The Invasion of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling #2)

by Erika Johansen

Once in a while, usually when Ewen wasn’t even trying, he would solve a mystery, and that was a great and extraordinary feeling, the way he imagined birds would feel as they swooped across the sky.

My husband is not a clever man, but his very stupidity makes him dangerous. He has never asked himself whether he has the right to do the things he has done. He is not intelligent enough to consider such questions. This, I think, is the crux of evil in this world, Majesty: those who feel entitled to whatever they want, whatever they can grab. Such people never ask themselves if they have the right. They consider no cost to anyone but themselves.”

He was reading, sitting in the comfortable chair at his desk, and reading usually calmed him, reminded him that there was a world beyond this one, a better world that seemed almost tangible.

“Telling me to watch my temper is the first and best way to wake it up, Lazarus.”

A man who didn’t like tomato was to be more pitied than despised.

“Tell me, Mrs. Mayhew, have you ever dreamed of a better world?” “Who hasn’t?” “Anyone who profits by keeping the world as it is.

The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they’re just harder to fix. And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues, the worse the harm, until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future.

Vallee had taken an arrow in the knee from a sniper.

Always, we think we know what courage means. If I were called upon, we say, I would answer the call. I would not hesitate. Until the moment is upon us, and then we realize that the demands of true courage are very different from what we had envisioned, long ago on that bright morning when we felt brave.