Summer > Summer's Quotes

“And he loves to read. He loves the whisper of the pages and the way his fingertips catch on rough paper, the pour of the words up from the leaves, through soft light, into his eyes, the mute voice in his ears.”
― Keith Miller, The Book of Flying

“Stories are life," protested Pico. "Without them, books would be only paper and ink, with them they breathe, the reader is drawn in, the stories become him.”
― Keith Miller, The Book of Flying

“Memories must enter the bloodstream, must churn awhile through the heart's mill, must be crushed and polished, be nearly forgotten or cling like burs to other stories before they spill forth in purple patterns, shapes of small bones and worm rot, shapes of clouds and the spaces between leaves.”
― Keith Miller, The Book of Flying

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“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.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“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?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“...her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth...”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I sometimes believe his lies are the truth, but I have never mistaken his truth for a lie.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees...”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“He watched Attolia out of the corner of his eye. She was still cool, like a breath of winter in the warm evening air, but in the last few days he had begun to sense a subtle humor in her chilly words. When Gen had complained earlier that evening that Petrus, the palace physician, should stop fussing over him like a worried old woman, Attolia had asked, archly,"And me as well?"
"When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow."
Attolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous."
Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief

“You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it."
Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth.
"No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“The window opened in the same direction as the king's, and there, summer-bright and framed by the darkness of the stairwell, was the same view. Costis passed it, and then went back up the stairs to look again. There were only the roofs of the lower part of the palace and the town and the city walls. Beyond those were the hills on the far side of the Tustis Valley and the faded blue sky above them. It wasn't what the king saw that was important, it was what he couldn't see when he sat at the window with his face turned toward Eddis.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I can't leave her there all alone, surrounded by stone walls... She's too precious to give up.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“After one moment of gripped immobility, the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, 'I love your eyes.' She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. 'I love your ears, and I love'-she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips-'every single one of your ridiculous lies.' The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it was unfathomable.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Who was the Thief that she would love him? A youth, just a boy with hardly a beard and no sense at all... A liar, she thought, an enemy, a threat. He was brave, a voice inside her said, he was loyal... A fool, she answered back. A fool and a dead one. She ached with emptiness.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“The Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I cut off your hand. I have been living with your grief and your rage and your pain ever since. I don't think-I don't think I had felt anything for a long time before that, but those emotions at least were familiar to me. Love I am not familiar with. I didn't recognize that feeling until I thought I had lost you in Ephrata. And when I thought I was losing you a second time, I realized I would give up anything to keep you-my lip service to other gods, but my pride, too, and my rage at all gods, everything for you.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“If the king could make a throne seem like a stool fit for a printer's apprentice, the queen could make a rumpled bedspread into a throne.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“The room was full of people. “Ninety-eight days,” said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. “You said it would take six months.” Eugenides picked at a nub in the coverlet. “I like to give myself a margin. When I can.” “I didn’t believe you,” the queen admitted with a delicate smile. “Now you know better.” The king smiled back. They might as well have been alone. The queen turned her head to listen. There was shouting in the guardroom. Costis tensed. His hand went to his belt, looking for his sword. “That will be Dite,” said the king. “He must have been in the outer rooms. I may as well see him.” The queen rose and stepped behind the embroidered screen in front of the fireplace. Her attendants withdrew. The king’s attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“When I am actually willing to marry you, I will wear your earrings. Don't wait for it, Thief.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they wont' just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight...”
― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials - The Trilogy: The Golden Compass / The Subtle Knife / The Amber Spyglass

“I write almost always in the third person, and I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites.”
― Philip Pullman

“Make yourself sleep? Oh, don’t think of it that way.” Reed let her pass him. “It’s an indulgence, not a duty. ‘Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.’ Try to be wicked.”
― Caroline Stevermer, A College of Magics

“Faris turned on him. "Why choose to wear black today, of all days? I know why I'm in black. Why are you? Mourning?

He looked startled. "One does not wear mourning for a servant."

You still don't understand, do you? He was not my servant."

He regarded her anger, aghast. "What then? What else could he be?

Her empty hands shook as she held them out to him. Her voice shook as she replied, "Glove to my hand." Slowly she closed her fists. "Everything.”
― Caroline Stevermer, A College of Magics