“That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?”

“I wonder if it's meant to be punishment for something one can't forgive oneself for. Or an external expression, Lady Queen, of an internal pain? Or perhaps it's a way to realise that you actually d...”

“Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and th...”

“Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to p...”

“Truths are dangerous," he said."Then why are you writing them in a book?""To catch them between the pages," said Teddy, "and trap them before they disappear.”

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”

“That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?”

“Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and th...”

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

“How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highe...”

“How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highe...”