Emma Bull Quotes & Sayings

She felt ... new, just-made. She felt as if everything she had ever done out of weakness or fear had been undone, and all of her past washed clean. — Emma Bull

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

We're all immortal until we die. — Emma Bull

You have to break an omelette to make eggs. — 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

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

You may attack royalty, or deny its will, but you must never, never ignore it — Emma Bull

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

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

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

I love you like my own sister. Which is why I won't hesitate to tell you that I don't believe it. — Emma Bull

If the obligations of friendship are constraints, then I am so constrained. — Emma Bull

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

You're not bothering me. I'm not doing anything. Well, I was breathing, and my heart was beating. But the rest of me wasn't busy. — Emma Bull

You're good, did you know that?'

Oh, yes. — Emma Bull

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They only want to count to two. — Emma Bull

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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