Paula

“Pray that I triumph today, Fordad, or that I die," said Eugenides, bending from the back of the horse to look the Braeling in the eye. "If I live through this day and I am not king, then all that remains will be the Thief, and every sovereign of the Continent who betrayed me will wake choking on their own blood, I swear it. Your king in his innermost chamber, with his rune stones laid out on the table and his ship lamps by his bed and his curtains trimmed in beads of carved jet, he will not be the first one to die, but the last. I say it three times, Fordad. It will be so. It will be so. It will be so.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, Return of the Thief

“All wars make men monsters, all wars and all men.”
“And women?” he asked.
“Women, too,” Attolia confirmed.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, Return of the Thief

“I inherited this country when I was only a child, Nahuseresh. I have held it. I have fought down rebellious barons. I've fought Sounis to keep the land on this side of the mountains. I have killed men and watched them hang. I've seen them tortured to keep this country safe and mine. How did you think I did this if I was a fool with cow eyes for any handsome man with gold in his purse?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“Nahuseresh tells me I am not king. Well see if he really prefers the Thief.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, Return of the Thief