Top 158 Quotes & Sayings by Megan Whalen Turner - Page 2

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?

But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.

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.

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.

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.

-You know-- Eddis hesitated, not sure how far to push the Attolian Queen. -Go on. Attolia inclined her head. -I was going to say that you look like a polecat when you smile like that. -Do I? Attolia still smiled. -You look a little vulpine yourself. The two queens sat for a moment in happy agreement.

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

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.

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.

It isn't deep," the Eddisian Ambassador said from the other side of the bed. He was leaning over the wound, looking critical and mildly disappointed. Eugenides didn't miss a beat. "It is...too...deep!" he insisted, outraged.

Who am I, that you should love me?

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.

From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule. That's very impressive. When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him. At least that's one lie I didn't tell you.

His forehead was covered by wrinkles brought on by a lot of sun and too much frowning.

My beautiful queen. Your entire court is staring at you, and I can't blame them." They were, too. The queen turned to look. Her glance swept through the crowd like a reaping sickle through grain. Mouths slammed shut on every side. There was a scuffling sound as the people in the back shifted, trying to screen themselves from view. The queen looked back at the king, who was broadly smiling.

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

There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said. "So?" "If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.

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.

Dying would have been so much easier.

You are treasure beyond any price.

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.

Sophos turned red, and I wondered about the circulation of his blood; maybe his body kept an extra supply of it in his head, ready for blushing.

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.

He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.

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.

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

The queen had passed him, so close he'd felt the stir of air, and he guessed that if she had turned her head, only a little, and met his eyes, he might have died right there.

I cut off your hand. I have been living with your grief and your rage and your pain ever since. I don't think-I don't think I had felt anything for a long time before that, but those emotions at least were familiar to me. Love I am not familiar with. I didn't recognize that feeling until I thought I had lost you in Ephrata. And when I thought I was losing you a second time, I realized I would give up anything to keep you-my lip service to other gods, but my pride, too, and my rage at all gods, everything for you.

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.

I didn't really care much about anything, so I guess I felt fine.

I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.

She reached out and touched the king’s face, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Just a nightmare,” he said, his voice still rough. The queen’s voice was cool. “How embarrassing,” she said, looking at his maimed arm. The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king’s face. “Ouch,” he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. “Ouch,” he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms.

If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.

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

[I had a]...Second bowl of oatmeal. It was a little bit gloppy.

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.

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.

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 is ridiculous," she said. The king agreed. "Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice.

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 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.

The younger one looked to be completely useless.

Costis followed, telling himself that it wasn't true that he and the king and even the stone under their feet were nothing but tissue, transparently thin, and that for a moment, the only real thing in the universe had been there on the parapet with the king.

He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty and maddening, but he doesn't ever quit.

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

He looked at their shabby clothes in puzzlement. “We were traveling anonymously for safety—” explained the magus. “But surely—” “—and then we were robbed on the road.” “Ah,” said the king, “the danger in being anonymous.

What kind of man refers to himself as safely dead?

A little danger adds spice to life.

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.

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.

I was listening," the king said, aggrieved. "I closed my eyes to listen better." "What did you hear?" "I'm not sure," he said." That's why I was listening so closely. I may have to ask the baron to repeat some parts of his report on his grain tax." "I am sure you can arrange an appointment." "I am sure I can too.

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.

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.

Why did you come if not to murder my king?" "I came to steal his magus." "You can't," said the magus in question. "I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.

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

Rae Carson's heroine is a perfect blend of the ordinary and the extraordinary. I loved her.

He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies.

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.

You're awake," he said. "Phresine is not," pointed out the queen. "Oh?" "You gave her lethium." "She gave it to me first.