I do not know that the Chinese system is any worse; there is a limit to the evil one despot alone can do, and if he is truly vicious he can be overthrown; a hundred corrupt members of Parliament may t...
I didn’t want her to need to do things like that. I didn’t want her to need a sword.
I am beginning to feel the need of a glass of wine to fortify myself against this conversation.
He darted a look at the uncovered basket behind me, saw what I was eating, and glared at me. That's appalling, he said.They're wonderful! I said. They're all coming ripe.All the better to turn you int...
He coiled himself neatly and waited without fidgeting, as was polite; but at length, when Majestatis showed no signs of waking—after ten minutes, or perhaps five—very nearly five—Temeraire coughed; th...
For his part, Temeraire had been following this exchange with cocked head and increasing confusion; now he said, I do not understand in the least, why ought it make any difference at all? Lily is fema...
Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will.
But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.
But I had not known that I was strong enough to do any of those things until they were over and I had done them. I had to do the work first, not knowing.
Because that's what the story's really about: getting out of paying your debts. That's not how they tell it, but I knew. My father was a moneylender, you see.
Angry, I think. I didn’t remember ever being angry before. Anger had always seemed pointless to me, a dog circling after its own tail.
And I wasn’t old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon. She
And I wasn't old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon.
After a moment, he said, in almost marveling tones, 'Are you deranged?
A life before you in the moment isn't worth a hundred elsewhere, three months from now.
. . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, .
It had the feeling of truth, of something that I’d always known and just hadn’t ever put into words, or of explaining clearly and plainly something I’d never understood.
If truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.
Her fire was roaring, her silhouette raising showers of orange sparks with a hammer made of shadow.
He would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked.