If I wanted to stun anyone at dinner, I'd hit them in the face.

Love is stupid. It has nothing to do with reason. You love whomever you love.

Children are geniuses.

Normal. She wasn't normal. A girl Graced with killing, a royal thug? A girl who didn't want the husbands Randa pushed on her, perfectly handsome and thoughtful men, a girl who panicked at the thought of a baby at her breast, or clinging to her ankles.

If we're to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon jagged bits of rock.

I have no doubt that you are more than capable of bringing the Monsean queen and my son and the rest of my sons and a hundred Nanderan kittens through an onslaught of howling raiders if you chose to.

And the kings were no better to their own people than they were to each others.