Megan Whalen Turner citations

“Are you badly hurt?"
"Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you.”

“No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'.”

“I'm dying of boredom. Or maybe just dying.”

“I am not sure I trust you."
"You can trust me with your life, My King."
"But not with my wine, obviously. Give it back.”

“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.”

“All I wanted to do was lie in the dry 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're halfway to Methana.”

“This is the stupidest plan I have ever in my career participated in," Xenophon said.
"I love stupid plans," said Eugenides.”

“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.”

“He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too.”

“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.”

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

“Will there be poppy juice in it?"
Phresine shook her head.
"Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.”

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

“One of us might be assassinated and then my heir will be king. Don't give up hope just because chances are slim."
"For the assassination or the heir, your majesty?”

“You learn something new everyday."
"What are you learning?" Sophos asked.
"To keep my mouth shut, I hope.”

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”

“Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.”

“I think a good book is a good book forever.
I don't think they get less good because times change.”

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

“It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.”

“All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.”

“If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.”

“She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower."
"And?" Eddis prompted.
"Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge.”

“I knew I would be in the story somewhere," Eugenides interjected.
"Oh no," said Phresine, "This was a humble servant."
"Ouch."
"Though very courageous."
"Not me," whispered Eugenides to his pillow.”

“A thief never makes a noise by accident.”

“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.”

“… her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth…”

“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.”

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