“I have changed for the last time--this is the man I will be till I die. And that man loves you.”

“My love for you is elemental and immutable, and it will sustain me until I die.”

“Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment.”

“I am who I am, born that way, and will die that way.”

“I wonder,” I said. “Perhaps you can meet with an accident on the road. Harwin and I can bring back the sad news that you died while we were traveling.” Gisele looked amused—and a little intrigued. “But wouldn’t you be expected to return with my corpse in tow?” “Not if you—fell off a cliff and drowned, and the water carried you away,” I said, improvising quickly. “Not if you were mauled by wolves andeaten .” “Oh, yes, do have me devoured by wild creatures.”

“So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge.”

“He looked down at his empty glass. "One of the other ways in which I am different from my father," he said. "I am not interested in marrying where I do not love."I spoke in a jesting voice. "And of all the women in the eight provinces, you have not been able to find one you could love?"Now he looked at me again, and his face was completely serious. "That's the problem," he said. "There is one.”