11 Quotes by Ruthanna Emrys

Innsmouth women might deck themselves in gold for a man's pleasure, recite passages of lore to show off their learning, or cultivate an interest in stories about fishing expeditions. But my mother had never taught me how to efface myself to bolster male self-importance—nor had my father taught any need for it.

If magic violates the fundamental laws of nature, they clearly weren't all that fundamental.

This is the simplest of spells, and foundation to all others. Magic seeks to better understand, and eventually to build on, the connection between minds and bodies. Even to calm a storm, you treat the wind and rain as if they were alive and corporeal. That is why blood is part of the spell, along with words and symbols.

Even the most ill-formed words, set to paper, are a great blessing.

It is written in the Archives that, once upon a time, the gods looked out on a universe barren and unthinking save for themselves. And they tested and experimented until they sparked matter into a form that might, one day, be capable of thought. And Shub-Nigaroth, mother of fear, looked on the first life and said: it will fail, but for now it is good. Spector.

Surely one’s childhood concerns must be hard to encounter decades later, regardless of the life fallen between.

What our religion tells us, the part that is a religion, is that the gods created life to try and make meaning. It’s ultimately hopeless, and even gods die, but the effort is real. Will always have been real, even when everything is over and no one remembers.

There are different ways of understanding the universe, and you learn nothing by running an experiment if a spell or a sculpture is what’s needed. And there are things we’ll never understand because we don’t have the time, or the right sorts of minds.

Odd how automatic masks are, even with those who’ve seen beneath them.