Quotes from 'The Paris Wife'

The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain, which captures the remarkable period of time and the love affiar between two remarkable people: Earnest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. It follows their life across the Atlantic as Earnest joins the likes of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Paris.

When I first picked this book out to read this summer, I was giddy with excitement about counting all of the places mentioned in the book that I had been. There were more than I realized. The life of the ex-pats living in Europe during the 1920s seemed so glamorous, however 'The Paris Wife' does not try to sugar coat the struggles Hadley went through being the wife of Hemingway on his rise to fame. 

What I wouldn't give to join the ranks of ex-pats and pack up my suitcase and move to Europe. But alas, for now, I am stuck behind a desk writing papers and dreaming about the afternoons I spent strolling the boulevards and eating Nutella crepes while walking along the Seine. That was the life. 

Here  are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. I highly recommend it, especially if you've been to Paris, are in love with the 20s or just enjoy a good read.

“But if you want to do any serious work, Paris is the place to be. That’s where the real writers are now. The rate of exchange is good. There are things to do at any hour. Everything’s interesting and everyone has something to contribute. Paris, Hem. Give it some thought.”

“Not everyone believed in marriage then. 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.”

“But thinking this way got me nowhere. Nowhere but back to the whiskey, that is, so I put my thinking down with the stack of letters and walked to the Musee du Luxembourg instead, to visit the Monets. I stood and looked into the brightest patches of his lilies and the lovely purpling in the water and tried not to see anything else at all.”

“We called Paris the great good place, then, and it was. We invented it after all. We made it with out longing and cigarettes and Rhum St. James,; we made it with smoke and smart and savage conversation and we dared anyone to say it wasn’t ours. Together we made everything and then we busted it apart again.”

-Jess