this life is you. And I can’t have you."
"Sometimes you have to force yourself to be up to it."
"It’s a funny little thing called love, Gwen."
"I’ll never forget what you did. I’ll never forget you—"
"The realization splashed over me that he had other plans, of course, with Alice."
"Humanity had been tested in all degrees, and many more terrible things were being revealed."
"She might not remember the specifics, but I'm sure she'll remember you. She'll remember the love. Experts say infants who don't get love will die. That could've happened to her had it not been for you."
"In the shadow of our Christmas tree, I fed Mary her breakfast but was unable to eat mine."
"I was also the nurse a sailor kissed on V-J Day, on a crazy day full of joy, innocence, and optimism."
"Some people believe that one decision changes a life forever. But I believe rather that it's a series of many decisions—some made by others, such as Alice, and others made on our own; some filled with risk and others seeming safe—and these taken together forge our paths."
"I went through the motions of Christmas Day activities, even though I was unhinged by what had happened."
"But without Mary, what would I do with all this love I had inside?"
"The earth tilted beneath my feet, not to the side but to the solid center, where I belonged."
"And for the first time in my still-short life, the biggest blessing of all rained down."