Megan Whalen Turner Quotes

I'd suggested eating it before we left the market. I'd also suggested eating it on the road. 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.

Why were these the only dances you knew?"
"Because no one would dance with me. Thieves are never popular."
I know why, thought Attolia, but aloud she asked, "Why are you familiar with the square dances?"
The music quickened.
"My mother taught me. We danced them on the rooftops of the Megaron. According to legend, the Thief and any partner the Thief chooses will be safe."
"You are king now," she pointed out.
"Ah, but they say that if the king dances, the entire court can safely dance with him."
"Spare me," said Attolia, "and my court, from dancing on the roof."
"It probably only works in Eddis.

He was confident, I think, of the success over both Eddis and Attolia right up until the world heard that the Thief of Eddis had stolen the queen of Attolia and meant to marry her.

Do you warn him not to offend the gods?"
"There was no need," said Attolis, smiling, "He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.

"You said I should do something." Eugenides smiled in the dark, twisting the knife of his revenge a little deeper into the magus.
"I did?"
"As you were leaving, after your extremely edifying visit in the spring. You said ‘You could still do something.’ Your exact words."
"I meant talk your queen into surrendering, not destroy our navy in its own harbor!" the magus shouted.

"Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt."
"I'm sorry," said Sounis, blinking, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing.
"I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?"
"Gen, it's the middle of the night."
"I know," said the king of Attolia.

How could you come once a week to talk about the weather and not mention a war?"
Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?"
"I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.

As Attolia spun, she felt a tug at her hair and, turning back, felt another. Then she felt her carefully arranged hair slipping down her neck. Eugenides, minding the pattern with his feet and spinning the queen with one hand, had been pulling out her hairpins one by one when her back was turned. The rest of the pins loosened, and her hair dropped free. It swung out as she spun and the last of the pins bounced and slid across the marble floor.
The queen was several inches taller than Eugenides, and he leaned back to counter her spin. To those watching, it didn't seem possible that he could succeed, but with one hand, and no visible effort, he defied the laws of the natural world. Phresine, the queen's senior attendant, watched them from behind the throne as her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth. Faster and faster they moved, never faltering, until the music shrilled at an impossible tempo and the pattern gave way to a long spin, each dancer reaching in with one hand and out with the other, holding tight lest they fall away from the other, until the music stopped abruptly and the dance ended.

The queen turned back to face him. "I could hang you," she said.
Eugenides looked up at her. "You missed your chance for that," he said.

The king, the master of the fates of men, before their eyes was reduced to a man, very young himself, and in love.

Grown more confident of the queen's humor, Relius said, "I had not pictured you for a fishwife."
"Lo, the transforming power of love."

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.

Least said, soonest mended isn't the advice for every occasion, Your Majesty, isn't the advice for every occasion.

And now we wait," she said, not bothering to hide her smile of delighted anticipation as her guards conveyed the messenger out of the door.
"Wait for what?" the Mede asked.
"Hmm?" Attolia focused herself on the present. "Good heavens, I don't know," she said. "Eddis produces such lovely threats when her Thief is concerned.

You have heard the queen's advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what you will do with hers?