I am a master of foolhardy plans, I thought. I have so much practice I consider them professional risks.

Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.

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.

I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say 'We eat the chicken now!' but the magus had seen that I was considering it.

But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.

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

It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.

Will there be poppy juice in it?" Phresine shook her head. "Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.

Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.

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.

Her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth.

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.

Instinct is all of our humanity being deliberately honest with all of life.

The past is fractal premonition, infinite to the eye but nothing to be built on . . .

You know who you are. You have always been other.

Acting is a sense of wonder and magic and mystery for me and when life takes me on a new journey, I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward.

I really, really like 'Eastbound & Down.' It's one of the few things that makes me laugh.

Artillery is the god of war.

Sure, fear can protect us from danger—but most of the time it just keeps us from life’s great adventures.

The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires.