“Why not? For your information I'm hoping it doesn't last more than a month or two myself.?His words stung as sharply as a slap across the face."Maybe by that time you'll be miserable enough to be willing to marry me-”

“I killed the Google Alert I used to have on myself two years ago. I don’t need any more information about myself. I get more than enough of that just by being me.”

“And exactly how does a miserable face help the war effort?" he asked sharply, his mood beginning to change. "Will a frown bring back the dead or fortify a town? If I allow myself to laugh in the face of misery, I rest my mind from the stress of it all, and then it'll work the better for you and your war. And if I'm really to be one of your advisers, Your Majesty, accept this piece of advise: Take happiness where and when you find it, because there is going to be precious little of it in the next few months!”

“Maybe when you're married, you'll have a better idea of what desperate lengths you'll go to...for your sake,I hope not.”

“Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.”

“For my true thoughts have spent more time in your company than in anyone else's, these last two or three months, and where my thoughts are, there am I, in truth".”