Quotes from Megan Whalen Turner

Because you do not believe? Oh, no, said Attolia bitterly. Because I believe and do not choose to worship.

If the king could make a throne seem like a stool fit for a printer's apprentice, the queen could make a rumpled bedspread into a throne.

They're going to leave me. All I wanted to do was lie in the dry prickly grass with my feet in a ditch forever. I could be a convenient sort of milemarker, I thought. Get to the thief and you know you are halfway to Methana. Where ever Methana might be.

The Lord of Rags and Tatters.

Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?' Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight. 'You have your answer, Little Thief.

Treachery, said the Mede. Diplomacy, said Attolia, in my own name.

As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.

I grieved, but a part of me felt a lightening of a burden that I had carried all my life: that I could never be worthy of them, that I would always disappoint or fail them. As an unknown slave in the fields of the baron, I knew the worst was over. I had failed them. At least I could not do so again

Thank you, thief. You're welcome, my queen.

Are you telling me in your own gentle way to stop whining? Yes. I don't feel like a hero. I feel like an idiot. I think heroes generally do, but those men believe in you. I did wait until I was outside before I threw up.

When I am actually willing to marry you, I will wear your earrings. Don't wait for it, Thief.

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 asked Ochto what in the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing. Helping you, said Dirnes. Why? They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in the eye. Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but I know men.

No man can choose to serve only himself when he has something to offer his state. No one can put his own wishes above the needs of so many.

Let the gods into your life and you rapidly lose faith in the natural laws.

Just asleep, Eddis reassured her. At the sound of her voice Eugenides's head turned slightly, but he didn't wake. Attolia, seeing the movement, breathed again and pressed her hand to her chest where it hurt.

Ornon says, Ornon-who-always-has-something-to-say says, the Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder. That's what makes us dangerous. -Eugenides

You are treasure beyond any price.

Thanks to His Majesty, the magus said, and my father seemed startled at the correction but not displeased. He looked thoroughly satisfied and very much like Ina when she has all her embroidery threads arranged to her satisfaction. He looked so pleased that I checked over my shoulder to see if there might be someone else behind me who had drawn his attention.

I'm terrified that if they know how much I hate it, they might take it away.

Relius lay alone with his thoughts. What kind of man, he wondered, referred to himself as "safely dead"?

He didn't want to talk to Pol. Pol would want him to go somewhere on the back of a horse.

Where are my guards, Teleus? He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn't even breathing hard, Costis noted.

Power. What men like best for themselves and least in their women.