“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

“Let me be loved like that, by a man who will not replace me with concubines when I'm old and ugly. Let me be loved by a man who loves God more than me.”

“A man who catches History's eye is thereafter bound to a mistress from whom he will never escape.”

“We're called Shadowhunters. At least, that's what we call ourselves. The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us.”

“All those whom history calls great
Left only empty names for us to venerate.”

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”

“Let us call our man, the hero of this story, Kingbitter. We imagine a man, and a name to go with him. Or conversely, let us imagine the name, and the man to go with it.”

“The bitter, yet merciful, lesson which death teaches us is to distinguish the gold from the tinsel, the true values from the worthless chaff.
The terrible events of life are great eye-openers. They force us to learn that which it is wholesome for us to know, but which habitually we try to ignore — namely, that really we have no claim on a long life ; that we are each of us liable to be called off at any moment, and that the main point is not how long we live, but with what meaning we fill the short allotted span — for short it is at best.”

“Who’s that?
That’s the King.
Who’s he?
The Duke.
Who’s she?
The Princess.
What do they call you?
The Count.
What does that make me?
Umm…how about the Peasant?
And the name stuck.”

“Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.”