The problem with being clever, Serene thought with a sigh, is that everyone assumes you're always planning something.

All right," Spook said. He reached to the ground, scooping up a pile of ash. "Let's just rub this into your clothing and on your face...." Breeze froze. "I'll meet you back ath the lair," he finally said.

I consider myself to be a man of principle. But, what man does not? Even the cutthroat, I have noticed, considers his actions "moral" after a fashion. Perhaps another person, reading of my life, would name me a religious tyrant. He could call me arrogant. What is to make that man's opinion any less valid than my own? I guess it all comes down to one fact: In the end, I'm the one with the armies.

They tried boiling books, but that didn't work very well." "I'm surprised they haven't tried boiling one another." "Oh, it's been tried," Galladon said. "Fortunately. something happens to us during the Shaod—apparently the flesh of a dead man doesn't taste too good. Kolo? In fact, it's so violently bitter that no one can keep it down." "It's nice to see that cannibalism has been so logically ruled out as an option," Raoden said dryly

I had Eondel teach me," Raoden said. "Back when I was trying to find ways to prove that my father's laws were foolish. Eondel chose fencing becausehe thought it would be most useful to me, as a politician. I never figured I'd end up using it to keep my wife from slicing me to pieces.

Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can--what we we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.

I still doubt it will work." "You'd doubt the sun's rising if you weren't proven wrong each day," Raoden said with a smile.