Megan Whalen Turner Quotes

I am a master of foolhardy plans.

Were you lying?""I never lie," he said piously. "About what?""The sand, the snake."For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question.

That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That’ll teach me to go hide in a temple.

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

No man can choose to serve only himself when he has something to offer his state. No one can put his own wishes above the needs of so many.

Ambiades, I realized, was the kind of person who liked to put people in a hierarchy, and he wanted me to understand that I was at the bottom of his. He was supposed to treat me politely in spite of my subservient position, and I was supposed to be grateful.For my part, I wanted Ambiades to understand that I considered myself a hierarchy of one. I might bow to the superior force of the magus and Pol, but I wasn't going to bow to him. Neither of us moved.

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.

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