Megan Whalen Turner: Trending quotes (page 4)

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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 couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The younger one looked to be completely useless.”

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

“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.”

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

“If I couldn't be Eddis, I would be Attolia. If they needed to see my uncle in me, then I would show him to them. And I would take Attolia's advice because if I identified my enemy and destroyed him, Sounis would be safe.”