The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids (Amra Thetys, #1)

by Michael McClung

being around a mage was like being around a ‘tame’ lion. You could never fully let down your guard. They were just too powerful, and too unpredictable. Their motivations were too obscure.

the kind of power a mage dealt with on a daily basis pushed him, eventually, beyond mundane considerations such as right and wrong. He tended to think more along the lines of 'possible' and 'impossible', and the 'impossible' list was a lot shorter for a mage than it was for you or me.

When mages meet, there is a tendency towards discovering who has the greater talent. Occupational hazard, I suppose. Sometimes making the discovery can be hard on the furniture.

One of the privileges of being a mage, I suppose, is that you can be as strange as you like, and nobody dares comment.

Wine?” I held out the bottle. “Is it any good?” “The very best I have.” He took a sip. Swallowed, reluctantly. “That’s ghastly.” “True.”

“So, not Bath the Silent. What then? Bath the Very Quiet? Bath the Extremely Reticent?”

I took in the leaning, ramshackle two-story building in front of us. It was all of wood, and rotting. It hadn’t seen paint in a generation. The termites probably had to hold hands to keep it standing. “Do termites have hands?” I asked

You can’t just go walking around with a severed head in Lucernis. But you can, I discovered, walk around with a lumpy head-shaped item, wrapped in linen and dripping blood. I think it’s just that nobody really wants to know you’re walking around with a severed head, and are appreciative of the courtesy of leaving room for doubt.

“True wisdom lies not in knowing the correct answer, but in knowing the correct question.”

“Secrets have no power. Not by themselves. It’s the control of secrets that’s power.