“Lucian's father had warned him to fear idle men. Without the pride gained from a good day's work, they were left to their vices and the doubts that crowded their head. Their hatred. Their envy.”

“There's a song that I hear at the back of my heart that I feared for so long, when I sensed you were there. And I think of those times when you crept into my dreams and I thought you a threat to cu...”

“What if she's all I give you in this life of ours, my love?" she asked quietly. "Then I'll shout at the goddess in fury," he said fiercely. "I'll beg to know why I've been given so much when other ...”

“Phaedra looked across the water and her eyes met Lucians. Their needs came second. It came from the privilege of being tr”

“Do you want to know something about tyrants? When faced with death, they weep and they beg just like the rest of us.”

“Phaedra of Alonsos death was a never-ending pain that gnawed at his insides. It made him a prisoner in his own cottage.”

“Mercy', Finnikin said, grinning from ear to ear. 'We're going to have a bed full of children and I'll have to holler out to my wife, "Hello there! It's been a long time since we last spoke!”

“Some of us weren't born for rewards, Froi. We were born for sacrifices.”

“I've been waiting for you all night and day,' she said.Froi shivered. He realised that the words came from Quintana the ice maiden. Realised, as he felt his face heating up, that the idea of this Q...”

“Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder.”

“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.”