Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Gender

How typical of this Court for everyone else to act mad and then, when I've behaved in a perfectly reasonable manner, compel me to feel as if I were the mad one. p13

Villains

He hadn't been a person who cackled and leered and rubbed his hands together villainously like the storyteller said. He'd been simpler than that. He'd spoken simply, reacted simply, and performed acts of violence with a simple, expressionless precision. He'd calmly done whatever he'd needed to do to make things the way he wanted them. p30

Love it

The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know.
I want to know everything. p58

"I always trusted you, Lady Queen," said Teddy, "even before I knew who you were. You're a person of generosity and feeling. It warms my heart to know that such a person is our queen." p287

Giddon took her small, clenched fist in his hand, raised it to his mouth, and kissed it. And Bitterblue was lit up inside, just a little bit, with the magic of knowing she'd done a small thing right. Oh, to feel that way more often. p387

Power/ Government

A monarch was responsible for the welfare of the people he ruled. If he hurt them deliberately, he should lose the privilege of sovereignty. But what of the monarch who hurt people, but not deliberately? Hurt them by not helping them. Not fixing their buildings. Not returning their losses. Not standing beside them as they grieved for their children. Not hesitating to send the mad or the troubled to be executed. p159

They understood the world and how to mold it. If she could keep them near, maybe one day she'd wake up and discover that she'd become strong that way too. p163

"Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous." p173

I have been thinking about power a great deal lately. Po says that one of the privileges of wealth is that you don't need to think about it. I think it's the same with power. I feel powerless more often than I feel powerful. But I am powerful, aren't I? I have the power to hurt my advisers with words and my friends with lies. p285

"I know they'll do what I order. That doesn't make my order reasonable." p315

Racism

"That ass Quall on your High Court hates the Lienid. He tells himself he thinks that we're inbred, over-muscled simpletons, but really what bothers him is that, in his opinion, we're better looking than he is." p255

Memory

"But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Thoughts disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they come back incomplete and warped. p316

It helped to touch things and know that they were real. Discovering this made her miss Saf with an ache she carries down every hallway, for once upon a time she had been allowed to touch him too. p339

..."one of Leck's cruelest legacies is that he left us unable to remember some things and unable to forget others. We are not masters of our minds." p390

"I've said I won't make you revisit the time of King Leck, and I meant that. But there are people-- lots of people-- who see value in doing so. There are people who need to do so in order to recover. I don't begrudge you your own need to heal in your own way, but you will not interfere with other people's healing. I understand that what they do interferes with yours. I see the conundrum. But I will not tolerate any of you compounding Leck's crimes with more crimes." p483-484

Maybe someday, they would feel more like a memory of pain than like pain itself. p536

Humor

Po's eyebrows rose. "Flying would be its own purpose, Cousin. Don't worry, no one would ever expect the queen to do it." p325

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