Top 160 Megan Whalen Turner Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I woke to find I had not been murdered in my sleep.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

102. “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

103. “As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

104. “That won’t be necessary,” said the magus coolly. “No one would mistake you for anything but a tool, Gen. If a sword is well made, does the credit go to the blacksmith or to his hammer? How much smarter than a hammer can you be if you flaunt the proof of your crimes in a wineshop?” I flushed, and he laughed. If I hadn’t already been angry, it might not have seemed unkind laughter.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

105. “The only beautiful thing in the whole country was the queen, and she had sold herself into a marriage with the Eddisian Thief, the very one whose hand she had cut off. There was a match made in hell.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

106. “He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he’d lie then, too.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

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

— Megan Whalen Turner

108. “The only thing I knew was that I didn’t know anything, really, about the king of the Attolians, and I didn’t trust him.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

109. “He wondered how the Attolians thought Eugenides had managed to become king if he was the idiot they assumed him to be. Perhaps because they had never seen him as the Thief, with his head thrown back and a glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of a man’s neck rise up.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

110. “Staring at the wall opposite him he presented the queen with a view of his ear and awaited her orders.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

111. “We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

112. “My father thinks that we should forget the old gods. He says that a country with two sets of gods is like a country with two kings. No one knows which to be loyal to.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

113. “And she had the most appealing of feminine virtues, especially in a queen. She’s easily led.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

114. “Phresine showed him where he could sleep, in an interior room with no windows, a narrow bed, and a washstand. There were chests stacked along one wall, and Costis guessed the dismal spot was probably a closet cleaned out to make room for him. Hard to believe the royal apartments, so lavish elsewhere, would otherwise have such a plain corner. Expecting better of royal closets, Costis went to bed disappointed.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

115. “Do not offend one power to attain the favor of another.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

116. “The queen!” someone shouted in alarm, and the King erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

117. “We might someday attain a relationship of mutual respect,” he said softly. First, I thought, I will see gods walking the earth. He went on. “For now I will have your obedience.” His ability to convey a world of threat in so few words was remarkable.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

118. “But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”

— Megan Whalen Turner

119. “Who am I, that you should love me?”

— Megan Whalen Turner

120. “The Attolians liked to point out with a snicker that there was no sign anywhere of the king’s hand at work.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

121. “I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like an idiot.” “I think heroes generally do, but those men believe in you.” “I did wait until I was outside before I threw up.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

122. “Ridiculous to think what indignities I would suffer in silence, if I knew that I was to be rewarded with an oversize bucket of hot water,” the magus said as he settled into the bath the servants had filled for him.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

123. “What a strange world it is, where prisoners are left their weapons and the written word is a mortal danger.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

124. “The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen’s shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

125. “Ever since the gods created the world, mortals have been forgetting from where their blessings come.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

126. “Eddis stared at him for a long time, knowing that forgiving someone because you have to is not forgiving him at all.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

127. “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

128. “And where do I find a notary public?′ the enchantress asked. ‘Where? They don’t grow on trees where I come from, and while I might be able to arrange that one did, it would take time I don’t have to waste.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

129. “Everybody is always willing to throw someone else’s country to the dogs.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

130. “But if I hadn’t lost the hand, I’d be another person entirely by now. Wishing for the hand back would be like wishing the man I already am, to be replaced by some stranger. It would be wishing my own self out of existence.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

131. “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

132. “Of course the servants had chosen not to follow me; I’d failed them already by refusing to be a man they could believe in.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

133. “I didn’t really care much about anything, so I guess I felt fine.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

134. “It was like being lectured by an earnest, oversized child.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

135. “A natural! A natural!”

— Megan Whalen Turner

136. “Even a steadfast enemy was better than a waffler.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

137. “I stayed only two days in the capital. I was welcomed by a cheering citizenry, who threw flowers at my head. It was disconcerting to think I could have put almost any young man in my retinue on a white horse and they would have thrown flowers at him instead. It was not me they cared about, only what I meant to them: a cessation of hostilities, a chance for prosperity, food on the table.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

138. “My gift is that I always know when I’ve made an ass of myself.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

139. “If I was going to climb onto an animal eight times my size, I wanted to plan the attempt first.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

140. “He couldn’t offend the gods with a pointed stick.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

141. “All of my own impulses to balance and move seemed to conflict with those of the guards, and I was jerked and jostled down the portico, just as graceful as a sick cat.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

142. “Pol knew,” said Sophos from the window.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

143. “Power. What men like best for themselves and least in their women.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

144. “The Attolian waited, far and away the best non-speaker I think I have ever known.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

145. “Of course,” she said, “Your Majesty.” I admired the way she could make the words sound so much like “You Idiot.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

146. “Lying is just letting people believe what they want to be true.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

147. “That is it, Sophos. You have hit upon my greatest fear. Someone who named himself Bunny is going to outshine me on the battle field.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

148. “Not everything that is easy for you is easy for the rest of us. Why don’t you go away, Dionis?”

— Megan Whalen Turner

149. “I am very good at groveling.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

150. “I’m sure Gen has a plan,” Sounis said as he held Eddis in place. “If that doesn’t frighten you, it should,” said Eddis, glowering.”

— Megan Whalen Turner