Royalty Quotes

So I am to sit here and feed you information,” Cardan says, leaning against a hickory tree. “And you’re to go charm royalty? That seems entirely backward.” I fix him with a look. “I can be charming. I charmed you, didn’t I?” He rolls his eyes. “Do not expect others to share my depraved tastes.

Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true.

Did you mean it... that if Victor did tell...that you'd..." I couldn't finish. I couldn't bring myself to say the words have him killed. "I don't have much influence in the upper levels of Moroi royalty, but I have plenty among the guardians who handle the dirty work in our world." "You didn't answer the question. If you'd really do it." "I'd do a lot of things to protect you, Roza.

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. - Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual

You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.

You should thank me for tolerating you. I had hoped that becoming a royal would cure your foul manners." "That's interesting. My father hoped that stripping me of royalty would do the same thing.

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

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.

A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.

She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.

You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king. There is no such thing as royal blood. I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing.

I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'" "This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. you don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. you lose the taste." Brett's glass was empty.

Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel.

If you are not royalty, He is not King.

Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.

One of the largest barbarians spouted after donning Trantan royalty clothing, "I would be a great nobleman. I look splendid.

What did it mean to be called “lord”? I’ll assume you’ve never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And, if by chance you are, then let me say, “Hello, Your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?”)

I never needed this race, or a hashtag, or the king to be a queen. I was born royalty. All I had to do was pick up my crown.

This is Winter," said Scarlet. "Princess Winter." Thorne guffawed and pushed a hand into his hair. "Are we running a boardinghouse for misplaced royalty around here, or what?

Hmmm. Someone has a high opinion of himself. Comes with being royalty, I suppose. Like funny hats and a fondness for beheadings.

One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.

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.

Men only treat women like princesses when they want to use them like prostitutes.

No kingdom on Earth can surpass the great outdoors.

If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'You know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.

You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties.

Chloe nodded meekly. I’d never seen her so demure. “What’s the matter with you?” I hissed at her as we followed Kieran and Solange inside. “She’s royalty!” “And a vampire, remember?” “Oh yeah.” Chloe paused. “Nope, princess trumps vampire.” “Does not.” “So does.

Sure am glad I'm not royalty," I muttered. "I wouldn't want to have to bump uglies with someone I can't stand. On a regular basis. And no one else." "Ow!" I exclaimed, trying to yank my fingers from Trent but finding them caught. Then I colored, realizing what I'd said. "Oh… sorry," I stammered, meaning it. "That was insensitive." Trent's frown turned into a sly smirk. "Bump uglies?" he said, eyes on the table behind me. "You are a font of gutter slang, Rachel. We must do this again.

All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged." "Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants.

Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a king.

On the 16th of Febuary 1312, when Isabella was aged sixteen years, the couple were at their hunting lodge when Edward suddenly took Isabella into his arms and began to kiss her and pay her a lot of attention, slowly and tenderly.

He was royalty. So what? Everyone had a flaw.

A generation of the unteachable is hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses.

I was known before I was born and my name will be blazoned in history long after I’m dust in the ground. Infamy is temporary, celebrity is fleeting, but royalty…royalty is forever.

Hugh le Despencer the Elder was speaking to his son, Hugh le Despencer the Younger. He said, “Son, given that you are effeminate and lack manly qualities, I think that the way for you for you to improve your lot in life is to become the King’s Chamberlain.

Right,' Thomas said. 'Where are we headed?' 'To where they treat me like royalty,' I said. 'We're going to Burger King?' I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide, too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. 'Just take a left and drive. Please.' 'Well,' Thomas said, grinning, 'since you said 'please' - Thomas Raith & Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher

There’s a fine line between gossip and history, when one is talking about kings.

Beethoven speaking to royalty: "What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

You had your heart broken much?” He paused. “Of course. Everyone does. Part of life.” “Tell me her name. I’ll kick her ass. I don’t want anyone hurting you.” He rested his face against my hair, his tone even and gentle when he spoke. “You’re wondrous and powerful and gifted, but even you can’t save me from hurting. No one can do that for anyone. I can make things perfect in the fictions I create, but the real world isn’t so kind. That’s just how it is. And anyway, for every bad thing in life, there are more good things to tip the balance.” “Like what?” “Like little blonde nieces. And royalty checks. And you.

But just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.

Show no fear to your enemies. Only contempt. Never let anyone look down on you. You're just as good as any of them. I don't care who they are. Better in fact. In our world, Dagans are royalty and you, my son, are a prince.

Should I surrender to this bliss? The love, the touch of a child!

The Earl of Lancaster loudly spoke, “Piers Gaveston, this court finds you guilty of treason, of sodomy and sedition as well as many other crimes against God! You shall be taken to Blacklow Hill, which shall by your place of execution, and you shall be put to death by two of my Welsh soldiers! May God have mercy upon your soul!

Love had not made them poor. Love had made them wealthy. In that moment, they were royalty, a king of fortune and a queen of destiny, embracing a tiny prince of peace.

Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan. I thought of that policeman, Eddie Hazelwurst, saying I'd lowered myself to be in this house of colored women, and for the very life of me I couldn't understand how it had turned out this way, how colored women had become the lowest ones on the totem pole. You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us. Eddie Hazelwurst. What a shitbucket.

We have to be more royal than royalty itself or nobody will believe us.

But he always liked to get visitors alone in the billiard room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. 'A devilish temper she had,' he would say. 'But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.

In marriage, we’re equals. You’re not only a babymaker; I didn’t need to marry you if it was only for that. You’re my life partner. The whole nine yards of it.

We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings and queens, and thereby ignore the Middle Passage and centuries of enforced servitude in the Americas. Although some of us might indeed be the descendants of African royalty, most of us are probably descendants of their subjects, the daughters and sons of African peasants or workers.

He stood straight then, moving to stand directly in front of me as he dropped low and bowed dramatically. "Your Majesty.

Bah." Morpheus snags a paintbrush. "She should be draped in starlight and clouds, lace and softness. Nothing less should touch her skin." He points the bristles at Jeb. "I saw what you put Thomas in. You are not painting her into one of those goon suits. She is royalty. Dress her like royalty. Give her some glitter... some glitz. And a crown.

The Black Prince is entombed at Canterbury Cathedral. His effigy reads: “Such as thou art, sometimes was I, Such as I am, such thou shalt be, I thought little on hour of death, So long as I enjoyed breath, On earth I had great riches, Land, houses, great treasure, Horses money and gold, But now a wretched captive am I, Deep in the ground, lo I lie, My beauty great, is all quite gone, My flesh is wasted to the bone.

Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky." Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride

So maybe we won’t ever win the lottery, or marry royalty, or make that last second shot. That doesn’t mean we won’t have amazing adventures, meet exceptional people, and make indelible memories. The trick is to notice before it’s too late.

Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it’s true. You are different. Maybe not better—but different. And it’s no picnic being different.

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

Phresine showed him where he could sleep, in an interior room with no windows, a narrow bed, and a washstand. There were chests stacked along one wall, and Costis guessed the dismal spot was probably a closet cleaned out to make room for him. Hard to believe the royal apartments, so lavish elsewhere, would otherwise have such a plain corner. Expecting better of royal closets, Costis went to bed disappointed.

We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses.

If stubborness were all that was needed to be a good queen, I'd rule the world.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed King;

The hardest part of letting go is the "uncertainty"--when you are afraid that the moment you let go of someone you will hate yourself when you find out how close you were to winning their affection. Every time you give yourself hope you steal away a part of your time, happiness and future. However, once in a while you wake up to this realization and you have to hold on tightly to this truth because your heart will tear away the foundation of your logic, by making excuses for why this person doesn't try as much as you. The truth is this: Real love is simple. We are the ones that make it complicated. A part of disconnecting is recognizing the difference between being desired and being valued. When someone loves you they will never keep you waiting, give their attention and affection away to others, allow you to continue hurting, or ignore what you have gone through for them. On the other hand, a person that desires you can't see your pain, only what they can get from you with minimal effort in return. They let you risk everything, while they guard their heart and reap the benefits of your feelings. We make so many excuses for the people we fall in love with and they make up even more to remain one foot in the door. However, the truth is God didn't create you to be treated as an option or to be disrespected repeatedly. He wants you to close the door. If someone loves you and wants to be in your life no obstacle will keep them from you. Remember, you are royalty, not a beggar.

Raisa felt relieved, yet oddly disappointed. She was the blooded princess heir, yet in servants' clothes she was apparently unrecognizable. In the stories, rulers had a natural presence about them that identified them as such, even dressed in rags. What's the nature of royalty, she wondered. Is it like a gown you put on that disappears when you take it off? Does anyone look beyond the finery? Could anyone in the queendom take her place, given the right accessories? If so, it was contrary to everything she'd ever been taught about bloodlines.

I want you—" "Then fucking have me." "—but I don't want this." Alex wants to grab Henry and shake him, wants to scream in his face, wants to smash every priceless antique in the room. "What does that even mean?" "I don't want it!" Henry practically shouts. His eyes are flashing, wet and angry and afraid. "Don't you bloody see? I'm not like you. I can't afford to be reckless. I don't have a family who will support me. I don't go about shoving who I am in everyone's faces and dreaming about a career in fucking politics, so I can be more scrutinized and picked apart by the entire godforsaken world. I can love you and want you and still not want that life. I'm allowed, all right, and it doesn't make me a liar; it makes me a man with some infinitesimal shred of self-preservation, unlike you, and you don't get to come here and call me a coward for it.

He bent down, scratched the black dirt into his fingers. He was beginning to warm to it; the words were beginning to flow. No one in front of him was moving. He said, "This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was. Here you can be something. Here's a place to build a home. It isn't the land--there's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value, you and me, we're worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I'd die for, but I'm not asking you to come join us and fight for dirt. What we're all fighting for, in the end, is each other.

We should be used to it," Tatiana reasons. "There have always been lines separating us from the rest of the world, whether they were satin ribbons or iron rails.

America, my dear, I hope you find something, in this cage worth fighting for.

America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.

The pair of us are like salt and sugar: such different flavors, but so close in every other way you could never sort us apart once we're together.

Say it, America. Please. Tell me you love me, that you want to be mine alone.

...alone is such a nebulous state when one is queen.

I’d decided that I was going to stop dressing like a princess and start dressing like a queen.

Even when she's dethroned by hardship, she still wears the sun as a crown.

The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

His Majesty, may he live forever and prosper greatly... His Majesty, may sun finches warble sweet melodies in his ear... His Majesty, may orchids bloom in the wake of his passing... His Majesty, may minstrels compose epics at the sound of his glorious name... His Majesty, may his magnificent sword shatter the breasts of his enemies...

If they fear you, they won't hesitate to choose your enemy over you. But is they love you, they will do anything for you.

In the end, we made enemies with our heads, but we unmade them with our hearts.

You’re my princess, right? You were always going to be my princess, no matter what you were born, no matter who your dad married.

As he was forced to tell his father more than once, “I said I’d fight for my mother’s throne. I never said I’d die for it.” Then he’d add, simply to annoy the old bastard into one of his frothy temper tantrums, “Don’t you think I’m too pretty to die?

Just remember, what the French say. No, probably not the French, they've got a president or something. The Brits, maybe, or the Swedes. You know what I mean?" "No, Matthew. What do they say?" "The king is dead, that's what they say. The king is dead. Long live the king.

If there's one thing I've learned from being in the Selection, it's that some girls have a frightening killer instinct. Don't let the ball gowns fool you," she finished with a smile.

Forgive us, my lord, for you have us at a disadvantage. My sister is frankly deplorable at conducting courtly conversation. The only thing worse than her ability to make appropriate small talk with royalty is her attempt to let a man lead her on the dance floor. Your timely interruption has saved me from the chore of attending dance lessons with her. My feet thank you.

A King will have his way in his own hall, be it folly or wisdom.

With a deep sigh, Lucius resumed pacing. "Honestly, I can't stand this going around anymore. The story is quite simple. You, Antanasia, are the last of a long line of powerful vampires. The Dragomirs. Vampire royalty." Now that made me laugh, a squeaky, kind of hysterical laugh. "Vampire royalty. Right." Yes. Royalty. And that is the last part of the story, which your parents still seem reluctant to relate." Lucius leaned over the table across from me, bracing his arms, staring me down. "You are a vampire princess—the heir to the Dragomir leadership. I am a vampire prince. The heir to an equally powerful clan, the Vladescus. More powerful, I would say, but that's not the point. We were pledged to each other in an engagement ceremony shortly after our births.

I was the dhampir daughter of the family patriarch, the little known stain on an otherwise immaculate record. Louis-Cesare, on the other hand, was vamp royalty. The only Child of Mircea’s younger, and far stranger, brother Radu, he was a first-level master--the highest and rarest vampire rank. A month ago, the prince and the pariah had crossed paths because we had one thing in common: we were very good at killing things. And Mircea’s bug-eyed crazy brother Vlad had needed killing if anyone ever had. The collaboration hadn’t exactly been stress free, but to my surprise, we eventually sorted things out and got the job done. By the end, I’d even started to think that it was kind of nice, having someone to watch my back for a change. Sometimes, I could be really stupid.

You really are a complete idiot if you believe that," Henry hisses, the note balled in his fist. "When have I ever, since the first instant I touched you, pretended to be anything less than in love with you? Are you so fucking self-absorbed as to think this is about you and whether or not I love you, rather than the fact I'm an heir to the fucking throne? You at least have the option to not choose a public life eventually, but I will live and die in these palaces and in this family, so don't you dare come to me and question if I love you when it's the thing that could bloody well ruin everything.

Back in 2010, I introduced fairies and fantasy creatures as having silver blood in Bitter Frost and then Silver Frost. This silver blood is what makes them fey versus human or any other creatures. Now in Ring of Ice when there is a convergence of the fey and the dark ones (vampires), you the resemblance between these two race of creatures, which is the next Frost books. After the film release of Bitter Frost of course!

I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am.

From her thighs, she gives you life And how you treat she who gives you life Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator. And from seed to dust There is ONE soul above all others -- That you must always show patience, respect, and trust And this woman is your mother. And when your soul departs your body And your deeds are weighed against the feather There is only one soul who can save yours And this woman is your mother. And when the heart of the universe Asks her hair and mind, Whether you were gentle and kind to her Her heart will be forced to remain silent And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity, Very much like the seaweed in the sea -- It will reveal all that it has heard and seen. This woman whose heart has seen yours, First before anybody else in the world, And whose womb had opened the door For your eyes to experience light and more -- Is your very own MOTHER. So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel, Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish How you treat her is the ultimate test. If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness. And always remember, That the queen in the Creator's kingdom, Who sits on the throne of all existence, Is exactly the same as in yours. And her name is, THE DIVINE MOTHER.

I once knew a man who was heir to the throne of a great kingdom, he lived as a ranger and fought his destiny to sit on a throne but in his blood he was a king. I also knew a man who was the king of a small kingdom, it was very small and his throne very humble but he and his people were all brave and worthy conquerors. And I knew a man who sat on a magnificent throne of a big and majestic kingdom, but he was not a king at all, he was only a cowardly steward. If you are the king of a great kingdom, you will always be the only king though you live in the bushes. If you are the king of a small kingdom, you can lead your people in worth and honor and together conquer anything. And if you are not a king, though you sit on the king’s throne and drape yourself in many fine robes of silk and velvet, you are still not the king and you will never be one.

(Divorce) We’ll remarry someday when we’ve grown, Like royalty who’ve earned the throne. An aisle made of gold, To have and to hold. My dress made of rags, A suit that’s so torn. All eyes are on me, But mine only on you. You give your hand, A king to his queen, But know this darling, Mulligans aren’t for the weak. By changing the rules, We’re changing the war, The wounds that we’ve known, Battle stains on the floor. But from this day on, The same as before, You are the apple, My eyes still adore. Worth more than one shot, Though we’ll face the worst a lot, Better days will come, If we stay and don’t run. And if a wave takes us out, I know we’ll figure it out. And if the current takes us in, I know we’ll do it all again.

The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.

The faith itself was simple; he believed in the dignity of man. His ancestors were Huguenots, refugees of a chained and bloody Europe. He had learned their stories in the cradle. He had grown up believing in America and the individual and it was a stronger faith than his faith in God. This was the land where no man had to bow. In this place at last a man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become. This was the first place on earth where the man mattered more than the state. True freedom had begun here and it would spread eventually over all the earth. But it had begun HERE. The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appalling, but more even than that was the horror of old Europe, the curse of nobility, which the South was transplanting to new soil. They were forming a new aristocracy, a new breed of glittering men, and Chamberlain had come to crush it. But he was fighting for the dignity of man and i that way he was fighting for himself. If men were equal in America, all the former Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves. And so it was not even patriotism but a new faith. The Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people, not the land.

I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume. But you must stubbornly walk into that room, regardless, and you must hold your head high. You made it; you get to put it out there. Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited, and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more that that. They might throw you out - but then again, they might not. They probably won't throw you out, actually. The ballroom is often more welcoming and supportive than you could ever imagine. Somebody might even think you're brilliant and marvelous. You might end up dancing with royalty. Or you might just end up having to dance alone in the corner of the castle with your big, ungainly red foam claws waving in the empty air. that's fine, too. Sometimes it's like that. What you absolutely must not do is turn around and walk out. Otherwise, you will miss the party, and that would be a pity, because - please believe me - we did not come all this great distance, and make all this great effort, only to miss the party at the last moment.

It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions... The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.

The tale is told by royalty and vagabonds alike, nobles and peasants, hunters and farmers, the old and the young. The tale comes from ever corner of the world, but no matter where it is told, it is always the same story, A boy on horseback, wandering at night, in the woods or on the plains or along the shores. The sound of a lute drifts in the evening air. Over head are the stars of a clear sky, a sheet of light so bright that he reaches up, trying to touch them. He stops and descends from his horse. Then he waits. He waits until exactly midnight, when the newest constellation in the sky blinks into existence. If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and it its place is a girl. Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silks and a necklace of sapphire. Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Other say that she was once a wicked queen, a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Still others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true. She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen. These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on. --"The Midnight Star", a folktale

For me… it was excruciating.” He closed his eyes for a moment then focused on her. “It is so painful to truly love someone so much and not have them. For years I practiced tolerating that pain. Around the time I was sixteen I could finally stand to look at you. So, I did, all the damn time. I watched you so carefully. I captured every smile, every frown, every tear from you. I wanted you… but I couldn’t have you. Then one day we became friends and the pain came back, but I didn’t care because you were my friend, my best friend. But when you kissed me, I realized the feeling I had before was nothing compared to what I felt when we kissed. I felt alive… and guilty and betrayed, because it’s not fair. It’s not fair for me to go through that… to want to kiss you every day, every hour, every minute for the rest of my miserable life, but I want to. I’m afraid that it will get to a point where I need to. I have been in love with you since I was eight years old. I have hated the way my father has treated me, but nothing has hurt me as much as the pain of my mother’s death except seeing you and my brother in bliss. What I want is for you to stay in this room with me. I want to feel how you feel, taste how you taste, and completely fall in you because I’m just… tired of always wanting what I can’t have. I want to make you smile, make you happy… I want to be inside you… I want to give you pleasure in every way… mind, body, and soul… I am completely, madly… and utterly in love with you… and it hurts… because I can’t have you. And it hurts because if there is a chance that I can then it is possible that it will turn out to be my tragedy and misfortune. And all I can say to that … I accept my tragedy… but I don’t wish it.

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages.