David Eddings

You're a slave trader, then?"
Althalus shrugged deprecatingly. "It's a living, your Highness. Slaves are a valuable commodity. I buy them in places where they're an inconvenience and take them to places where they can be put to work to pay for their keep. Everybody benefits, really. The one who sells them to me gets gold, and the one who buys them gets laborers."
"What do the slaves get?"
"They get fed, your Highness. A slave doesn't have to worry about where his next meal's coming from. He gets fed even when the crops fail or the fish aren't biting."
"Our philosophers tell us that slavery's an evil."
"I don't concern myself with philosophy, your Highness. I take the world as I find it. I'm prepared to offer ten Perquaine gold wheats for every able-bodied young captive you'd care to sell.

The fate of man might very well depend on what we’re doing. He’s doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but it’s still the right thing.

A really good thief shouldn’t have to kill people.

The theorists make high-minded speeches. Their followers cheer and applaud—briefly—and then they get back to the business of appropriating everything of value.

I wouldn't have any trouble working for a woman," Chief Gweti bleated, "as long as she's rich enough. I'd work for a rich goat, if he offered me enough gold.

Well . . ." Andine looked helplessly at the cat in her lap. "She's so adorable," the girl said, catching Emmy up in her arms and snuggling her face up to the furry captor of her heart.
"You noticed," Althalus said drily. "Don't try to fight her, because she always wins. Just give her all your love and do as she tells you to do. You might as well, because she'll cheat to get what she wants if she has to.

I've looked deeply into the hearts of my fellow men, [...] and to be honest with you, I'd rather look into a cesspool.

Why do men always want to tamper with the natural order of things?
“When something breaks, we fix it, that’s all.”
What gave you the absurd idea that [the world]’s broken?
“It’s not the way it was before, Em. To our way of looking at things, that means that it’s broken.”
[...] Change doesn’t necessarily mean improvement, Althalus. Change is just change. “Better” and “worse” are human definitions. The world changes all the time, and no amount of complaining’s going to stop it from changing.

What's it like?" Andine asked curiously. "Hearing the thoughts of others, I mean?"
"Disturbing," Leitha replied. "What people say and what they're thinking don't always exactly match. We're much closer to being animals than most of us would care to admit.

You don't carry spears or bows?"
"They'd just get in the way, sir. A sling doesn't weigh hardly anything, and you can find good rocks anywhere."
"I thought the sling was just a child's toy."
"Oh, no, Sergeant Khalor," Althalus told him. "I carried a sling for years myself when I was younger. It kept me eating on a regular basis."
"Could a man kill a horse with one?"
"Easily. The bone between a horse's eyes isn't very thick. I haven't used a sling for a long time, but I'm fairly certain I could drop a horse in midstride from a hundred paces."
"That's a little hard to swallow, Althalus."
"I've taken rabbits at fifty paces — and a horse is quite a bit bigger than a rabbit.

I’ve seen this all before, Althalus ... many, many times. An idea that’s born in glory starts to tarnish almost immediately.

All right, lady, I'm woodsy. So what? If you don't like the way I look, don't look at me. I don't have any parents, and I wear rags because that's all I can find to wear. I don't see where that's any of your business, though. I'm too busy staying alive to worry about how I look, and if you don't like it that way, well, that's just too bad."
Andine was gaping at Gher. "People don't talk to me that way!" she gasped.
"Not to your face, maybe," Gher shot back, "but I think if you'd close your mouth and listen to other people once in a while, you might find out what they really think of you. But you don't want to know, do you? I wasn't raised in a palace the way you were, lady. I grew up in a garbage heap, so I don't have fancy manners."
"I don't have to listen to this!"
"Maybe you don't have to, but you really should. I breathe in and out the same as you do, lady, and you don't own the air, so it belongs to me as much as it does to you. Just back away, lady. You make me even sicker than I make you.

“I’m stinking rich, Em,” he said exuberantly.
I’ve been noticing that for several days now. You’re long overdue for a bath.
“That’s not what I meant, little kitten.”
It should have been. You’re strong enough to curdle milk.

There’s a girl who can probably cut glass with her voice from a mile away [...] Andine’s got the kind of voice you can’t really ignore.

I'm pretty good at that. There were a lot of things I did when I was just a boy that I didn't tell her about. I didn't come right out and lie to her, of course. A boy should never lie to his mother, but now and then things sort of slipped my mind. You know how that can happen."
"Oh, yes." Althalus laughed. "Things have been slipping my mind for as long as I can remember.