Alexandra Rowland > Quotes

“She stopped at the foot of the bed. “Good morning, Your Highness,” she said. “As we are alone, I am using my discretion to dispense with formalities, as per the privileges granted to me by my rank.” “Yep,” he mumbled around the stick. “Go right ahead. I deserve it.” “You sure made a decision, eh? There was a decision to be made there, and you really just made the shit out of it. My gods.” “I know,” he groaned, and pulled a pillow over his head too. “But he made some really good points.” “Oh, I bet he did.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Because who you were is just the stories you tell yourself about yourself, and the intersection of all the hurts you've ever had and how you survived them.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Choir of Lies

“Who you are isn't the thoughts in your head or the fears in your heart or the name someone else gives you or takes from you. Who you are is what you do. It's the actions you take, or that you don't take. It's the way that you help people, or don't. It's the good that you put into the world, or the bad.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“By the sea and in the eyes of the Mother and the Lord of Judgement, I declare myself to you. I come to you without distinctions and without glory, without the trifling and meaningless trappings of mortal honours. I come to you as nothing and no one but myself. Take my hands and see that they are empty - I offer you no wealth but that of my heart, and ask for none but that of yours. Hear my words and know that they are true - I swear myself to you and none other”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“It's messy, lad, it's all messy." I waved my hand airily. "You just question everything that anyone tells you and assume they don't really know what they're talking about, even when they sound like they do, and you remember that everybody has a reason for telling you something in the way that they do and that most reasons are selfish.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“Happy wedding,” Evemer said. “I got you this door.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Evemer’s heart ached, and for the first time in his life, he wondered if he was going to be able to survive this. Probably not. Chances were that it wouldn’t drive him to a literal death, but it was beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Evemer who endured that heartbreak and came out on the other side was going to be a different person than the one who sat here now, half-naked and dripping wet and miserable.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Nuryevet wasn't a real thing--it was a story that people told one another. An idea they constructed in fantasy and then in stone and mortar, in lines of ink in labyrinthine law books, in cities and roads. It was a map, if you will, drawn on a one-to-one scale and laid out over the whole landscape like so much smothering cloth. So when I say there was nothing in Nuryevet worth saving, that's what I mean: the story wasn't worth saving, and none of its monstrous whelps were either--the government, their methods, the idea that they could feed their poor to the story like cattle to a sea monster so the wealthy could eat its leavings.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“You sure made a decision, eh? There was a decision to be made there, and you really just made the shit out of it. My gods.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Tell a good story that will catch and hold their attention or die.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“Tam Becket did not care for Lord Lyford. On the other hand, gods, the man had a cock on him.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Yield Under Great Persuasion

“I don’t know who thought a Senate was a good idea. All it seems to do is turn out a load of annoying power-hungry bureaucrats.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“She's more like me than Ylfing is—more like me than I would admit to just anyone. I think that's why we clash as we do. We see a mirror of ourselves in each other, and neither of us can come up with a story about ourselves to disguise it. It's uncomfortable and upsetting to have yourself stripped naked down to the bedrock of your soul with one hard glance from someone as unsympathetic as yourself.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“This wasn’t going to end well. It couldn’t. It was going to break him. Evemer would not survive this—likely he had already failed to survive it. Likely it had already changed him, and he was only just now beginning to realize.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“So he let himself look, he let himself yearn, he let his heart ache for his lord, for that noble little fool-that beautiful good man”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Halfway through his twenty-fifth year, and to his acute relief, Prince Kadou became an uncle.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Reciprocity was a thing you had to learn. Someone had to tell you, first, that you deserved to be treated well, before you knew it for yourself.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“Who you are is what you do. It's the actions you take, or that you don't take. It's the way you help people, or don't. It's the good that you put into the world, or the bad.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Choir of Lies

“He swallowed hard. The words seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, but he lined them up on his tongue, braced himself, and... "She was my lady.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Tadek and the Princess

“Avra,” said Teveri in a very different tone to what they had been using. “Please get in the boat.”
Avra gasped and clapped a hand to his heart in genuine horror. “Tev, you can’t do that.”
“Please, Avra, I would really like it if you got in the boat.”
Avra looked to the crew for support; they met his eyes expressionlessly, except for Julian, who had sucked both lips into his mouth to bite back a smile. Avra turned back to Teveri and spluttered for a moment. “These tactics are beneath you, Teveri.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Running Close to the Wind

“Should we be wary of snakes, do you think?” Julian asked as it became harder and harder to see their own feet.
“You think I’d have the bad luck to get bitten by a snake?”
“Let me rephrase: Should I be wary of snakes, do you think?”
“You could if you wanted to.” Avra shrugged. “Or you could hold hands with me, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about snakes any more than I do.”
“Is that how it works?” Julian said, amused.
Avra turned and winked at him. “Maybe, who’s to say?” After a moment, he added, “I winked, just so you know. I can’t see your face that well anymore, so you probably didn’t see the wink.”
“I appreciate that. I did, however, sense a general air of winks.”
“Holding hands so you don’t get bitten by snakes probably doesn’t count as breaking your vow of celibacy,” Avra said with a little hair toss that Julian probably also couldn’t see very well. “Just pointing that out.”
“That’s a reasonable argument,” said Julian, which wasn’t true at all, but then his hand slipped into Avra’s.
“Hrkg,” said Avra. After a long moment, silent but for the crunch of the forest floor under his feet, he giggled in a delirious little panic.
“It starts counting more if you do that,” Julian said solemnly.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Running Close to the Wind

“What does that mean, the way people are?” “Customs! Manners! Languages! The ten thousand gods of ten thousand nations! The tales they tell their children when they wake from nightmares, the tales they tell their sons and daughters when they send them off to war, the tales a midwife tells a laboring mother, the tales old men tell each other in the twilight of their lives.” “So you are a spy—sort of.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“She was smiling at him from that locket. Do your best, she'd said, and by the gods, he'd tried. Every step of the way, he'd tried. Always, my lady, he thought back to her.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Tadek and the Princess

“I’m alright,” said her Highness, smiling and smiling.
“Tadek protected me.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Tadek and the Princess

“Should we be wary of snakes, do you think?” Julian asked as it became harder and harder to see their own feet.

“You think I’d have the bad luck to get bitten by a snake?”

“Let me rephrase: Should I be wary of snakes, do you think?”

“You could if you wanted to.” Avra shrugged. Or you could hold hands with me, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about snakes any more than I do.”
“Is that how it works?” Julian said, amused.
Avra turned and winked at him. “Maybe, who’s to say?” After a moment, he added, “I winked, just so you know. I can’t see your face that well anymore, so you probably didn’t see the wink.”

“I appreciate that. I did, however, sense a general air of winks.”
“Holding hands so you don’t get bitten by snakes probably doesn’t count as breaking your vow of celibacy,” Avra said with a little hair toss that Julian probably also couldn’t see very well. “Just pointing that out.”
“That’s a reasonable argument,” said Julian, which wasn’t true at all, but then his hand slipped into Avra’s.
“Hrkg,” said Avra. After a long moment, silent but for the crunch of the forest floor under his feet, he giggled in a delirious little panic.
“It starts counting more if you do that,” Julian said solemnly.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Running Close to the Wind

“He would have had a map for that
wilderness—but Evemer had no map, and both he and his heart were
already lost . . . Except for Kadou, burning like the compass star, the center
of his sky that all the heavens turned around, steady and constant enough
for Evemer to set his course by.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron

“You fill out a lot of forms. Then you fill out some different forms. Then you hire a new assistant for this case only because the forms have to be filed in quintuplicate and filed with the office of each Prime, separately, and one simply does not have enough hours in the day. Then you go home, really tired, to your family having eaten dinner at your desk again. And you fall straight into bed without enough energy to do more than kiss the children and spouses goodnight. And the next morning you get up and fill out more forms, and you visit the clarks to see if anyone has read your requests, and they say no. And you do this once a day for a week or so. And if you’ve filled out all the paperwork perfectly, then you flip a coin to determine whether or not they unseal the records for you.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“Ylfing looks at anyone and sees the best thing about them, sees their kindness, their loves, whatever little whisper of divine grace they have within them.”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“Optimism is the surest sign of a fool”
― Alexandra Rowland, A Conspiracy of Truths

“Julian,” Avra said, sharply reproachful. “Tev had such a hard day, and now you’re dangling reminders at them of your past as a slutty revolutionary? That’s not fair.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Teveri. “You can talk about your slutty revolutionary past if you want. Feel free to be wistful and nostalgic. Homesick for it, maybe.”
― Alexandra Rowland, Running Close to the Wind