“She threw herself across her bed, weeping into a pillow. She knew just what she wanted -- the desire was a fierce ache inside her. But fiercer still was the knowledge that it was beyond the reach o...”

“Nafsha is so concerned with my virginity. I am beginning to think she would wed me herself. Alas, the only tool she might use to make me a woman is her tongue -- and it is far too sharp for me to a...”

“In the dull, persistent beat of her heart, she hears the rhythm of hope. It is faint and thin as a thread, but it is there.”

“Her voice is still pitched high, thanks to her youth, but it has a certain incipient darkness to it, a low richness that will mature in the coming years to the smoky tones of a priestess or a queen...”

“Men always laugh whenever a woman says she has political skill. But it's not such a difficult thing to master.”

“She will not bow her head to any woman or man, so why, indeed, should she bow to a needle?”

“There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sp...”

“My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are...”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

“Global betterment is a mental process, not one that requires huge sums of money or a high level of authority. Change has to be psychological.”

“The best boss is the one who bosses the least.”

“But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord.""It might to keep it open.”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”