Julien Mauriac Quotes in The Nightingale
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.
If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.
How can I possibly go without remembering all of it—the terrible things I have done, the secret I kept, the man I killed . . . and the one I should have?
“Did Dad know?” Julien asks.
“Your father . . .” I pause, draw in a breath. Your father. And there it is, the secret that made me bury it all.
I smile at them, my two boys who should have broken me, but somehow saved me, each in his own way. Because of them, I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts.
We remain.
Julien Mauriac Quotes in The Nightingale
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.
If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.
How can I possibly go without remembering all of it—the terrible things I have done, the secret I kept, the man I killed . . . and the one I should have?
“Did Dad know?” Julien asks.
“Your father . . .” I pause, draw in a breath. Your father. And there it is, the secret that made me bury it all.
I smile at them, my two boys who should have broken me, but somehow saved me, each in his own way. Because of them, I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts.
We remain.
