The Pull of the Stars Quotes

“She murmured, We could always blame the stars. I beg your pardon, Doctor? That's what influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed. I pictured that, the celestial bodies trying to fly us like upsidedown kites. Or perhaps just yanking on us for their obscure amusement.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“I seem to have stumbled onto love, like a pothole in the night.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“COVER UP EACH COUGH OR SNEEZE…FOOLS AND TRAITORS SPREAD DISEASE.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Only for the duration, of course, for the foreseeable future, as the posters said. Though I was having trouble foreseeing any future. How would we ever get back to normal after the pandemic”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“I gazed up at the sky and let my eyes flicker from one constellation to another, to another, jumping between stepping stones. I thought of the heavenly bodies throwing down their narrow ropes to hook us. I’ve never believed the future was inscribed for each of us the day we were born. If anything were written in the stars, it was we who joined those dots, and our lives were the writing. But baby Garrett, born dead yesterday, and all those whose stories were over before they began, and those who opened their eyes and found they were living in a long nightmare, like Bridie and baby White, who decreed that, I wondered, or at least allowed it?”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Nursing was like being under a spell: you went in very young and came out older than any span of years could make you.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“At any rate, let’s not waste time on ruminations and regrets in the middle of a pandemic.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“This flu was clogging the whole works of the hospital. Not just the hospital, I reminded myself—the whole of Dublin. The whole country. As far as I could tell, the whole world was a machine grinding to a halt. Across the globe, in hundreds of languages, signs were going up urging people to cover their coughs.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“That’s what influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“You and I are lucky, Nurse Power.

I frowned. Lucky? To be alive and well, you mean?

To be here, in the middle of this. We'll never learn more or faster.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“I’d never believed the future was inscribed for each of us the day we were born. If anything was written in the stars, it was we who joined those dots, and our lives were the writing.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“And one of these days, even this flu will have run its course. Really? Mary O’Rahilly asked. How can you be sure? The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“I’m beginning to know enough to know that I know nothing.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Guilt was the sooty air we breathed these days.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“looked up and found the Great Bear. I told her, In Italy, they used to blame the influence of the constellations for making them sick—that’s where influenza comes from. Bridie took that notion in stride. As if, when it’s your time, your star gives you a yank—”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“PUBLIC IS URGED TO STAY OUT OF PUBLIC PLACES SUCH AS CAFÉS, THEATRES, CINEMAS,
AND PUBLIC HOUSES. SEE ONLY THOSE PERSONS ONE NEEDS TO SEE. REFRAIN FROM SHAKING HANDS, LAUGHING, OR CHATTING CLOSELY TOGETHER. IF ONE MUST KISS,
DO SO THROUGH A HANDKERCHIEF. SPRINKLE SULPHUR IN THE SHOES. IF IN DOUBT, DON’T STIR OUT.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“None of this dirt is yours, I told her. You’re as clean as rain. She kissed me, but on the forehead this time.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“The old world was changed utterly, dying on its feet, and a new one was struggling to be born.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“of human traffic that connected all nations into one great suffering body.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“As far as I could tell, the whole world was a machine grinding to a halt. Across the globe, in hundreds of languages, signs were going up urging people to cover their coughs.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“We all live in an unwalled city, that was it. I saw lines scored across the map of Ireland; carved all over the globe. Train tracks, roads, shipping channels, a web of human traffic that connected all nations into one great suffering body.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Sinn Féiners? (The Gaelic phrase meant us-aloners. They went around ranting that home rule wouldn’t be enough now; nothing would content them but a breakaway republic.)”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“That’s what influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“Well, as they say, all cats are grey in the dark.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“A change is as good as a rest.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“We could always blame the stars. I beg your pardon, Doctor? That’s what influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed. I pictured that, the celestial bodies trying to fly us like upside-down kites. Or perhaps just yanking on us for their obscure amusement”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“So instead of poverty, I’d write malnourishment or debility. As code for too many pregnancies, I might put anaemia, heart strain, bad back, brittle bones, varicose veins, low spirits, incontinence, fistula, torn cervix, or uterine prolapse. There was a saying I’d heard from several patients that struck a chill into my bones: She doesn’t love him unless she gives him twelve.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars