There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said. "So?" "If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.

If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.

The queen had passed him, so close he'd felt the stir of air, and he guessed that if she had turned her head, only a little, and met his eyes, he might have died right there.

He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.

She pulled the bedclothes up as far as they would go and suppressed a perverse wish to have her old nurse come to chase away the darkness, perverse because she didn't know if she wanted the shadows to be empty or not.

Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?

I'll be your minister--" "Of the exchequer? You'd rob me blind." "I would never steal from you," he'd said hotly. "Oh? Where is my tourmaline necklace? Where are my missing earrings?" "That necklace was hideous. It was the only way to keep you from wearing it." "My earrings?" "What earrings?