War for the Oaks 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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're good, did you know that?'

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

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

“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, War for the Oaks

“Those the brownies will not help, must learn to help themselves”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“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, War for the Oaks

“And Eddi heard her hang up.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“And so it’s done,” said the phouka softly. No one seemed to hear but Eddi.
“Is it really? What about all the things you wanted to see changed, all the things in the Seelie Court?”
He smiled down at the grass. “I’d intended to plant a seed or two, and wait to see what grew there. Things grow slowly in Faerie, my beloved.”
“So you’re just going to see what happens?”
“I don’t know. I’d thought in terms of seeds, you see, and never dreamed that what I had loosed on the Court was a madwoman with a crowbar.”
“What, me? I’m flattered.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Lives are beyond price, and to treat them as if they have some kind of barter value is obscene.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“The weather turned to damp heat, the kind that settled on the shoulders and made people walk as if they were twenty pounds too heavy. It pointed tempers and blunted energy, and gave despair a great seductive power.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“You’d be surprised at how clearly you can hear something in your head and not be able to reproduce it.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“That’s bad art, you know. Copying reality without interpreting it.”
“Mmm. But illusion is not art. It can be a tool for art, but there is nothing of genuine creation in it.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“But it’s true that I have faced the Dark Court and lived. I suppose I could survive this peril as well, if need be.”
“What? Oh—no. I mean…” Eddi faltered and shook her head. “I’m not good at saying this kind of thing. I always sound stupid or too casual or…”
“My poet, betrayed by words?” He smiled crookedly.
“I never said I was a poet. Besides, it’s not the same thing. This is public speaking.” She smiled weakly and looked at his ruffles. He set his hands on her shoulders, but they were motionless and weightless.
“You’ve kept me alive for the last three months,” Eddie began, groping furiously for the words. “You’ve made me coffee. You’ve carried my amplifier.” A nervous chuckled escaped her. “And you’ve been pretty good company. Even when you were being a jerk, you were pretty good company, now that I look back on it.”
“But,” he said without inflection.
Eddi looked up at him, alarmed. “But? Oh, hell, I told you I was bad at this! No, no buts. You’re a wonderful person. Even if you are a supernatural being. Damn it, Phouka, how am I going to tell my mother that I’m in love with a guy who turns into a dog?” She blushed; she could feel it.
A silence of unreasonable proportions followed; the phouka’s only response was a quick spasm of his fingers on her shoulders. “Are you in love with him, then?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“Not quite.” There was a smile twitching in the corner of his mouth.
“All right, Al right.” Eddi took a long breath. “I love you.”
“There. Now why should that be so hard to say?”
“Because it sounds like something out of a soap opera,” Eddi grumbled.
“Does it? Not to me. The best line from a favorite song, perhaps.” His smile softened his whole face in a way she hadn’t seen before.
“That’s because you’re a damned romantic.”
He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear on one side. “Then you’re a doubly damned romantic, my heart, since you won’t even admit it. But perhaps with my excellent example before you…”
Eddi caught at his disconcerting fingers, which were now tracing the edge of her ear, and kissed his knuckles. “You’re a jerk,” she said fondly. “Where were we going, when we got distracted?”
“Earth and Air, I’d forgotten! It’s your fault, you know. The color of your hair in the moonlight, the curve of your waist, the—”
“You’re going to forget again.”
“You’re quite right. But I’ll try not to do so for at least a few minutes. You will enjoy this, I think.” He flashed her a grin and folded his fingers around hers. “Come along, then.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“You think you did so badly, then?” His look was full of contained smugness. “I’d say otherwise, myself.”
“Yeah? We’re you here when I came close to calling him a warmonger?”
The phouka tried not to smile. “You came nowhere near it. Surely a warmonger is one who sells war, as a fishmonger sells fish?”
“Get stuffed. You know what I mean. You heard that, then? And you still don’t think he’s pissed?”
The phouka nodded.
“Then either I’m luckier than I deserve, or you’re dumber than you look.”
He was delighted with that. “You’re good for my self-esteem.”
“The way aspirin’s good for a headache?” Eddi said, and realized he was making her smile.
“Precisely. Do you want to dance, make music, or sample a new amusement?”
She could tell from his tone what he hoped. “What new amusement?”
“Oh there’s a competition just begun, ‘round the other side of the hill, that you might enjoy watching.”
“I love when you use that full-of-yourself voice. Lead on, son.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“Which means what?”
“That the Queen of Faerie recognizes you as a power, and has spoken to you with respect. Others will follow her lead.”
“Huh. That and a quarter will buy me a gumball.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“How do you feel?” Eddi asked.
“Infinitely weary, sweet, but it’s true that a quantity of hot water poured over the head is a sovereign remedy for most ills.”
He rubbed the space between his eyebrows and smiled at her.
Eddi stood up. At the table, Willy stirred restlessly, and she took pleasure in ignoring him. “Let me look at your head,” she said to the phouka.
“It’s right here,” he replied, pointing. “Look all you like.”
“Don’t be stupid. Never mind, I suppose that’s too much to ask.” She lifted his wet hair carefully off his forehead. At her touch, the phouka closed his eyes and drew a long, irregular breath. The gash on his temple still seeped blood. “What did they hit you with, anyway?”
“A big rock,” he enunciated carefully. “Nothing but the most sophisticated weaponry can prevail against me.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

“I don’t have to answer to you. For anything.”
Willy’s eyes narrowed.
“Okay,” Eddi said. “I should be patient. But all three of us just spent the last—however long it was—with people trying to kill us. It frays your temper. So if you want to discuss the night’s events, do it. But if you’d rather play B-movie gestapo officer, you can play somewhere else.”
― Emma Bull, War for the Oaks