Quotes from The Palace Job

“Fortune favors the bold, though statistics favor the cautious.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Hey, come on!” Kail pushed into the hallway and saw an ascetic-looking man whose lapitect robes had some little stars on the collar. “We’re trying to work, here! Do I go down to where your mother works and push the sailors out of her bed?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“So how'd an academic end up walking a zombie through a palace on a heist job?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“I'm just saying, as someone who occasionally rigs fights, I'm offended by the lack of professionalism.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Fight the enemy. Not their people.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Word on the street says you've taken down a lot of rich bastards."
"Well, the poor bastards don't have much money, or any challenging safes.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“The lone guard was asleep at his desk. Loch thoughtfully woke him up by prodding his throat with her sword, and it was agreed that the guard would spend the night peacefully and quietly bound and gagged in the broom closet.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“What's your specialty?"
The wizard squinted. "What would you like my specialty to be?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“She said it with capital letters and everything.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Trust is a more complex philosophical issue than the average layperson can understand.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Oh, please,” said Hessler. “It’s your standard false duality designed to draw gullible believers into a world of monochromatic enemies and strip away any moral ambiguity—usually utilized by the ruling government to bolster whatever policies it wishes to implement.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Do you mean good as in ethical or good as in capable, Dairy?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Do you radiate cold magic when you punch people?" Kail asked.
"I do not engage in physical combat," Icy replied, taking a bite from his vegetable plate, "and I possess no elemental magic ability."
"Then why Icy Fist?"
"It is short for 'Indomitable Courteous Fist,' which is my full name."
"That's significantly less cool, Icy.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“I am a death priestess,” Tern’s voice echoed out of the vault, “but I’m bouncy and I have pretty hair.…”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Do you make a habit out of proclaiming things in ignorance?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“The others agreed that the gifts of the ancients and the gods were sometimes confusing, and Desidora did eventually decide to stay in.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“So I'm, like, more male than most men?" Kail asked with a hint of pride.
Icy pursed his lips. "That is certainly one way of interpreting my statement," he said, and glanced briefly overhead before continuing. "And you seem almost to transmit this disharmony to others by your speech and attitudes, such that your very presence disrupts the balance of their spirit."
"You're saying I get them mad and confused?" Kail asked.
"I... yes.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“And as Bi'ul leaped at him, a shimmering prism of rage, Dairy swung.
The world went black for one long moment, and there was only the sound of glass breaking, a glass containing all the oceans in the world, and those oceans held back the fires of a thousand suns, and it all burst forth in one massive wave of power that spread across creation in an instant.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Dairy laid a hand gently on her flank. "Captain Loch showed me the difference between is and should. She shouldn't be gone but she is..." She was still trembling. Tiny whiskers of breath barely made puffs of steam in the cold morning air. "But she shouldn't be. Someone needs to start should.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Because you alone are the spark that will burn clean and let the new growth come.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“You’re a death priestess?” the man asked. His urge to have sex with her had diminished greatly, though not entirely. “Like, sacrificing babies and devouring souls to gain the power of daemons and all that?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Get you dead ass out of the sarcophagus and follow along," Tern muttered. "And no yelling for guards, and no continuing forward when we stop and then stomping all over us and crushing our spines and skulls under your undead feet because we didn't explicitly tell you not to do that.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“The brigand in the inner palace had led the guards on a lively chase, picking corridors and servants' hallways almost as if he had studied the palace layout.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“So you can sense her aura and stuff, right?" Kail asked as he got to his feet. "So anything I say about her not being a unicorn--”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“I like my kahva the way I like my women… hot and black.” “I like my kahva the way I like my men,” she replied, her eyes half-lidded. “Ground up into tiny pieces and stored in a bag.” As the man sputtered, Loch laughed in delight”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“To try to convince this proud old brotherhood that the color of my skin doesn’t make me a fool? Do you know what I have to swallow to get myself invited to the meetings where the real decisions get made?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“You just stay careful." Tawyer prodded Kail with his truncheon. "Can't blame the warden for getting angry. Byn-kodar's hell, all she had to do was show a little respect!"
"Oh, damn, Tawyer, you're right," Kail said as he and Loch turned a corner on the pipe, their leg-chains protesting the uneven fittings with shrill screeches. "I guess she has to die. What was I thinking?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“Axes and fire killed, as swiftly as the hunter’s arrow, as surely as the mountain lion’s fangs.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

“He broke into a smile again, a boyish grin. "You know what the best part is? You didn't even steal the real manuscript." He picked up the book again. "I had a forgery placed in my vault, just to be safe. The real elven manuscript is in my library." He tossed the book aside. "After all, young lady, that's where books go.”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job

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Popular quotes

“The world is full of disappointment," I said.
"Yes," she said, "I heard him say that. And every creature is simply trying to get what it wants, and to make their way through a difficult world. Do you believe that?"
"No," I said. "There's more than that."
"Like what?"
"Like good books," I said, "and good people. And good librarians, who are almost both at once.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Oscar asked.
“I’m sure.” The sound of their voices disturbed the night, and her dishonesty disturbed her. How could she be all right? She’d been abducted at knifepoint. She’d heard the chanting again and seen the eerie black skeletal face on the bathwater’s surface. What were those things, if not part of the Umandu curse?
“Are you sure he didn’t touch you?” Oscar asked, the softness of his question poles apart from the anger and irritation he’d shown all day. It was obvious he didn’t want to go chasing after Umandu, but she couldn’t imagine the prospect of bringing her father back to life would make him so sour.
Camille sat up, holding the thin blanket around her neck. An odd thought struck her: They were on land, alone in a room, and they hadn’t yet struggled with an awkward stretch of silence. Camille liked the change and hoped it stuck.
Oscar lay on the floor, beneath the double windows. He had one arm over his chest, the other behind his head. He saw her and pushed himself up, his own covers loose around his waist. He still wore his clothes, and she grinned, knowing it was for her benefit only. He’d be sweating rivers tonight in the heavy heat. Oscar wrapped his arm around one knee.
“You have no idea what went through my mind tonight when I found that bathtub empty,” he whispered. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Camille.”
She sat up a little straighter, hoping he wouldn’t pledge his protection just to honor his dead captain. “I didn’t mean to make you worry, Oscar. But my safety isn’t your burden.”
Though she couldn’t see him clearly in the shadowed room, Camille felt his eyes on her.
“You’re not a burden, Camille. Not to me.”
She searched his dark outline. A patch of moonlight fell on a swath of bare skin on the curve of his neck. It glistened with sweat, and she felt her own skin fire with the charged silence growing between them. She didn’t know how to respond; he wouldn’t look away.
“He didn’t touch me,” she whispered instead, answering his original question. She lay back and turned onto her side, disappointed she hadn’t found something more to say. Something to make the moment last a hair longer.
Oscar’s covers rustled as he settled back as well.
“That was smart of him,” he replied, and said no more.”
― Angie Frazier, quote from Everlasting

“She couldn't live in denial of her own humanity.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow

“There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! ‘What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition... And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all goes well.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti

“Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

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