She was the stone-faced queen, then and ever after. She had needed the mask to rule, and she had been glad to have it. She wondered if Eugenides was glad of his.

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.

Now I know this is going to seem counter to every instinct that you have, but I'm going to ask you to sit still, or I'll put you in the trunk.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests.

Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others each batch has its own characteristics and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor.

I work too hard and don't play enough.

There is in every country an antipathy to the foreigner.

My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.

I believe the US is a truly monstrous force in the world, now off the leash for obvious reasons.

Paying good wages is not charity at all-it is the best kind of business.

The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored.