Eugenides Quotes

“This is the stupidest plan I have ever in my career participated in," Xenophon said.
"I love stupid plans," said Eugenides.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Who am I, that you should love me?"
"You are My Queen," said Eugenides. She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth.
"Do you believe me?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"I love you."
And she believed him.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Why did you come if not to murder my king?"
"I came to steal his magus."
"You can't," said the magus in question.
"I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library?”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“The books I love most are the ones that combine some sort of gripping story with really beautiful or stylish writing. Some of my favorites are 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy, 'The Virgin Suicides' by Jeffrey Eugenides, 'The Interpreter of Maladies' by Jhumpa Lahiri, and 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago.”

— Karen Thompson Walker

“She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower."
"And?" Eddis prompted.
"Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“I knew I would be in the story somewhere," Eugenides interjected.
"Oh no," said Phresine, "This was a humble servant."
"Ouch."
"Though very courageous."
"Not me," whispered Eugenides to his pillow.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“You'll have to pardon me," the magus said. "But with your country at war I can't see how any of it really matters."
Standing up, Eugenides pulled the papers from the magus's hands. "It matters, because I can't do anything, anymore, for this country, and it matters," he yelled as he threw the papers back to his desk, "because I only have one hand and it isn't even the right one!" Turning, he picked an inkpot off the desk and threw it to shatter on the door of his wardrobe, spraying black ink across the pale wood and onto the wall. Black drops like rain stained the sheets of his bed.
...
Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?" she asked.
"I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said.
"So?"
"If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot the ambassador?"
"You gave me the gun," protested Sounis.
"I didn't mean for you to shoot the ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him.
"Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus.
"You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“It isn't deep," the Eddisian Ambassador said from the other side of the bed. He was leaning over the wound, looking critical and mildly disappointed. Eugenides didn't miss a beat.
"It is ... too ... deep!" he insisted, outraged.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt."
"I'm sorry," said Sounis, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing.
"I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?"
"Gen, it's the middle of the night."
"I know," said the king of Attolia.
Sounis tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was sitting up in his bed. The sky was still entirely dark, and he couldn't have been asleep for long. He suspected that he had just dropped off. The bare knife was still in his hand, he realized, and he rooted under his pillow for the sheath.
"Don't you trust my palace security?"
"Yes, of course," Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh.
"My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don't be embarrassed.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees ...”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“He watched Attolia out of the corner of his eye. She was still cool, like a breath of winter in the warm evening air, but in the last few days he had begun to sense a subtle humor in her chilly words. When Gen had complained earlier that evening that Petrus, the palace physician, should stop fussing over him like a worried old woman, Attolia had asked, archly,"And me as well?"
"When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow."
Allolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous."
Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“One cannot toss ambassadors back like bad fish," said Eugenides. "You treat them with care, or you'll find you've committed an act of war.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Why didn't you tell me to take Attolia's advice from the beginning?"
"I thought you should figure it out. What you learn for yourself, you will know forever," said Eugenides.
"Pol used to say that," said Sounis, surprised.
"I learned it from him. I just wish to my god that I had his patience for the process.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“She was the stone-faced queen, then and ever after. She had needed the mask to rule, and she had been glad to have it. She wondered if Eugenides was glad of his.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“We would have died without the additional men," he admitted matter-of-factly. "But we would have taken the entire Mede army with us. Poets would have written about us, and songs would have been sung about us-"
"For all the good that would have done your dead bodies," Eugenides cynically interrupted.
"Well, I wasn't looking forward to it," said Sounis caustically. "But over our dead bodies the Medes would never have been accepted by the people of Sounis. Much more likely that they would have allied with Attolia." He looked at Eugenides, who was still eyeing him in surprise. "I didn't expect to die," he said. "I knew you would send help."
"Why?"
It was Sounis's turn to be surprised. He said, "You told me you needed me to be Sounis. I am. I needed my king to send me help. You did. There had to be reinforcements at Oneia, so they were there." To him it was obvious.
Eugenides swallowed. "I see.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“He waved at his attendants. "I dragged them like a ball and chain all the way across the palace and back."
"If sterner measures are called for, we can find a larger ball and chain." The queen turned and disappeared into the partment.
"Oh, dear," Eugenides muttered as he followed ... The queen's sterner measures, dispensed by the Eddisian Ambassador, arrived before dawn.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“The two soldiers laughed, and even the king smiled. Reinforcing Costis's suspicion that Eugenides had been responsible for Ornon's lost sheep, Boagus asked, "Do you still baa like a lamb when he walks into the room?"
Eugenides shook his head. "Ornon took me aside first thing after the coronation and explained that it would be against my dignity."
Aulus and Boagus stared. Eugenides expression was bland.
"He said that?" Aulus asked.
"He did," the king confirmed.
"What did you say?" Boagus asked suspiciously.
"I promised to bark like a sheepdog instead."
The Eddisians chuckled again.
"You don't, though?" Aulus had to ask.
The king eyed him with disgust. "Give me some credit," He said, and when Aulus was visibly relieved, added, "Not when anybody else can hear me.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Costis flinched and looked away from this compensation to the king's handicap, only to find himself looking into the king's face instead. Eugenides matched Costis look for look, his expression grave, his eyes like pools of darkness deeper than Costis could penetrate. For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“On the bed, Eugenides stirred restlessly. "Upset at the sight of blood?" he said. "Not my wife, Ornon."
"Your blood," the ambassador pointed out.
Eugenides glanced at the hook on his arm and conceded the point. "Yes," he said. He seemed lost in memory. The room was quiet.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“The room was full of people. "Ninety-eight days," said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. "You said it would take six months." Eugenides picked at a nub in the coverlet. "I like to give myself a margin. When I can." "I didn't believe you," the queen admitted with a delicate smile. "Now you know better." The king smiled back. They might as well have been alone. The queen turned her head to listen. There was shouting in the guardroom. Costis tensed. His hand went to his belt, looking for his sword. "That will be Dite," said the king. "He must have been in the outer rooms. I may as well see him." The queen rose and stepped behind the embroidered screen in front of the fireplace. Her attendants withdrew. The king's attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“He wondered how the Attolians thought Eugenides had managed to become king if he was the idiot they assumed him to be. Perhaps because they had never seen him as the Thief, with his head thrown back and a glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of a man's neck rise up.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?'
Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight.
'You have your answer, Little Thief.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Ornon says, Ornon-who-always-has-something-to-say says, the Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder. That's what makes us dangerous. -Eugenides”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“Perhaps you can bring out better in them?"
Eugenides shook his head. "I pulled the carpet out from under them very thoroughly. They will not cross me, but they won't love me, either. I am not Eddis. People do not hand me their hearts."
Sounis wondered. He would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked. He remembered Ion's obvious wince at being rated somewhat less significant to Gen than his boots.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides left me both moved and, at times, laughing out loud in delight.”

— Kim Edwards

“But who knew what would happen once he got to Canada? Canada with its pacifism and its socialized medicine! Canada with its millions of French speakers! It was like ... like ... like a foreign country! Father Mike might become a fugitive over there, living it up in Quebec. He might disappear into Saskatchewan and roam with the moose.
-Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003), P. 507”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King.”

— Megan Whalen Turner