David Eddings Quotes

You don't have to be so apologetic with me, Bheid," Althalus told him. "I'm very tolerant about things like that. I gather that your murderers are on a salary of some kind?" "A yearly retainer with a bonus for each murder, yes." "Then they aren't just assorted fanatics who kill for their God?" "Good heavens no! Fanatics want to be captured and executed. That makes them martyrs, and martyrs are rewarded in heaven. Our assassins are thoroughgoing professionals who never get caught." "Good policy. Never hire amateurs when you can get professionals.

Althalus took the child by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to the fire.
“I didn’t do anything!” the child protested in a shrill voice, struggling to get free.
“That’s probably because you’re too clumsy for this line of work."

The word “coincidence” always seems to start religious arguments for some reason.

I'll need a few kegs of your gold, though," he added.
Althalus shrugged. "I had a feeling that might crop up."
"'Money makes the mare go,'" Kreuter quoted.
"Wouldn't she settle for oats?"
"She might, but I won't.

I don’t like to contaminate a good story with truth, Em. That’d be a violation of my artistic integrity, wouldn’t it?

"This grey’s sort of depressing.”
What on earth has that got to do with anything?
“It’s a question of aesthetics, Em. We should always strive to fill our lives with beauty.”
I don’t see anything beautiful in something that was designed to kill people.
“There’s beauty in everything, Em. You just have to learn to look for it.”
If you’re going to preach at me, I think I’ll just curl up and go back to sleep.

Religion’s based on a desire to know what’s going to happen in the future. Astrologers believe that the stars control that.

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.

Wars are a summer pastime, Althalus. Politics is a year-round entertainment.

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

“I’d pay a premium for this one, your Highness.”
“That one isn’t for sale[.]”
“Everything’s for sale, your Highness,” Althalus replied with a cynical laugh.

What's really going on in Perquaine?"
"A peasant rebellion—at least on the surface."
Albron shook his head mournfully. "The lowlanders just don't understand ordinary people, do they?"
"They haven't got a clue. The aristocrats spend so much time admiring themselves in their mirrors that they don't pay much attention to the commoners. From what I've heard, these rebellions break out every ten years or so. You'd think that after five or six times, the aristocrats might start to realize that they're doing something wrong."
"I certainly hope not. If the lowlanders start behaving like rational human beings, the clans of Arum are going to be out of work.

You’ve seen all those red rocks in Plakand, haven’t you?
“Oh, yes. Plakand’s red from one end to the other.”
There’s a metal called iron in those rocks. Men couldn’t smelt it out of those rocks until they learned how to make hotter fires. Iron is harder than bronze, but it’s brittle. It has to be mixed with other metals to make weapons or tools.
“It’s completely replaced bronze, then?”
For most things, yes.
“It might be better than bronze, but it’s not as pretty."

"Arums are real soldiers, and I want to hire them to train and advise the lowlanders to fight their own wars—at least this one.”
“You’re asking me to put myself out of business, Althalus,” Albron objected.
“Not really. After we’ve smashed Ghend’s armies, things should go back to normal. The princes of the low countries will still break out in rashes of ambition, and they’ll come here to Arum to hire professionals to do their fighting. It’s a matter of economics, Albron. It’s very expensive to train and maintain any army. Even when there’s no war, you have to keep feeding them. It’s cheaper in the long run to hire Arums.”

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.