“But I'd also learned that the self might want one thing, but that didn't mean it was right.”

“One doesn't lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pine. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.”

“I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon.”

“Some of it was wrong decisions made for the right reasons, and a little of it was right decisions made for the wrong reasons; but most of what I did was wrong decisions for the wrong reasons.”

“No, I don't think I could fall in love with him, handsome though he is, because I don't accept any of that huff he gives me about my great beauty and all that. I'd have to trust a man's words before I could love him. I think.”

“The more one has, the less one desires.”

“Jaim says that the essence of command is to turn surprises to your favor. You get your perimeter outside the enemy’s perimeter, and attack.”“What does that mean, exactly?”“Oh, I don’t know, some kind of military jabber. I was hoping you knew.”