Quotes from Megan Whalen Turner

What kind of man refers to himself as safely dead?

A little danger adds spice to life.

Then come out, said the king, helping him, knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.

Dying would have been so much easier.

That prison, I said with heartfelt sincerity, Was absolutely the most awful thing that has happened to me in my entire life. I could tell by the way he looked at me that he thought my life had been filled with one awful thing after another.

Costis bowed stiffly. "I am here to make sure that you stay in bed, Your Majesty, because if this offends you and you order me summarily executed, it is no loss. Politically speaking.

I hate horses. I know people who think that they are noble, graceful animals, but regardless of what a horse looks like from a distance, never forget that it's as likely to step on your foot as look at you.

I am a master of foolhardy plans.

These people make my family look easy to get along with.

You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it. Attolia smiled. You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth. No, said Eddis thoughtfully. Never more than he is worth.

Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.

No friend had I made there, but I wasn't with this group to make friends, and besides, he sneered too much. I've found that people who sneer are almost always sneering at me.

After one moment of gripped immobility, the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, 'I love your eyes.' She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. 'I love your ears, and I love'-she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips-'every single one of your ridiculous lies.' The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it was unfathomable.

And the Earth had no name. The gods know themselves and have no need of names. It is man who names all things, even gods.

I have a whole guard room full of brawny veterans who'd enjoy a chance to drag two Eddisians out of here, particularly if you kicked a lot and they could kick you back.

I want you to steal something. I smiled. Do you want the king's seal? I can get it for you. If I were you, said the magus, I'd stop bragging about that. His voice grated. My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away.

Because not wanting the prize the gods have arranged for you - that just might offend the hell right out of them.

So Sophos thinks you're going to marry me. While I think you'll marry Sophos. I might. We'll see what he's like when he grows up.

She pulled the bedclothes up as far as they would go and suppressed a perverse wish to have her old nurse come to chase away the darkness, perverse because she didn't know if she wanted the shadows to be empty or not.

She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn't know how to nurture it or if it could live.

We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.

He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say 'We eat the chicken now!' but the magus had seen that I was considering it... My purse is full enough, said the magus, to keep you supplied with roast chickens. So, so, so, I said. We know who the power behind the throne is, and the magus laughed. You eat more than Gen did after prison, he said. I have more sympathy with him all the time. Are you going to finish that drumstick? I asked. I am. Stop staring at it.

Muse of poetry, come to his aid, I thought. Could the man produce one more metaphor of husbandry? He seemed to be trying. Green wood, I suggested, but even he sensed that there was something unfortunate about a metaphor for a king in which you dry out your royalty before you set fire to it.