These people make my family look easy to get along with.

I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say ‘We eat the chicken now!’ but the magus had seen that I was considering it…”My purse is full enough,” said the magus,...

Sometimes, if you want to change a man’s mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.

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.

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.

I am a master of foolhardy plans.

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.

If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.

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

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.

… I wanted Ambiades to understand that I considered myself a hierarchy of one.

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

I inherited this country when I was only a child, Nahuseresh. I have held it. I have fought down rebellious barons. I’ve fought Sounis to keep the land on this side of the mountains. I...

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 love stupid plans.

I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy.

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

That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That’ll teach me to go hide in a temple.

I’ll be your minister–“”Of the exchequer? You’d rob me blind.””I would never steal from you,” he’d said hotly.”Oh? Where is my tourmaline necklace? Where are my missing earrings?””That necklace was hideous. It was the only...

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

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

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...

Oh, Lady,” said the woodcutter, “my hurt is overwhelming because it is someone else’s pain that makes me cry.

Are you telling me in your own gentle way to stop whining?””Yes.””I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like an idiot.””I think heroes generally do, but those men believe in you.””I did wait until...

The Lord of Rags and Tatters.

No man can choose to serve only himself when he has something to offer his state. No one can put his own wishes above the needs of so many.