Julie Anne Long Quotes

Why?" He sounded bemused. He'd whispered the word.
She supposed he meant: why are you here? Because her mind answered with: Because I love you, and damn you for it. You have both made my life worth living and utterly ruined it, and I'm grateful that you did.
She smiled faintly. She would never say it. ~ Julie Anne Long

I suppose we all tend to want the impossible. And sometimes in attempting it we achieve something near enough to the impossible to elicit satisfaction. ~ Julie Anne Long

He was sardonic even in his thoughts these days. ~ Julie Anne Long

The butterflies did a slow orbit in her stomach. ~ Julie Anne Long

Ah, Lyon: the Achilles' heel of this family. She had forgotten about Lyon, and about disappearing Redmonds. ~ Julie Anne Long

There are things the artist intends, and things the viewer sees, and what the viewer sees isn't always what the artist intends. Isn't always apparent upon first viewing. ~ Julie Anne Long

No one understood what his legend had cost him. ~ Julie Anne Long

Everyone needed a reminder to simply look at things and enjoy them, without labeling them. ~ Julie Anne Long

And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex. ~ Julie Anne Long

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. ~ Julie Anne Long

What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite.
That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.
"Well, I'm partial to whores."
Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or ... or ...
"Whor ... whores ... ?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.
He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.
"I ... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard. ~ Julie Anne Long

No proper life could be made from the pursuit of blinding pleasure followed by limp exhaustion. ~ Julie Anne Long

Which was why he reflexively turned when a flash of iridescence caught his eye. His first thought was: Morpho rhetenor Helena. The extraordinary tropical butterfly with wings of shifting colors: blues, lavenders, greens.
It proved to be a woman's skirt.
The color was blue, but by the light of the legion of overhead candles, he saw purples and even greens shivering in its weave. A bracelet of pale stones winked around one wrist, a circlet banded her dark head. The chandelier struck little beams from that, too.
She's altogether too shiny for a woman, he decided, and began to turn away.
Which was when she tipped her face up into the light.
Everything stopped. The beat of his heart, the pump of his lungs, the march of time.
Seconds later, thankfully, it all resumed. Much more violently than previously.
And then absurd notions roman-candled in his mind.
His palms ached to cradle her face - it was a kitten's face, broad and fair at the brow, stubborn at the chin. She had kitten's eyes, too: large and a bit tilted and surely they weren't actually the azure of calm southern seas? Surely he, Miles Redmond, hadn't entertained such a florid thought? Her eyebrows were wicked: fine, slanted, very dark. Her hair was probably brown, but it was as though he'd never learned the word "brown."
Burnished. Silk. Copper. Azure. Delicate. Angel. Hallelujah. Suddenly these were the only words he knew. ~ Julie Anne Long

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

Good God. He doesn't know me at *all*.
How crushing.
How illuminating.
How ... potentially very useful. ~ Julie Anne Long

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. ~ Julie Anne Long

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

I know what you think of me, Miles. I know what you
have thought of me. But I have a heart. I do have a heart. I just cannot afford to use it. Don't you see? Why can't you see this? Whereas you
may play at all of this as much as you like. There will always be someone for you. And that is the difference. I cannot afford to use my heart. And you
you choose not to use yours.' - Cynthia Brightley to Miles Redmond ~ Julie Anne Long

This man offered her forever.
And if Prescott had asked a month ago ... If he'd asked the day before she'd encountered Jonathan Redmond at midnight outside the Duke of Greyfolk's house ...
Ah, but she was a different woman now. One kiss had changed that.
And a ballroom orgasm. ~ Julie Anne Long

You wouldn't consider riding me, would you?' he asked politely.
'You've lovely manners, she purred. 'But of course. ~ Julie Anne Long

The wrong man could have brought it all crashing down," she told him. "A different man might have collapsed under the weight of the responsibility. ~ Julie Anne Long

When and if Violet ever fell in love, lightning would split the heavens, tectonic plates would shift, continents would reorder themselves.
Because she might be willful and spoiled and impetuous, but no one loved with the force of his sister. Her love story would be epic. ~ Julie Anne Long

Well, it's not as though he cannot help it, you see. The…saving of things. I suspect it's Captain Flint's way of telling the world, 'This is how it's done.'"

She wondered if it was also Flint's way of showing the world, "This is how you could have saved me when I was a boy. ~ Julie Anne Long

Have you ever been in love?"
"Colin. For the love of God."
"I have," he said bluntly. "And when you lose love, it tears a hole out of you. The pain can be gruesome. I thought I lost Madeline once, and I swear for a few days I thought I might never be whole again."
"Perhaps you should write a poem about it. Add another verse to your song. ~ Julie Anne Long

Life is short, Tommy. Short and dangerous. A bit like you. ~ Julie Anne Long

She didn't want to need anything, particularly something - or someone - she quite simply couldn't have. Too much had been taken from her already, and she'd had enough of accommodating pain, of straightening her spine, of soldiering on ~ Julie Anne Long

She would be incapable of not broaching. It took ~ Julie Anne Long

Good God. She was Wellington with eyelashes. ~ Julie Anne Long

She didn't usually mind being just a bit in over her head. She generally flailed like a becalmed ship, irritable and purposeless and panicked, when things were simple. ~ Julie Anne Long

Of course you're sorry. The first words out of the mouths of men who are caught doing something they're only too happy to continue until they're caught. ~ Julie Anne Long

What happens next?" she whispered.
Connor turned to her and smiled faintly. Always a question, that was Rebecca.
There's more?" he said in mock wonderment
Rebecca dimpled.
You know very well there is more."
Tell me all about it," he encouraged.
In Papa's book - "
Tell me all about it without mentioning your papa. ~ Julie Anne Long

And for a moment he simply held her and she held onto him.
It might have been the most perfect moment of his life so far. ~ Julie Anne Long

Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical. ~ Julie Anne Long

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 ~ Julie Anne Long

Foolishness had never been an option in his life. He hadn't acquired the knack for it. He should have known. Kisses, he'd learned through hard experience, complicated things, unless they were a means to a foregone conclusion or part of an ongoing sensual entanglement. He'd never had a kiss quite like that one. One he hadn't planned. One that had seemed so . . . necessary. One that had nevertheless solved nothing. One that had led to him flattening himself behind a shrubbery and later, sneezing a tiny winged insect out of his nose on the walk back to the house. It had lodged there while he lay flat on his back, staring up at the crisp blue Autumn sky, contemplating his folly, listening to Miss Vale prevaricate wildly. He was almost sorry he hadn't heard her invent a bawdy new verse to the Colin Eversea song. ~ Julie Anne Long

But the pain was old to him, and somehow it had become a part of him. He could bear it and speak of it. It had shaped him; he had accomodated it. He had loved abd he had lost and it had made him who he was. ~ Julie Anne Long

She thought that heartbreak might just give his character the shadows and corners and angles it needed to make it truly interesting. To deepen and shape it. She was sorry she would be the one to help make him truly interesting. But she'd never apologize for falling in love with a man who already was. ~ Julie Anne Long

Oh, God. She'd now have to invent a bawdy verse on the spot. She'd never had to improvise so much in her entire life as she had in the last five minutes. Improvise being another word for lie, of course. ~ Julie Anne Long

Let's refer to it as Saturday, rather than the day of my hanging, shall we? ~ Julie Anne Long

Oh, God," he said softly to himself. "I knew you were trouble. ~ Julie Anne Long

I love you so much i can hardly tell my own heart from yours anymore, and I've never said it to another woman in my life as it's never until now been true. ~ Julie Anne Long

MEEEEE!" it bellowed.
She jumped back again, dropping the basket lid. What the devil?
She opened it again, and looked down at the wee thing.
"MEEEEEE!"
"Good heavens, you are loud," she told it. "I thought cats were supposed to say 'meow.' There are two syllables in meow."
"MEEEEEE!" It corrected vehemently and with great singularity. ~ Julie Anne Long

Her voice was a thread, but still she managed to sound acerbic. "I believe it's the devil's job to tempt me. Not yours."
"And the difference between the devil and I would be . . . ?"
"None that I can detect. ~ Julie Anne Long

I have learned that everyone else in the world is boring except you. ~ Julie Anne Long

Don't be tedious, Lavay. If it's so necessary for you to know," he said ungraciously. "She won a contest."
There was a short stunned silence.
"You ... played a game?" Lavay said this slow, flat incredulity, hilarity suppressed, clearly trying to picture it. "And you lost to a ... girl. What manner of contest was this? Ribbon-tying?"
Flint felt ridiculous now, in retrospect, which was doing nothing to settle his temper. "I challenged her to aim a dart ... let's just say it landed rather serendipitously in the right spot,"
he finished curtly. "She was lucky."
"You speak metaphorically, Captain? She aimed a dart as in the vein of Cupid? ~ Julie Anne Long

They immediately spent a moment in bemused silence in honor of the perilous little paradox that was the English female ~ Julie Anne Long

Love.' What a wilderness of pain, of yearning, of loss could be contained in that word. Patient and kind nonsense, is how Lady Fennimore had put it. Love wasn't for cowards; he wondered if it was for the wise. He supposed love itself made you stupid at first, or no one, no one would ever fall in love at all. ~ Julie Anne Long

The sympathy calls had been shot through with a subtle, yet unmistakably morbid glee. The queen had at last been nudged from her throne. It had taken disaster to do it, but still. ~ Julie Anne Long

He just hadn't expected to have his equilibrium roughly jostled by a pair of blue eyes this evening. He couldn't remember ever seeing eyes quite that color before. So achingly lovely they made him restless. He felt oddly as though he needed to do something about them. ~ Julie Anne Long

For you see, Captain Flint, I, too, never settle for less than what I want. Or never thought I possibly could. I'm a Redmond. If only you truly understood what this means. So I set out to reorder the world in a way I thought would make me worthy of her love. But my quest has changed me in ways I never anticipated, and I'm not the man who once loved that girl. There's much more to my journey yet. And here's a bitter irony: I've found in becoming heroic, in becoming worthy of her, I've painted myself into an untenable corner. I've more work to do to prove someone's innocence or guilt. ~ Julie Anne Long

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

She slid her arms ~ Julie Anne Long

How, she had no idea. She seldom considered the "how" of things. ~ Julie Anne Long

But there really was no point in asking. She read things, she knew things, and out they came, little surprises. It was strangely like unwrapping little gifts, not all of which he appreciated. She clung to facts and information, like flotsam in a shipwreck. They'd saved her. ~ Julie Anne Long

He leaned in for a sniff. 'Smells like a horse's arse! I've got Ian!' -'No sniffing allowed! We never discussed sniffing! I cry foul!' Ian was outraged. 'I'm not giving you a shilling!' -'Give him a shilling! It's not his fault you smell like a horse's arse! ~ Julie Anne Long

There are those who think beauty is a thing of surface, and forget that it's really of the soul. But good is something you are, not something you do. - Vicar Adam Sylvaine ~ Julie Anne Long

When Phoebe glanced back at the marquess he swiftly lifted that rogue lock of hair, pointed at his forehead and mouthed: Good aim. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Dear God, he was sporting a bruise! So that's where she'd clocked him with his hat! And this explained the forelock. ~ Julie Anne Long

Men who are fatally struck usually take a moment to drop. He felt rather suspended in that moment. ~ Julie Anne Long

The one thing she'd been able to count on her entire life was her cleverness. She was so often right. It was humbling and disorienting to realize that she in truth knew nothing at all. 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. ~ Julie Anne Long

She was backing away from him now. Don't go, was his first panicked thought. Followed by: Hurry up. ~ Julie Anne Long

Does she make you laugh?" He thought about this. "She laughs a good deal when I'm about," he allowed. Did Colin Eversea really want to be laughed at rather than with his entire life? He was the most maddening person she'd ever met, but his humor contained angles; he used it both to deflect and persuade. And if one could see around it, one would see into vulnerability. ~ Julie Anne Long

Sometimes, the only way out of the fire is through the fire, m'boy. ~ Julie Anne Long

Imagine the ton would leap from London Bridge if the marquess did it first. Mind you, he'd land on a cart carrying a feather mattress when he did it, whilst the rest of London would splatter. ~ Julie Anne Long

Now, here's a philosophical dilemma for a vicar ... is it a lie if you don't know you're lying? Is it a lie if you're lying to yourself?"
"Is it a sin if I tell my cousin to bugger off? ~ Julie Anne Long

Irony, when delivered cold and shaved very, very fine, could sound like amusement. ~ Julie Anne Long

Because "Platitude" was a language everyone spoke ~ Julie Anne Long

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? ~ Julie Anne Long

Her predicament (the word she had come to prefer in her mind, rather than "circumstances") had turned her into quite a philosopher, when by nature she'd always been a pragmatist. For instance, one allegedly wasn't rewarded for all of the good one did until on departed the Earthly Plane. But if you committed one (albeit epic) transgression, a lifetime of damnation seemed required. ~ Julie Anne Long

What was love if not a certain pleasantly deluded familiarity built up over years? ~ Julie Anne Long

Fallen woman." The term made a sort of poetic sense. Once the fall started, it seemed it never stopped. ~ Julie Anne Long

But she bravely kept her eyes open; she was both lost and found in the soft, burning depths of his eyes. ~ Julie Anne Long

The question remains ... who takes care of you, Miss Vale?"
"I might ask the same question of you, Lord Dryden. ~ Julie Anne Long

A few deep breaths would take care of that. She studied the horse and took deep breaths. ~ Julie Anne Long

The stars are particularly spectacular tonight, don't you think? Dazzling. As if they've all had a good rinsing from the storm. ~ Julie Anne Long

I took a fall, he confirmed evenly. After a hesitation doubtless only Phoebe noticed.
And Phoebe didn't know whether it was the sort of fall Lucifer took, or the sort poets wrote about when love struck, or even if it was an innuendo at all, because she suspected everything was destined to sound like an innuendo from now on. ~ Julie Anne Long

He'd meant to take her apart with a kiss. How, then, did he wind up in pieces? ~ Julie Anne Long

And I served as an officer in the army."
"Very impressive. I've been told that war is boredom interspersed with violence and terror. ~ Julie Anne Long

A girl could forget her precise location in the universe when a man looked at her with eyes like those. ~ Julie Anne Long

For if light had a sound, it was that laugh. ~ Julie Anne Long

But its understood Olivia in particular is so vivid and vivacious, and she has such strong passions. I believe the flowers are meant to convey admiration for this," she explained.
"And while those are indeed admirable qualities in a woman. I also appreciate subtleties of character," he parried.
"And yet so very little is subtle about Lady Abigail Beasley," Miss Eversea pointed out peevishly, quickly.
'God.'
He nearly grunted with the force of her thrust home. And she'd demonstrated a willingness to play dirty. ~ Julie Anne Long

Jules was frozen with incredulity. In truth, he could not speak. He was touched by the display of honor in two country squires, and by the humbling - in truth hilarious - definitive evidence that some things were beyond his control. And life knew what was best for him better than he did, and had brought it to him, not with graceful precision, but with magnificent, ridiculous poetry. ~ Julie Anne Long

Colin could not recall a single woman ever regarding him with anything so neutral as detachment. It suddenly seemed important to ascertain whether she was pretty, in the same way it was necessary to know whether a man was armed. ~ Julie Anne Long

Go ahead, then. He likes his back rubbed. And his head scratched."

"The creature inflicts grievous wounds upon my person and expects me to forgive it?"

"I expect a lot of creatures inflict grievous wounds and expect forgiveness. ~ Julie Anne Long

Their faces were inches apart now, and he traced her lips with one finger, lightly, lightly, then placed his lips there as if he'd drawn them into being. ~ Julie Anne Long

And home, Elise, is anywhere love is. Any you are my love. ~ Julie Anne Long

Rhys told himself that everything came with a price. He'd made a difficult choice years ago to regain all he had, and some days he could convince himself that life was like war: bitter, desperate choices were often made in the name of survival, and some inevitably survived at the expense of others. ~ Julie Anne Long

Something was stirring in him, though; a bud of comprehension that could very well bloom into forgiveness if left unchecked. ~ Julie Anne Long

Furthermore - "

"There's a 'furthermore'?" His voice was utterly inflectionless.

" - I'm not a child. I'm a lady born of one of England's finest and oldest families, and I daresay even you know how to behave in the presence of a lady. Regardless of the inconvenience I've caused you, I'll thank you to remember whatever manners you've managed to feign to date, because the ones you're exhibiting do you no credit and merely reinforce the prevailing opinion, Captain Flint, that you are a savage." She delighted in giving the S a serpent-like sibilance. "The measure of a gentleman is how he behaves when he hasn't an audience to witness the beauty of his manners. And I wouldn't expect you to understand this, my lord, but centuries of fine breeding have ensured that I need not, as you say, exert myself if I choose not to. Only the likes of you equate the actual need to work with virtue. It is in fact due to the work of my ancestors that I no longer need to, and my family considers this a mark of honor. ~ Julie Anne Long

But is not one a result of the other?" she asked. "Love and loyalty? I cannot see how could you prefer one to the other. ~ Julie Anne Long

The words had somehow managed to bypass reason on the way out of his mouth ~ Julie Anne Long

He supposed it would be considered pastoral-there were trees clustered in a meadow, with two muscular black cows and two improbably fluffy sheep arranged beneath them-and in the sky were two winged cherubs so fat that surely the miracle in question as how they have gotten aloft at all. They would have needed to have the wingspans of albatrosses, not those foolish wee flaps sprouting from their shoulders, he decided, irritated. One of the cows was looking up at them with what he fancied was an expression of surpise and alarm. Which was precisely the expression he would wear if he'd suddenly noticed two fat cherubs bearing down on him. ~ Julie Anne Long

Charm, my dear, Cynthia wanted to tell her, is not learned, it is innate. And it is honed by desperation and need and sharpened by application. If you want the truth, that is. ~ Julie Anne Long

So she was to be savagely heartbroken and then poisoned by one of their cook's noxious herbal brews in the space of a few hours? Dante would find inspiration in this day. ~ Julie Anne Long

Oh, my goodness, Lord Dryden. You should have seen your face when you said the word work. It's not counted among the deadly sins, you know. ~ Julie Anne Long

And much like a catapult, my dear, the lower you begin in life, the higher you can eventually fly. All it requires is the right person to, shall we say, effect the launch.
-Miss Endicott. ~ Julie Anne Long

All his reckless, whimsical, sensual testing of the world throughout the years had been a search for what he knew with her. Passion and peace. Laughter and combat and friendship. God, but he loved her. It was an immensely humbling, enormous, radiant thing. ~ Julie Anne Long

Not every man will make you want to do anything he wishes because the moment he touches you your body is his to command. Not every man is capable of making you scream with bliss in every imaginable position, or knows where to touch you or listens to your breath and your sighs to know precisely how to touch you, so that the pleasure you experience is the most intense. Not every man will make you see stars every ... single ... time. ~ Julie Anne Long

But now he understood why someone would write things like 'she walked in beauty like the night' and so forth. Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time. ~ Julie Anne Long

Perhaps men like the Everseas were commonplace here in England. Perhaps finding a beautiful titled husband would be as simple as shaking an apple from a tree. ~ Julie Anne Long

He began to stand, and saw Lyon stiffen, poised to do whatever he needed to do. He, like Lyon, could throw himself on a pyre, too. Because fire cleansed. She'd won, and he'd lost.

It had stopped mattering. Her happiness was indistinguishable from his own. No matter what became of him, he wanted her to know he loved her.

"You'd best get out of here, Redmond. Your secret is safe with me."

Lyon's eyes flared in wary surprise. He froze. And his smile, when it came, was slow, and crooked, and he looked very like Lavay when Lavay was being insufferably knowing.

"Ah. You do love her more than life. Splendid. And that, my dear Lord Flint, is what I came here today to discover."

Whatever he felt was between him and Violet. "Go before I change my mind, Redmond. ~ Julie Anne Long