Melanie Benjamin > Quotes

“Why, then, did I always feel as if his happiness was my responsibility? It wasn't fair for him to burden me with that. It had never been fair.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“I suppose at some point, we all have to decide which memories - real or otherwise - to hold on to, and which ones to let go.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful? It is. Only I do get tired.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“Mother shook her head impatiently. 'You need to...stop looking for heroes, Anne.' Her speech was slow, slurred, but understandable. 'Only the weak need...heroes...and heroes need...those around them to remain weak. You're...not weak.' I remembered those words. I knew they were true, all of them. True about me, and true about Charles. I brought them out, every now and then, as I kept working -- on both the manuscript and myself. And, perhaps on my definition of my marriage. No, my prayer for my marriage; a marriage of two equals. With separate -- but equally valid -- views of the world; shared goggles no more, but looking at the same scenery, at the same time.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“There is always so much talk about the sins of the fathers but it is the sins of the mothers that are the most difficult to avoid repeating.”
― Melanie Benjamin

“I had wanted to live forever as a gypsy girl; I had wanted to live forever as a child, tumbling down a rabbit hole. I had been granted both wishes, only to find immortality was not what it had promised to be; instead of a passport to the future, it was a yoke that bound me to the past.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“Wonderland was all we had in common, after all; Wonderland was what was denied the two of us. I had denied him his; he had denied me mine.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“Why were there so many barriers between us, always? Barriers of clothing, of etiquette, of time and age and reason.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“My head grew muddled with it all; the silly ways adults acted with one another, never saying what they meant, trusting in sighs and glances and distance to speak for them instead. How dangerous that was! How easy it must be to misinterpret a sigh or a look.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“Only the weak need … heroes … and heroes need … those around them to remain weak.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead I would define it.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

“Dana taught me that the ability to grieve deeply also meant that a person had the capacity to love deeply, laugh deeply, live deeply -- and that this was a capacity to be cherished.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“JEALOUSY IS A TERRIBLE THING. It keeps you up at night, it demands tremendous energy in order to remain alive, and so you have to want to feed it, nurture it—and by so wanting, you have to acknowledge that you are a bitter, petty person. It changes you. It changes the way you view the world; minor irritations become major catastrophes; celebrations become trials.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“dreams may have been the paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“The New York of the plays, the movies, the books; the New York of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and Vogue. It was a beacon, a spire, a beacon on top of a spire. A light, always glowing from afar, visible even from the cornfields of Iowa, the foothills of the Dakotas, the deserts of California. The swamps of Louisiana. Beckoning, always beckoning. Summoning the discontented, seducing the dreamers. Those whose blood ran too hot, and too quickly, causing them to look about at their placid families, their staid neighbors, the graves of their slumbering ancestors and say— I’m different. I’m special. I’m more. They all came to New York.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Swans of Fifth Avenue

“They are in danger of becoming immune to the horrors surrounding them. This is what an occupation does—it wears you down until you accept evil. Until you can no longer fully define it, even. Let alone recognize it.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Mistress of the Ritz

“Marriage breeds its own special brand of loneliness, and it’s far more cruel. You miss more, because you’ve known more.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“I still can't stop marveling that this same boy chose me; and I'm glad that I can't, for we should rejoice in being seen, needed. Loved.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“People do that, of course—they come into your life, illuminate some dark corner you’d not even known was there, then they disappear. True connection is rare, but that’s just the way it is.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Mistress of the Ritz

“That's just it, don't you see? I don't want to be taken care of! I don't want be hidden away, a burden! I want to make my own way! To have a greater purpose!' ”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

“Who was this woman before me, her face imprinted with the expectations of others? I was Mom. I was Wife. I was Tragedy. I was Pilot. They all were me, and I, them. That was a fate we could not escape, we women; we would always be called upon by others in a way men simply never were. But weren't we always, first and foremost -- woman? Wasn't there strength in that, victory, clarity -- in all the stages of a woman's life?”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“To live for oneself is a terrifying prospect; there is comfort in martyrdom...

p 364”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“Sit up straight.” “Don’t fidget.” “Write a thank-you note the minute you receive a gift or return home from a party.” “Always have fresh flowers, no matter the cost.” “Clean gloves and shoes are the sign of a lady.” “Never let the help get the upper hand.” “Be discreet.” “Be above gossip.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Swans of Fifth Avenue

“Marriage is not defined by what we hope to gain, but by what we are willing to sacrifice.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Mistress of the Ritz

“A woman's life, always changing, accommodating, then shedding, old duties for new; one person's expectations for another until finally, victoriously, emerging stronger. Complete.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“There was something about his eyes—the color of the periwinkle that grew at the base of the trees in the Meadow, such a deep blue—that made me feel as if he could see my dearest wishes, my darkest thoughts, before they made themselves known to me. And that simply by seeing them, he was also giving me permission to follow them. Perhaps he was even showing me the way.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

“... afraid of everything because nothing truly terrible had happened to me, yet.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“It is devastating to see a loved one suffer; it is harder to bear than your own pain. Love is despair, love is delight. Love is fear, love is hope. Love is mercy. Love is anger.”
― Melanie Benjamin, Mistress of the Ritz

“...'it's not that you are too small, my little chick,but rather that the world is too big.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

“I understand, Bill. Because I tell myself a lot of stories to help me sleep at night. Stories about how Babe was my dearest friend, and I never betrayed her. Stories about how you and I had a great love, not just an occasional roll in the hay whenever she was out of town. Stories about how wonderful life was back then, when none of us told each other the truth, but so what? It was all so beautiful, wasn’t it? It was all so lovely and gracious. Not like it is now.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Swans of Fifth Avenue