Genevieve Cogman Quotes

Don’t you realize you have a responsibility to other people to look after yourself?

Catherine looked as if she was about to boil over. “We have been poisoned,” she said again. “We’re about to die! I’ll never get at those books!”
“Now, that’s the right attitude,” Kai agreed, glad to see her demonstrating a proper sense of priorities.

I think the time for blind trust is long over. Now I need answers.

My brother and I used to live in Rome," she invented.
"Rome." The other woman turned up her nose a little. "Well, I suppose people have to live somewhere.

I have no intention of signing up to her crusade," Irene said. "To anyone's crusade.

Everyone's being hypocritical," she muttered. "Is there anyone around here who doesn't want something from us while acting innocent? We need to find out what's really going on before everyone does the wrong thing for the right reasons.

“May I be frank?” Sherrington asked.
Irene sighed. This was always the sign of a fast-approaching insult.

She’d sort things out later. She’d explain things later. Right now she just had to make sure there would be a later.

She did find that the books displayed prominently in every chamber had been dusted, but the spines were pristine and uncreased. They had the sad, untouched air of literature paraded for display purposes but never actually used.
It was profoundly depressing.

Irene didn’t need Vale’s deductive skills to tell her she was in trouble. But there was something liberating about this. She was surrounded by known enemies, not politics. And she didn’t have anyone to worry about—apart from herself.

Blind faith is just another word for slavery.

Walking through a library—any library—as they made their way to the exterior had its usual comforting, balancing effect on Irene. It was a reassurance that such places existed and that they would continue, even if she herself was as temporary as any other human.

What is written can be erased, alas.

The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities.

We shouldn’t be playing politics. We should be focusing on what’s important.