Quotes from Megan Whalen Turner

You're awake," he said. "Phresine is not," pointed out the queen. "Oh?" "You gave her lethium." "She gave it to me first.

You learn something new everyday." "What are you learning?" Sophos asked. "To keep my mouth shut, I hope.

Oh, that," said the king with a shrug. "That isn't your honor, Costis. That's the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.

One of us might be assassinated and then my heir will be king. Don't give up hope just because chances are slim." "For the assassination or the heir, your majesty?

Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances." Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?

I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse. Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library?

But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.

Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.

I think a good book is a good book forever. I don't think they get less good because times change.

That is ridiculous," she said. The king agreed. "Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice.

All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.

It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.