Quotes from Julie Anne Long

Gentleness was sometimes perilously close to pity.

One only ever saw a fraction of someone, whatever it was they chose to show you, and extrapolated a whole person from that. And saw them through a prism of one's own prejudices.

He was a relentlessly cheerful presence, talked only of himself but so good-naturedly that she indulged him. He certainly laughed a good deal. Something about his laugh made her feel more alone than if she were standing on a high cliff at the end of the world, shouting her name into the void to hear it echo back at her.

Good evening, Miss Eversea. You've stars in your hair.

Yes, Miss Masters, but walking is also a way to announce who you are. Gideon waved one arm impassionedly. How you view yourself in the world. The way you hold yourself, the way you move, how you occupy a space, tells other people a good deal about you, ~from To Love a Thief

It's what this night would feel like if I could seize hold of it

He felt feral, standing naked - clearly the word of the day - and perspiring at an open window, irritable and restless, acutely aware of every inch of his skin, or, more accurately, the full contours of his being. As though it had been coiled into a cramped place and newly freed, and now was needling him as the blood flowed again. Skin was useful for more than being the thing between his viscera and bullets, for instance. It was capable of knowing glories.

He was all too aware of the failings of his species and he knew how to use them to his advantage. A fascinating skill. A useful one. But hardly a loving one.

Such a fragile way to sustain a whole life: on a web one weaves for oneself.

The butterflies did a slow orbit in her stomach.

I thought love was meant to be an easy, peaceful thing, Lillias. But it's like life itself. It's maddening. And beautiful. And changeable and funny and passionate. It's...like a Hudson River Valley sunset. Underneath all that fire and glory the sky is ever constant. It's like you. For me, it is you.

A murder of crows, a pride of lions, a judgment of ladies

Her mind was obsessively playing and replaying his words of five minutes ago. And finally she could contain them no longer. 'Was she pretty?' she mimicked the vicar's creaky tones. 'Very,' she answered, in a very good imitation of the viscount's own baritone. Kit snorted a laugh. But really, Kit had waxed almost lyrical about Caroline Allston--- Caro, no doubt. Susannah wondered of Caro was carved on the viscount's heart the way it was on the oak, scarred and thick with age.

It might have begun a bit like a chess game, but it had taken on its own momentum, and owned both of them.

And home, Elise, is anywhere love is. Any you are my love.

His voice surprised her: a baritone with the depth of a bell and deliciously frayed at the edges, it was like stumbling into a patch of sunlight on a relentlessly gray day.

He wasn't at all what she expected. No: this wasn't true. He was everything she'd expected from everything she'd read about him—he was irritating, frivolous, arrogant, disconcertingly charming. It was just that she would not have suspected his intelligence had depth, that his wit was in part defense, that his charm was a result of, in part, startlingly acute perception and even…grace.

there was a sudden easing in him, as if someone had finally played a note that harmonized with the one he sounded every day.

I couldn't see it because you are my heart, damn you! And how can I see my own heart if it's beating in my own chest?

He was older, bolder. He knew of whores and wars, violence and vendettas. He knew precisely what he wanted, always. He wanted her.

You ought to choose fewer words that contain S for the time being. You are spitting all over me.

she wondered if seeds ever resented the sun, knowing it would shine with no quarter and give them no choice but to push their heads up out of the safety of the hard, hard ground and bloom.

Cynthia wondered how anyone could withstand this sort of happiness. But no doubt no one had ever before been as happy as she was at this moment, so there couldn't possibly be any precedent. She would have to show them all how to do it by surviving it and marrying Miles Redmond and living to a ripe old age.

She settled upon the hound. She met its brown eyes. It blinked slowly in what she liked to think was sympathy. Neither of them wanted to be where they were at the moment.