Quotes from Megan Whalen Turner

Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?

All of my own impulses to balance and move seemed to conflict with those of the guards, and I was jerked and jostled down the portico, just as graceful as a sick cat.

Were you lying? I never lie, he said piously. About what? The sand, the snake. For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question.

On the bed, Eugenides stirred restlessly. Upset at the sight of blood? he said. Not my wife, Ornon. Your blood, the ambassador pointed out. Eugenides glanced at the hook on his arm and conceded the point. Yes, he said. He seemed lost in memory. The room was quiet.

Please, he whispered. His voice was low but clear. Don't hurt me anymore. Attolia recoiled. Once, as a child, she'd thrown her slipper in a rage and had knocked an amphora of oil from its pedestal. The amphora had been a favorite of hers. It had smashed, and the scent of the hair oil inside had lingered for days. She remembered the scent still, though she didn't know what in the stinking cell had brought it to mind.

I am an ambassador, Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. You cannot shoot. I don't mean to, I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety. I raised my voice a trifle, though it wasn't really necessary. We will have another vote, Xorcheus. They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous.

He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.

The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop.

Your Majesty, is it true that your cousins held you down in a water cache? Is it also true that they wouldn't let you out until you agreed to repeat insults about your own family? I could send you to ask them. It would be a long trip, your Majesty. I would much rather hear the answer from you. Oh the trip would be much faster than you think. Most of my male cousins are dead. Forgive me, Your Majesty, if I offended.

He waved at his attendants. I dragged them like a ball and chain all the way across the palace and back. If sterner measures are called for, we can find a larger ball and chain. The queen turned and disappeared into the partment. Oh, dear, Eugenides muttered as he followed...The queen's sterner measures, dispensed by the Eddisian Ambassador, arrived before dawn.

That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That'll teach me to go hide in a temple.

I wouldn't destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house.

But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?

He wondered how the Attolians thought Eugenides had managed to become king if he was the idiot they assumed him to be. Perhaps because they had never seen him as the Thief, with his head thrown back and a glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of a man's neck rise up.

The room was quiet, the others flicking glances at me. I ignored them. After years in Sounis's palaces being eyed with disgust by my uncle and my own father and courtier after courtier, I assure you I am unrivaled at pretending not to notice other people's glances.

In the afternoon, the king and queen sat to hear the business of their kingdom. At least, the queen sat to hear the business; Costis was still not sure what the king was doing.

The younger one looked to be completely useless.

Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King.

As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone?

The magus said thoughtfully, That lying little monster complained about everything: the food, the horses, the blankets, the company. He even found fault with the stories I told by the fire but I cannot recall that he ever once complained about the climbing. So many things are obvious in retrospect, aren't they? I said.

Phresine showed him where he could sleep, in an interior room with no windows, a narrow bed, and a washstand. There were chests stacked along one wall, and Costis guessed the dismal spot was probably a closet cleaned out to make room for him. Hard to believe the royal apartments, so lavish elsewhere, would otherwise have such a plain corner. Expecting better of royal closets, Costis went to bed disappointed.

I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy.

The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia's master of spies, and he will carry the news to her. Her secretary of the archives, murmured the magus. Hmm? asked the queen. Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so- Accurate? Overtly direct, said the magus. Eddis laughed.

The prison keeper choose an inopportune time to look around the doorway into the cell. He and the king locked gazes, and the king's eyes narrowed while the prison keeper's widened.