Emma Bull > Quotes

“Sometimes, she reflected, she dressed for courage, sometimes for success, and sometimes for the consolation of knowing that whatever else went wrong, at least she liked her clothes.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“I’ve no surety that it is. I know only parts of what I feel; I may be misnaming the whole. You dwell in my mind like a household spirit. All that I think is followed with, ‘I shall tell that thought to Eddi.’ Whatever I see or hear is colored by what I imagine you will say of it. What is amusing is twice so, if you have laughed at it. There is a way you have of turning your head, quickly with a little tilt, that seems more wonderful to me than the practiced movements of dancers. All this, taken together, I’ve come to think of as love, but it may not be.

It is not a comfortable feeling. But I find that, even so, I would wish the same feeling on you. The possibility that I suffer it alone–that frightens me more than all the host of the Unseelie Court.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“We're all immortal until we die.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“She lifted her head. "It's easier," she said, slowly, "to be angry on someone else's behalf than on my own. And yet I find I have a well of anger in me, that I have been filling for years from my own hurts. If I spill it out in defense of another, I can deny it's mine.”
― Emma Bull, Finder

“It was like him, too, to love her and admit to it before he knew if she loved him. Maybe only mortals expected to barter their hearts.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“It occurs to me to wonder: do I believe in any god, or even positively not believe, as James does? I believe in systems and methods. I believe in the beauties of philosophy and poetry. I believe that the work we do and leave behind us is our afterlife; and I believe that history lies, but sometimes so well that I can't bring myself to resent it. I believe that truth is beauty, but not, I'm afraid, the reverse. It doesn't seem sufficient to sustain one in life's rigorous moments. Perhaps I shall embrace Islam. Its standards for poetry seem very high.”
― Emma Bull, Freedom & Necessity

“Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.”
― Emma Bull

“She has her own glamour, Willy lad. All poets do, all the bards and artists, all the musicians who truly take the music into their own hearts. They all straddle the border of Faerie, and they see into both worlds. Not dependably into either, perhaps, but that uncertainty keeps them honest and at a distance.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“To those who see the magical surface of things, you are invisible.'

Good grief. Will you still be able to see me?'

He met her eyes in a way that made her shiver pleasantly. 'I see you in a great many ways. It would be hard to blind me in all of them.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“How old are you?'

The question startled him. 'Earth and Air. There are times you are no more comfortable a companion than I am. The answer to that serves no conceivable purpose, and I refuse to give it to you.'

When I was a kid I read Black Beauty. There were horse-drawn cabs in that. Are you that old?'

Older, older, older. I shall not tell you, so you may as well leave off, my primrose.'

She snorted. 'I think that means I should give up. You've started sweet-talking.'

I am torn,' the phouka said, grinning, 'between responding, 'Oh, absolutely!' and 'What do you mean, started?'' He grabbed her hand, dropped a kiss on the knuckles, and loped across the street. Eddi felt the touch of his mouth on her hand for an inexplicably long time.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Could I make you believe something that wasn't true?'

He studied her through his eyelashes. 'You could make me believe anything at all.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Sex without love is like a goddamn business transaction. And sometimes both parties feel as if they got a good deal, but that doesn't make it any less so.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“If you were anyone else, I'd tell you it's unbecoming to gloat."
But you'd tell me..."
That even gloating becomes you. It's a sad thing, an intelligent woman in love.”
― Emma Bull, Freedom & Necessity

“Every motion she made was slow, as if she’d never before put her arms around a man, and didn’t know for certain where everything fit. When at last they were pressed close, she didn’t think she’d know how to let go when the time came. They summarized the course of passion with kisses: a chaste, half-frightened brush of the lips metamorphosed into something fierce and fast-burning, which in its turn became a more patient, more intimate touch, full of inquiry and shared pleasure.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Here's what I think I'm having trouble with: this is what happiness is. When I was a kid, I thought I'd just get happier and happier as I got older, and have more things to be happy about. I based this theory on observation of select adults. The problem with my results is that I couldn't tell the difference then between happy and fake-happy. Now I know you pretend to be just frigging ecstatic over everything, maybe because you're so glad it's not worse.”
― Emma Bull, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest

“The way to get through normal life is to pretend it isn't getting to you. If you let on that you're hurt, the other animals will turn on you and tear you to pieces. Don't attract the attention of predators.”
― Emma Bull, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest

“You have to break an omelette to make eggs.”
― Emma Bull, Finder

“We're all born nameless, aren't we? And the name we end up with has only peripherally to do with our family tree.”
― Emma Bull, Bone Dance

“I’ve told you that I’m a tricksy wight, and I am, my sweet. But there are those in the Seelie Court who would make me seem a very perfect knight.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Is negative space the space you don't like, or the space that is not there? And if it's not there how can you tell?”
― Emma Bull, Finder

“We cannot resist the lure of that mortal brilliance. It is its own kind of glamour, that dazzles the senses. And once we have found it, we cannot turn away.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Fairy tales. That was all she could remember about fairies, and as she tried desperately to recall the ones she'd heard or read, she realized she knew of few with fairies in them. And the two before her were nothing like Rumpelstiltskin or Cinderella's fairy godmother. Elegant Oberon and Titiana, silly Puck--Shakespeare was no help, either. These two, with their changing shapes and their offhand cruelties, had their roots in horror movies.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“You've run a lot of risks, and gone to a lot of work, and all to turn me into a bullet for your gun. But I'm a bullet that thinks for itself, and I want to know what I'm being shot at.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“You're good, did you know that?'

Oh, yes.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Don’t you ever reread a book you liked?” Once the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them; there were plenty of people who didn’t read for pleasure, let alone reread.
But Tom smiled and shook his head. “I used to, when I was a tyke. But how can you read a book you’ve already read when you know there are all those other ones out there?”
“An excellent argument, Mr. McLaury. I can only defend my position by saying that I use my old books as seasoning for the new ones—I sprinkle them lightly through my reading.”
― Emma Bull, Territory

“Do you remember, we used to long to cut our hair, dress in boy's clothes, and run off to the gipsies? Irresponsible, we were told, and dangerous. No, the real danger is that running away to the gipsies is fairy food. Had we done it, neither of us would have thought of coming back.”
― Emma Bull, Freedom & Necessity

“If the obligations of friendship are constraints, then I am so constrained.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Are you decent?" Tick-Tick called through the door.
I said what I was supposed to: "No, but I'm dressed.”
― Emma Bull, Finder

“The unknowable lives in a pack of cards after it has been fairly shuffled but before it has been dealt, when all the possibilities are open, and when each possibility matters.”
― Steven Burst and Emma Bull

“There are at least two sets of Rules for Life, as far as I can tell. There are the ones that get you picked up by the cops or taken to the assistant principal's office if you break them: Don't leave school grounds, don't spray paint stop signs, don't drink, ,don't drop firecrackers in the toliets.

But there's a different set that you really can't break if you don't want your life to suck relentlessly. At the head of the list, Rule Number One: Don't get noticed. As long as you stay exactly the person everyone thinks you're supposed to be, you're fine.”
― Emma Bull, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest