Megan Whalen Turner Quotes

26 Sourced Quotes

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.

Megan Whalen Turner
The Magus must had eyes like a thief because he told Pol to stop and dismount to walk alongside me, one hand resting just above my knee ready to shake me if I fell asleep. He shook hard and resorted to pinching periodically.

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

Megan Whalen Turner
I asked Ochto what in the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing. "Helping you," said Dirnes. "Why?" They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in the eye. "Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but I know men.

Megan Whalen Turner
Everything I said he agreed with, which was trying, and his flute playing would make the deaf wince, but I think the real problem with Hyacinth was that he reminded me of myself. He read poetry. He flinched at loud noises. In addition to having no musical skills, he had no martial skills. He avoided any situation that might require physical effort on his part. Seeing him, I found it no wonder that my father despised me.

Megan Whalen Turner
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?

Megan Whalen Turner
Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King.

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

Megan Whalen Turner
I grieved, but a part of me felt a lightening of a burden that I had carried all my life: that I could never be worthy of them, that I would always disappoint or fail them. As an unknown slave in the fields of the baron, I knew the worst was over. I had failed them. At least I could not do so again

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

Megan Whalen Turner
I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy.

Megan Whalen Turner
The room was quiet, the others flicking glances at me. I ignored them. After years in Sounis's palaces being eyed with disgust by my uncle and my own father and courtier after courtier, I assure you I am unrivaled at pretending not to notice other people's glances.

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

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

Megan Whalen Turner
I know that if you don't look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won't find one.

Megan Whalen Turner
He looked at their shabby clothes in puzzlement. We were traveling anonymously for safety— explained the magus. But surely— —and then we were robbed on the road. Ah, said the king, the danger in being anonymous.

Megan Whalen Turner
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.

Megan Whalen Turner
I stayed only two days in the capital. I was welcomed by a cheering citizenry, who threw flowers at my head. It was disconcerting to think I could have put almost any young man in my retinue on a white horse and they would have thrown flowers at him instead. It was not me they cared about, only what I meant to them: a cessation of hostilities, a chance for prosperity, food on the table.

Megan Whalen Turner
Ridiculous to think what indignities I would suffer in silence, if I knew that I was to be rewarded with an oversize bucket of hot water," the magus said as he settled into the bath the servants had filled for him.

Megan Whalen Turner
His forehead was covered by wrinkles brought on by a lot of sun and too much frowning.

Megan Whalen Turner
All of my own impulses to balance and move seemed to conflict with those of the guards, and I was jerked and jostled down the portico, just as graceful as a sick cat.

Megan Whalen Turner
Thanks to His Majesty," the magus said, and my father seemed startled at the correction but not displeased. He looked thoroughly satisfied and very much like Ina when she has all her embroidery threads arranged to her satisfaction. He looked so pleased that I checked over my shoulder to see if there might be someone else behind me who had drawn his attention.

Megan Whalen Turner
Coming from light into the dark, he was looking ahead of him, not down at me. My lunge, as I came to my feet, took him in the chest as I drove the sword upward with the strength of my legs. Even rusted, the sword slid through him, and I found, for the first time, how easy it is to kill a man.

Megan Whalen Turner