Megan Quotes

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

Are you badly hurt?" "Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you.

No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'.

It's so much easier to convince yourself you're madly in love with someone when you know nothing about him.

There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.

You can only be in a bad mood for so long before you have to face up to the fact that it isn't a bad mood at all; it's just your sucky personality.

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.

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

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.

All I wanted to do was lie in the dry grass with my feet in a ditch forever. I could be a convenient sort of milemarker, I thought. Get to the thief and you know you're halfway to Methana.

You learned to run from what you feel, and that's why you have nightmares. To deny is to invite madness. To accept is to control.

Why did you come if not to murder my king?" "I came to steal his magus." "You can't," said the magus in question. "I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.

I wished that, for once, faery tales – real faery tales, not Disney fairy tales – would have a happy ending.

You, yes, you, linger inside my heart The same you who stopped us before we could start.

Girls will get together just to get together. Guys need an activity as an excuse. Otherwise it’s too homo for them to handle.

You learn something new everyday." "What are you learning?" Sophos asked. "To keep my mouth shut, I hope.

Memory can refuse to let you forget what you’d like to and run away with what you want to remember. It’s an unreliable bitch, or your best friend. Sometimes, it’s both at once.

You're awake," he said. "Phresine is not," pointed out the queen. "Oh?" "You gave her lethium." "She gave it to me first.

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 way to keep you from wearing it." "My earrings?" "What earrings?

But sometimes it's the sunshine that frightens us more than the big black shadows.

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 in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.

I think a good book is a good book forever. I don't think they get less good because times change.

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.

Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You’re not ready for it, but if you’re lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you’d planned.

Who am I, that you should love me?" "You are My Queen," said Eugenides. She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth. "Do you believe me?" he asked. "Yes," she answered. "Do you love me?" "Yes." "I love you." And she believed him.

...her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth...

I'm dying of boredom. Or maybe just dying.

I sometimes believe his lies are the truth, but I have never mistaken his truth for a lie.

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 consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.

I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?

This is the stupidest plan I have ever in my career participated in," Xenophon said. "I love stupid plans," said Eugenides.

I know everything and nothing about him all at the same time.

I knew I would be in the story somewhere," Eugenides interjected. "Oh no," said Phresine, "This was a humble servant." "Ouch." "Though very courageous." "Not me," whispered Eugenides to his pillow.

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

All subjects are the same. I memorize notes for a test, spew it, ace it, then forget it. What makes this scary for the future of our country is that I'm in the tip-top percentile on every standardized test. I'm a model student with a very crappy attitude about learning.

There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said. "So?" "If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.

I didn't think about being king,” he said, his voice hoarse. Eddis stared. “Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library?

Scars are proof we can can survive

I'VE LEARNED THAT YOU CAN'T CONTROL WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK ABOUT YOU. THE BEST YOU CAN DO IN LIFE IS NOT PISS YOURSELF OFF.

He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies.

Will there be poppy juice in it?" Phresine shook her head. "Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.

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

Sometimes, you turn back. Sometimes, you walk away. And sometimes, you find the place you're meant to be, and you stay there. You find a way to make it work. Whatever it takes.

One of us might be assassinated and then my heir will be king. Don't give up hope just because chances are slim." "For the assassination or the heir, your majesty?

Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green? Six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on. Think of all the other stuff you could do with that time.” I was totally confused. “In the car?” “In your life,” he said.

Relius looked away. "He said that you...cried," he said softly. "But not that he cried as well," said the queen, amused at the memory. "We were very lachrymose... would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head." "Is that when he cried?" "He ducked," said Attolia dryly. "I had not pictured you for a fishwife." "Lo, the transforming power of love.

We are perfect in our imperfection.

Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.

Safety is an illusion, Costis. A Thief might fall at any time, and eventually the day must come when the god will let him. Whether I am on a rafter three stories up or on a staircase three steps up, I am in my god's hands. He will keep me safe, or he will not, here or on the stairs.

Costis bowed stiffly. “I am here to make sure that you stay in bed, Your Majesty, because if this offends you and you order me summarily executed, it is no loss. Politically speaking.

Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.

Te voy a añorar cada instante, cada momento del día, porque te has convertido en el sol que ilumina mi vida

Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.

That is ridiculous," she said. The king agreed. "Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice.

Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot the ambassador?" "You gave me the gun," protested Sounis. "I didn't mean for you to shoot the ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him. "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus. "You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.

Hmm, that's not sexual harassment, baby. When I decide to get sexual, trust me, you'll know it.

Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances." Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?

If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.

Ages fourteen to eighteen, a girl needs something to kill all that time, that endless itchy waiting, every hour, every day for something — anything — to begin.

I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT!

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.

And the Earth had no name. The gods know themselves and have no need of names. It is man who names all things, even gods.

They looked so dangerous, like alligators. Really fast alligators wearing black. Ninja alligators. I decided not to use that one on Megan.

But the problem with looking back when you should be walking ahead is that you usually end up walking into something that hurts.

My thoughts create my world -Marcus Flutie

I’m not sure I’ll ever be finished. No matter how much I write, there will always be something I should’ve said.

Gone for a while Hoping, always, to return If you will let me

A thief never makes a noise by accident.

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower." "And?" Eddis prompted. "Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge.

Sophos turned red, and I wondered about the circulation of his blood; maybe his body kept an extra supply of it in his head, ready for blushing.

Boys are unpredictable. This maybe not be news, but I'm starting to think it's one of the best things about them.

That prison," I said with heartfelt sincerity, "Was absolutely the most awful thing that has happened to me in my entire life." I could tell by the way he looked at me that he thought my life had been filled with one awful thing after another.

The people you are closest to tend to be able to hurt you the most - that is why heartbreak is so hard to deal with, why death is so painful, and why fights can destroy things that matter.

I hadn't known that a light could be a feeling and a sound could be a color and a kiss could be both a question and an answer. And that heaven could be the ocean or a person or this moment or something else entirely.

I was listening," the king said, aggrieved. "I closed my eyes to listen better." "What did you hear?" "I'm not sure," he said." That's why I was listening so closely. I may have to ask the baron to repeat some parts of his report on his grain tax." "I am sure you can arrange an appointment." "I am sure I can too.

Sometimes,” Joe said after a bit, “it’s just easier to keep being what everyone expects you to be. Even if that’s what you’re not, anymore.

If you are feeling more yourself, there is a problem best addressed immediately," said the queen. "In my nightshirt?" The king wriggled, as ever, out of straightforward obedience. "Your attendants. I have spoken to them. You will speak to them as well." "Ah. They have seen me in my nightshirt." He looked down at his sleeve, embroidered with white flowers. "Not in your nightshirt, though.

So Sophos thinks you're going to marry me." "While I think you'll marry Sophos." "I might. We'll see what he's like when he grows up.

Your Majesty, please get down. My friend Aris is really a very good man, and if you fall off that wall he's going to hang for it, and so will his squad, most of whom are also nice men, and though I can't say I really care if your attendants hang, there are probably many people that do care, and would you please, please get down?" The king looked at him, eyes narrowed. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that many words in a row. You sounded almost articulate.

Holy Abercrombie catalog, Megan thought.

We are Adam and Eve born out of chaos called creation Ribbing me gave you life yet you forget there will always be a part of me in you yes I taunted and tempted you with my forbidden fruit does that make me the serpent too? Believe what you will but if I am exiled alone I know we will be together again someday naked without shame in paradise My thanks to you for being in on my sin

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

Oh, that," said the king with a shrug. "That isn't your honor, Costis. That's the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.

Eddis looked at her minister, curious. “Your head?” she asked. Attolia explained. “He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son.” “So have we all from time to time,” Eddis said seriously.

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

You didn't know I could do that, did you?" he asked, conversationally. "I did not, Your Majesty," Teleus gasped. "My grandfather killed a man that way once, using the edge of the wooden sword." "I hadn't realized the Thieves of Eddis were so warlike." "They aren't, mostly. But like all men, Teleus, I have two grandfathers." Teleus rolled his eyes to look up at him, and the king said, "One of mine was Eddis." "Ah," said Teleus. "Ah, indeed," said the king.

Ornon said, "I have seen him jump across atriums four stories above the ground, a distance that would make your blood freeze, and I heard him once confess that he sometimes thinks the distance is beyond him. He always jumps, Your Majesty. The Thieves are not trained in self-preservation. I beg you would take my advice.

Tell me a story then...keep me occupied." "A story?...What makes you think I can tell a story?" "Insight," said the king, "Go on.

Irene-" "Don't call me that." "You were the princess Irene the first time we met." "It means 'peace'," Attolia said. "What name could be more inappropriate?" "That I be named Helen?" Eddis suggested. The hard lines in Attolia's face eased, and she smiled. Eddis was a far cry from the woman whose beauty had started a war.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE POINT OF BEING SAD WHEN I COULD CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY

I didn't really care much about anything, so I guess I felt fine.

Before you make a decision," he said, "I want you to know that I love you.

You. Yes You

When everything changes we learn who we really are. What’s really important. What we want most. We discover the truth in moments of disarray.

When you try to take someone's pain away from them, you don't make it better. You just tell them it's not OK to talk about their pain.

She pulled the bedclothes up as far as they would go and suppressed a perverse wish to have her old nurse come to chase away the darkness, perverse because she didn't know if she wanted the shadows to be empty or not.

I thought that being king meant I didn't have to kill people myself. I see know that was another misconception.

I believe that what we get out of life is what we've set ourselves up to get, so there's no such thing as an inconsequential decision. Our destinies are the culmination of all the choices we've made along the way, which is why it's imperative to listen hard to your inner voice when it speaks up. Don't let anyone else's noise drown it out.

Calling it lunacy makes it easier to explain away the things we don't understand.

Most people talk when they have nothing to say. I’m not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I’d want you to hear.

To tell you the truth, I don't get how we can almost unanimously agree that murder is wrong, yet when it comes to rape some people still see shades of gray.

I love stupid plans.

We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.

When we opened the doors, we saw that the entire room was scorched black and you were on the floor possibly dead, surrounded by broken glass. Window glass is expensive, you realize that?" "Yes, Your Majesty," he said meekly.

I needed to say something. Something romantic! Something to sweep her off her feet. "You’re like a potato!" I shouted after her. "In a minefield." She froze in place. Then she spun on me, her face lit by a half-grown fruit. “A potato,” she said flatly. “That’s the best you can do? Seriously?” “It makes sense,” I said. “Listen. You’re strolling through a minefield, worried about getting blown up. And then you step on something, and you think, ‘I’m dead.’ But it’s just a potato. And you’re so relieved to find something so wonderful when you expected something so awful. That’s what you are. To me.” “A potato.” “Sure. French fries? Mashed potatoes? Who doesn’t like potatoes?” “Plenty of people. Why can’t I be something sweet, like a cake?” “Because cake wouldn’t grow in a minefield. Obviously.” She stared down the hallway at me for a few moments, then sat on an overgrown set of roots. Sparks. She seemed to be crying. Idiot! I thought at myself, scrambling through the foliage. Romantic. You were supposed to be romantic, you slontze! Potatoes weren’t romantic. I should have gone with a carrot.

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 have killed men and watched them hang. I've seen them tortured to keep this country safe and mine. How did you think I did this if I was a fool with cow eyes for any handsome man with gold in his purse?

A man with a sword has a means to stay alive. A man with a named sword has a reason to stay alive.

I love you, too." But this hopeful farewell does little to bring peace of mind, even now. Loving you has never been the problem. What's troubling me is how loving you may never be enough.

Dying would have been so much easier.

A little danger adds spice to life.

What kind of man refers to himself as safely dead?

Since I’ve known you, you’ve been spinning and spinning and spinning into all these various personas, and none of this self-exploration and experimentation has given you a sense of peace. I’ve known you for six years, intimately for four, and I still have no idea who I’m in love with.

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the face of sparkly vampires/great evil/low self-esteem.

I am a master of foolhardy plans.

My beautiful queen. Your entire court is staring at you, and I can't blame them." They were, too. The queen turned to look. Her glance swept through the crowd like a reaping sickle through grain. Mouths slammed shut on every side. There was a scuffling sound as the people in the back shifted, trying to screen themselves from view. The queen looked back at the king, who was broadly smiling.

You gotta take chances in this life or you're already dead.

It was already so near to impossible to say no to a man, so difficult to accept the possibility of being hurt or disliked or shouted at. It takes so much out of you to make yourself say no when you have been taught to say yes, to be accommodating, to make men happy.

I want you to steal something." I smiled. "Do you want the king's seal? I can get it for you." "If I were you," said the magus, "I'd stop bragging about that." His voice grated. My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away.

You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it." Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth. "No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth.

When you say too much about anything important, it always ends up sounding more trivial than it is. Words trash it.

Ah," said the magus, understanding at once. "I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again." "Surely that's unlikely," said Sounis. "I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us," said the magus.

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

It isn't deep," the Eddisian Ambassador said from the other side of the bed. He was leaning over the wound, looking critical and mildly disappointed. Eugenides didn't miss a beat. "It is...too...deep!" he insisted, outraged.

I wish our love was right now.

The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can't be cheered out of. You don't need solutions. You don't need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?" "Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.

What if I just want to die?" "Then I will be sad and disappointed that you cheated yourself out of your chance at existence. Not all of us have that opportunity, you know, to choose life.

Love is a kind of killing, Addy," she says. "Don't you know that?

She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn't know how to nurture it or if it could live.

...el amor debe ser como el café. A veces fuerte, otras dulces, a veces solo, otras acompañado, pero nunca frío

All I know is, he found out you left and he locked himself in the shed and barricaded the door. No one's seen him since," Doug said. "When I bolted, Sean and Evan were trying to boost Caleb up onto the roof so he could look through the skylight and make sure the kid wasn't dead or something.

What is it about him that makes you, like, totally lose your shit?

I hate horses. I know people who think that they are noble, graceful animals, but regardless of what a horse looks like from a distance, never forget that it's as likely to step on your foot as look at you.

If you had one day left to live, what would you do?

I thought Marcus was going to be in my life forever. Then I thought I was wrong. Now he’s back. But this time I know what’s certain: Marcus will be gone again, and back again and again and again because nothing is permanent. Especially people. Strangers become friends. Friends become lovers. Lovers become strangers. Strangers become friends once more, and over and over. Tomorrow, next week, fifty years from now, I know I’ll get another one-word postcard from Marcus, because this one doesn’t have a period signifying the end of the sentence. Or the end of anything at all.

The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now.

If it hadn't been what it was, it would've been beautiful.

Muse of poetry, come to his aid, I thought. Could the man produce one more metaphor of husbandry? He seemed to be trying. "Green wood," I suggested, but even he sensed that there was something unfortunate about a metaphor for a king in which you dry out your royalty before you set fire to it.

I have a whole guard room full of brawny veterans who'd enjoy a chance to drag two Eddisians out of here, particularly if you kicked a lot and they could kick you back.

How do you know that, Philo, dear?" But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. "Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are." By the time Lamion had parsed this to make sure that there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm.

I have a smoke grenade in my room," I said. "What?" Megan asked. "How?" "I grew up working at a munitions plant," I said. "We mostly made rifles and handguns, but we worked with other factories. I got to pick up the occasional goody from the QC reject pile." "A smoke grenade is a goody?" Cody asked. I frowned. What did he mean? Of course it was. Who wouldn't want a smoke grenade when offered one?

People were like Russian nesting dolls - versions stacked inside the latest edition. But they all still lived inside, unchanged, just out of sight.

He looked gravely at the king. "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. But no matter, Your Majesty. You are revealed at last." The king looked down at his nakedness and back at the captain. "Was that a joke?" he asked.

This is my new hobby. I watch my life depart minute by minute. I anticipate the end of everything and anything -- a conversation, a class, track practice, darkness -- only to be left with more clock-watching to take its place. I'm continually waiting for something better that never comes. Maybe it would help if I knew what I wanted.

Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does?

Megan was an old pro at tipping the scales in her favour. "Introduce me to your girlfriend" Megan said, smiling. She knew damn good and well Abby wasn't my girlfriend. HO 101: If the man in your sights is on a date or with a female friend, force him to admit to lack of commitment. Creates insecurity and instability.

From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule," he whispered. "That's very impressive. When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him." He anticipated her blow and leaned back. Her hand only brushed his cheek in an entirely unsatisfying manner. "At least that's one lie I didn't tell you.

A cut. That's what I felt. Words can cut, slice, like a razor.

The tales we tell ourselves about ourselves makes us who we are.

There are many things I don’t know, but quite a few I do. I know you can’t be lost if you know where you are. I know that life is full of precious and fragile things, and not all of them are pretty. I know that the sun follows the moon and makes days, one after another. Time passes. The world turns, and we turn with it, and though we can never go back to the beginning, sometimes, we can start again.

After one moment of gripped immobility, the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, 'I love your eyes.' She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. 'I love your ears, and I love'-she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips-'every single one of your ridiculous lies.' The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it was unfathomable.

Because not wanting the prize the gods have arranged for you - that just might offend the hell right out of them.

Why didn't you tell me to take Attolia's advice from the beginning?" "I thought you should figure it out. What you learn for yourself, you will know forever," said Eugenides. "Pol used to say that," said Sounis, surprised. "I learned it from him. I just wish to my god that I had his patience for the process.

There are many things I don't know, but quite a few I do. I know you can't be lost if you know where you are. I know that life is full of precious and fragile things, and not all of them are pretty. I know that the sun follows the moon and makes days, one after another. Time passes. The world turns, and we turn with it, and though we can never go back to the beginning, sometimes, we can start again.

And so I’ll let you go, and let it be. Whatever

There's only one racing strategy that matters.It's the one I run by: Get in the lead and don't let anyone pass you.

Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped. "Just what?" the king prompted wickedly. Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves. The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?" "Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded. "I am. What's your excuse?

You'll have to pardon me," the magus said. "But with your country at war I can't see how any of it really matters." Standing up, Eugenides pulled the papers from the magus's hands. "It matters, because I can't do anything, anymore, for this country, and it matters," he yelled as he threw the papers back to his desk, "because I only have one hand and it isn't even the right one!" Turning, he picked an inkpot off the desk and threw it to shatter on the door of his wardrobe, spraying black ink across the pale wood and onto the wall. Black drops like rain stained the sheets of his bed. ... Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?" she asked. "I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.

The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it.

Being six feet off the ground does give one a sense of superiority.

I can't leave her there all alone, surrounded by stone walls... She's too precious to give up.

Faith is accepting what makes no sense, what we cannot prove, but know down deep in our souls is real.

I just don't see the point in beating myself up. I think it's more productive to concentrate on being a better person right now than punishing myself for who I was in the past.

Honestly kiddo? You’re beautiful. You use your weight as an excuse but you’re just all woman. Not every woman has to look like a stripper. Or a model. Or Megan Fox. You’re petite, have a tiny waist, a fantastic rack, a devastating ass…what the hell more do you want? You should know it. Everyone else knows it…that’s why you’re getting all these asinine comments. Can’t you just see that it’s just jealously that’s ripping these people apart?

Anyone who can steal the king's seal ring can manage the locks on his record room.

Would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me that the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head." "Is that when he cried?" "He ducked," Attolia said dryly. Grown more confident of the queen's humor, Relius said, "I had not pictured you for a fishwife." "Lo, the transforming power of love.

You learn a lot when you know no one else is going to do things for you.

I am very good at groveling.

What a strange world it is, where prisoners are left their weapons and the written word is a mortal danger.

One cannot toss ambassadors back like bad fish," said Eugenides. "You treat them with care, or you'll find you've committed an act of war.

The hardest lies to detect are the ones surrounded by truth.

The higher my GPA gets the more I realize high school is useless

That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.

She reached out and touched the king’s face, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Just a nightmare,” he said, his voice still rough. The queen’s voice was cool. “How embarrassing,” she said, looking at his maimed arm. The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king’s face. “Ouch,” he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. “Ouch,” he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms.

He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

You always think your pain is the most painful. You always think it's uniquely awful.

We are taught to treat a practice sword with all the respect of a real weapon, so no thoughtless mistakes are made" "Oh... In Eddis, we learn to keep tack of the weapon we have in our hand.

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, "to keep you supplied with roast chickens." "So, so, so," I said. "We know who the power behind the throne is," and the magus laughed. "You eat more than Gen did after prison," he said. "I have more sympathy with him all the time. Are you going to finish that drumstick?" I asked. "I am. Stop staring at it.

I don't know anything about anything. The only difference between then and now is this: I may know more than I used to but my wisdom pales in comparison to that which I have yet to learn

He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king.

Imagine you come upon a house painted brown. What color would you say the house was?" "Why brown, of course." "But what if I came upon it from the other side, and found it to be white?" "That would be absurd. Who would paint a house two colors?" He ignored my question. "You say it's brown, and I say it's white. Who's right?" "We're both right." "Non," he said. "We're both wrong. The house isn't brown or white. It's both. You and I only see one side. But that doesn't mean the other side doesn't exist. To not see the whole is to not see the truth.

Sometimes when things break, you can hold them together for a while with string or glue or tape. Sometimes, nothing will hold what’s broken, and the pieces fly all over, and though you think you might be able to find them all again, one or two will always be missing. I flew apart. I broke. I shattered like a crystal vase dropped on a concrete floor, and pieces of me scattered all over. Some of them I was glad to see go. Some I never wanted to see again.

That’s what people never understand: They see us hard little pretty things, brightly lacquered and sequin-studded, and they laugh, they mock, they arouse themselves. They miss everything. You see, these glitters and sparkle dusts and magicks? It’s war paint, it’s feather and claws, it’s blood sacrifice.

He watched Attolia out of the corner of his eye. She was still cool, like a breath of winter in the warm evening air, but in the last few days he had begun to sense a subtle humor in her chilly words. When Gen had complained earlier that evening that Petrus, the palace physician, should stop fussing over him like a worried old woman, Attolia had asked, archly,"And me as well?" "When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow." Attolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous." Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed.

He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled. Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees...

Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt." "I'm sorry," said Sounis, 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. Sounis tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was sitting up in his bed. The sky was still entirely dark, and he couldn't have been asleep for long. He suspected that he had just dropped off. The bare knife was still in his hand, he realized, and he rooted under his pillow for the sheath. "Don't you trust my palace security?" "Yes, of course," Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh. "My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don't be embarrassed.

Right now I feel guilty to be alive. Why? Because I’m wasting it. I’ve been given this life and all I do is mope it away. What’s worse is, I am totally aware of how ridiculous I am. It would be a lot easier if I believed I was the center of the universe, because then I wouldn’t know any better NOT to make a big deal out of everything. I know how small my problems are, yet that doesn’t stop me from obsessing about them. I have to stop doing this. How do other people get happy? I look at people laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves and try to get inside their heads. How do Bridget, Manda, and Sara do it? Or Pepe? Or EVERYONE but me? Why does everything I see bother me? Why can’t I just get over these daily wrongdoings? Why can’t I just move on and make the best of what I’ve got? I wish I knew.

He limped slowly over to his own wooden sword and stooped awkwardly to pick it up. Trailing it on the ground behind him, he limped toward the queen, and the courtyard quieted as he approached and was silent again as he dropped to his knees before her and laid the sword across her lap. “My Queen,” he said. “My King,” she said back. Only those closest saw him nod his rueful acceptance. He lifted his hand to brush her cheek softly. As the entire court listened breathlessly, he said, “I want my breakfast.” The queen’s lips thinned, and she shook her head as she said, “You are incorrigible.

Who was the Thief that she would love him? A youth, just a boy with hardly a beard and no sense at all... A liar, she thought, an enemy, a threat. He was brave, a voice inside her said, he was loyal... A fool, she answered back. A fool and a dead one. She ached with emptiness.

I cut off your hand. I have been living with your grief and your rage and your pain ever since. I don't think-I don't think I had felt anything for a long time before that, but those emotions at least were familiar to me. Love I am not familiar with. I didn't recognize that feeling until I thought I had lost you in Ephrata. And when I thought I was losing you a second time, I realized I would give up anything to keep you-my lip service to other gods, but my pride, too, and my rage at all gods, everything for you.

Whoa. Not too stiff," Cody said. "Secure, strong, but calm. Like you're caressing a beautiful woman, remember?" That made me think of Megan. I lost control, and a green wave of smoky energy burst from my hand and flew out in front of me. It missed the pipe completely, but vaporized the metal leg of the chair it sat on. Dust showered down and the chair went lopsided, dumping the pipe to the floor with a clang. "Sparks," Cody said. "Remind me to never let you caress me, lad.

The stories teach them valuable life lessons. That good things happen to bad people. That it’s possible to make a bad situation even worse if you don’t think it through. That parents are clueless except when they’re not. That it’s good to try new things even when a new thing is kind of disgusting, because new experiences make you a well-rounded person. That art can be transcendent. That lust is all-powerful, that drugs are fun, and that not everyone who does them is a loser. That losing people is part of life. That where comedy goes, tragedy isn’t far behind. That everyone has issues with their bodies, but some take it too far, almost to death. That fear can be exhilarating. That boys are assholes. That it’s important to look forward and never look back…

The window opened in the same direction as the king's, and there, summer-bright and framed by the darkness of the stairwell, was the same view. Costis passed it, and then went back up the stairs to look again. There were only the roofs of the lower part of the palace and the town and the city walls. Beyond those were the hills on the far side of the Tustis Valley and the faded blue sky above them. It wasn't what the king saw that was important, it was what he couldn't see when he sat at the window with his face turned toward Eddis.

Some things cannot be fixed; they can only be carried. Grief like yours, love like yours, can only be carried. Survival in grief, even eventually building a new life alongside grief, comes with the willingness to bear witness, both to yourself and to the others who find themselves inside this life they didn’t see coming. Together, we create real hope for ourselves, and for one another. We need each other to survive. I wish this for you: to find the people you belong with, the ones who will see your pain, companion you, hold you close, even as the heavy lifting of grief is yours alone. As hard as they may seem to find at times, your community is out there. Look for them. Collect them. Knit them into a vast flotilla of light that can hold you.

Costis flinched and looked away from this compensation to the king's handicap, only to find himself looking into the king's face instead. Eugenides matched Costis look for look, his expression grave, his eyes like pools of darkness deeper than Costis could penetrate. For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king.

Crocodile Lies I confess, yes, our Fall was all my fault If you kissed my eyes, your lips would taste salt But you think my regret is a lie, and the tears I cry Are the crocodile kind. The sweat on your upper lip starts to boil White hot with anger, still convinced I'm your foil You keep fighting me, though my eyes are free From crocodile lies. You, yes, you, linger inside my heart The same you who stopped us before we could start I didn't want to leave, but you began to believe Your own crocodile lies. The only person stopping you is yourself, You won't accept that I want no one else, So until you do, I'll let someone else have you Every day I live the lie, But not the crocodile kind --Marcus Flutie

It might have been preferable," Eddis admitted, dryly, "if you had thrown off your chains of bondage solely for love of me. It would certainly have been more flattering." Standing so near to him, she was looking up into his face and watching it closely. "I am willing to accept, however, that we are real people, not characters in a play. We do not, all of us, need to be throwing inkwells. If we are compatible with one another, is that not sufficient?" "Were I a king in more than just name, it would be all, all I dreamed of," said Sounis, and it was Eddis who blushed. "You wish to wait, then, until you are confirmed as Sounis?" "If..." "When," said Eddis, firmly. "Yes," said Sounis, "then.

The gold was a gift; you said so yourself." "You are a woman," Nahuseresh said very gently. "You do not understand the world of kings and emperors, you do not understand the nature of their gifts." "Nahuseresh, if there is one thing a woman understands, it is the nature of gifts. They are bribes when threats will not avail. Your emperor cannot attack this coast unprovoked; the treaties with the greater nations of this Continent prevent him. All he can do is stir up an ugly three-way war and hope to be invited in as an ally, and I did not invite him." The queen shook her head. "The problem with bribes, Nahuseresh, is that after your money is gone, threats still do not avail." Nahuseresh stared, seeing a queen he hadn't guessed existed.

Lilies, I rule, heads, you do," he [the King] said, and threw the coin into the air. "Lilies, you rule, heads, you throw again," said Attolia. The coin dropped. Eugenides looked at it and then showed it to her. "No need," he said. The coin sat in his palm, obverse, showing the lilies of Attolia. He flipped it again and again and again. Each time it landed showing the lilies. ... (Relius) He wanted to dismiss the coin toss as slight of hand. Any circus performer could control the drop of a coin, but he'd been puzzled. The queen had been undismayed; she had seemed almost vindicated in her manner. It had been the King who was more disturbed with each toss of the coin. He'd looked almost sick, Relius thought, by the time he put the coin away. ... Walking away along the arcade that lay perpendicular to the one where Relius lurked, the king pulled the coin from his pocket. He looked at the gold stater in sudden disgust and pitched it hard between the columns of the arcade into the shrubbery.

In the silent aftermath, I said, "We'll give them a second chance." With my right hand, I reached to the other pocket. I had known as soon as I lifted the false bottom in the gun case and looked underneath what it meant. I had tried without ceasing to find some alternative to Attolia's ruthless advice and I had failed. Gen's gift told me that I had not failed for lack of trying. I'd lifted out the matching gun and read its archaic inscription. Realisa onum. Not 'the queen made me,' but 'I can make the king.' Looking at Akretenesh's startled face down the long barrel of the handgun, I smiled, until I felt the scar tissue tighten. That one expression, I'd never showed him. My face gave away my humiliation, my rage, my surprise, and my embarrassment, but I had never let him see what I looked like when I smiled: my uncle. His diplomatic mask dissolved, and he backed away. In Attolia, I had been in front of a mirror at last, and I had understood what made Oerus back in Hanaktos ask me if my expression was a happy one or not. The smile rumpled the scar tissue under my skin, and it dragged my face askew, giving me the leer of a man who'd never had a moment of self-doubt, who'd never regretted a life lost. I'd worried that I wouldn't have the nerve to carry this off, but in the moment, it was easy. Seeing Akretenesh recoil, I laughed out loud.