Quotes About Power

The words hung there, a declaration, a taunt. You can't stop me!

The priests had had a network before Paulinus unraveled it. Hild would reweave it, to her own purpose.

I'm not pretty." "You don't need to be pretty. You're like lightning. Like a tide. Like a blizzard." "Something to run from." "Something to get caught up in. Somthing to remember for the rest of your life.

She opened her mouth and let the wind take her breath away.

Just inside the tent, the king, unhelmed, stood with his naked sword in one hand, point resting on the floor, and a goblet in his other.

Send me strength, she called-to whom?-and kicked Bony to a gallop, and hurled her javelin hard and true.

Hild bent over and vomited stinging bile, then through her weeping, killed the man at her feet.

First the half-lidded look, then the widening eyes, the black pupils swelling like ink dropped in water, swallowing the blue centres leaving the outer pleats of his eyes green and glistening, swarming like flies looking for something to eat, someone to hurt to make himself strong and safe.

It was a look Hild recognised: a cat watching a stunned mouse in no hurry to kill. Who was his smile for?

Guns can be a distraction, a dangerous focus of one's authority, a crutch. Many come to depend on them: take away the gun and you take away their identity.

Some wield money like a blunt instrument, bludgeoning their way to what they want. Others hold it up like a flashing light. Look! See how important I am! I prefer to employ it as a lubricant, to ease the wear and tear of daily living.

Holding secrets, her mother said, made a man feel mighty.

The lake sometimes has a mind of its own; there's no telling how it might treat you.

She reeked of power: richly dressed, strong-boned, uncanny. She laid her hand on her seax and gave herself a long look. Begu was right. No one would be fool enough to get in the way of this woman. She looked like a pale and unearthly queen.

The loft was as I remembered-rich carpet, polished floors, and stark brick support pillars all brilliantly lit, even with no one at home-only now whenever I looked I saw that unfeeling mind at work, controlling, manipulating, hiding.

The revolt always begins when the steward wants to be king. A lesson the Franks never seen to learn.

You're mine. You'll grow old in my household, die warm and well fed. You're my bodywoman. Some services I'll require, from time to time. But I won't…I won't.

A gift. From a king. To her as the light of the world. What should she do?

There were advantages to being ignored by the king.

If a lord was frightening, a noble lady was terrifying.

I didn't believe in ki, or the energy from the earth, or light shooting out of fingertips, but the fact was, when I relaxed and thought about energy flowing smooth and liquid through my arms, my arm didn't bend.

There was no world in which she would be queen to another's king. Eanflæd would be peaceweaver. She was the light of the world.

If she used weapons the way she used words, no one would stand against her; they'd have no idea where the stroke would fall next.

She looked at her big hand, red now. Men's blood. She had killed a man; more than one man. The world looked no different, but she felt different in it, as though it had tilted on its axis and the line of stars had changed.