Quotes from Megan Whalen Turner

How do you know that, Philo, dear? But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are. By the time Lamion had parsed this to make sure that there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm.

Eddis looked at her minister, curious. "Your head?" she asked. Attolia explained. "He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son." "So have we all from time to time," Eddis said seriously.

He looked gravely at the king. 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. But no matter, Your Majesty. You are revealed at last. The king looked down at his nakedness and back at the captain. Was that a joke? he asked.

Being six feet off the ground does give one a sense of superiority.

I can't leave her there all alone, surrounded by stone walls... She's too precious to give up.

One cannot toss ambassadors back like bad fish, said Eugenides. You treat them with care, or you'll find you've committed an act of war.

Ah, said the magus, understanding at once. I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again. Surely that's unlikely, said Sounis. I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us, said the magus.

Anyone who can steal the king's seal ring can manage the locks on his record room.

Who was the Thief that she would love him? A youth, just a boy with hardly a beard and no sense at all... A liar, she thought, an enemy, a threat. He was brave, a voice inside her said, he was loyal... A fool, she answered back. A fool and a dead one. She ached with emptiness.

Tell me a story then...keep me occupied. A story?...What makes you think I can tell a story? Insight, said the king, Go on.

Is that what the wine is for? To help you think? Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.

What a strange world it is, where prisoners are left their weapons and the written word is a mortal danger.

That one,-he nodded toward the closed door- will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.

Why didn't you tell me to take Attolia's advice from the beginning? I thought you should figure it out. What you learn for yourself, you will know forever, said Eugenides. Pol used to say that, said Sounis, surprised. I learned it from him. I just wish to my god that I had his patience for the process.

I thought that being king meant I didn't have to kill people myself. I see know that was another misconception.

Would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me that the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head. Is that when he cried? He ducked, Attolia said dryly. Grown more confident of the queen's humor, Relius said, I had not pictured you for a fishwife. Lo, the transforming power of love.

We are taught to treat a practice sword with all the respect of a real weapon, so no thoughtless mistakes are made Oh... In Eddis, we learn to keep tack of the weapon we have in our hand.

I am very good at groveling.

I'm sorry, Dite. Dite shrugged away the apology. You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize. Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.

The queen! someone shouted in alarm, and the King erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.

If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.

The Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder.

She was the stone-faced queen, then and ever after. She had needed the mask to rule, and she had been glad to have it. She wondered if Eugenides was glad of his.

I know that if you don't look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won't find one.