You do not respond to an attempt on your life with a slap on the hand. Or a joke.

The only way to get what you want is to make them more afraid of you than they are of each other.

Why aren't you dead?" Will demanded.

And, like a fool, she kissed him back. Kissed him a way that would leave no doubt about the way she felt about him. Kissed him because she knew the chances were slim she'd have very many kisses like that in her lifetime. Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.

I have to think it's possible to suffer a great wrong and walk away from it. To build a life of small, exquisitely important moments.

Like a stand of lodgepole pines in a gale Raisa's followers all went down leaving her standing alone....There's no shelter for me not from any of this. I'll stand alone the rest of my life. THE GRAY WOLF THRONE p. 163

Ellen could have killed me," Jack said quietly, "but she didn't. She saved my life." "How come?" Fitch demanded. "After all this?" Ellen turned scarlet and stared at the ground. "Maybe none of my opponents ever gave me flowers before," she mumbled.