“And a young prince must be prudent like that,giving freely while his father livesso that afterwards, in age when fighting startssteadfast companions will stand by himand hold the line.”

“You fight them, his father had said. You don't trust them. His father had been right. And his father had been ready. Rabatians were cowards and deceivers, they should have scattered when their duplicitous attack met the full force of the Akielon army. But for some reason they hadn't fallen at the first sign of a real fight, they had stood firm, and shown metal, and, for hour upon hour, they had fought, until the Akielon lines had begun to slip and falter.And their general wasn't the king, it was the twenty-five year old prince, holding the field. Father, I can take him, he'd said.Then go, his father had said, and bringus back victory.”

“My heart breaks. Also not the first time. I long to go after him. To find himand hold himand kiss himin the loveliest of gardens.”

“It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterward.”

“Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.”

“The horsemen thatching the roof with feathers are a likeness of people who go forth into the world to seek riches and fortune. When they return their houses are bare, and so they go on for everThe young man dragging up the trees to make a fire is a likeness of those who labour for others: much trouble they have, but they never warm themselves at the fire.The three heads in the wells are three kinds of men. Some there are who give freely when they get freely; some who give freely though they get little; some who get much and give little—and they are the worst of the three…”