“Practise in everything a certain nonchalance that shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought.”

“He tried to calm his thoughts, but everything came back to what he'd almost done. Because he hadn't done anything, for years or ever, he had almost done this. Because he had no stories of valor, he had almost done this. Because the efforts he'd made towards creating something like a legacy had failed, he had almost done this.”

“If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest -- like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without effort, remaining what it was implacably -- was out of their hands, beyond.”

“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.”

“Po flickered. "Thank you?" it repeated. "What is that?"Liesl thought. "It means, You were wonderful," she said. "It means, I couldn't have done it without you.”

“Without him nothing was done, and through him everything was done, and the king trusted him more than any other.”