# Quote — Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

> Everything, it seemed, depended on gold. The magus and I had fallen easily back into our old habits. He lectured constantly, and I asked questions to my heart's delight. Where he had once been my master and I his apprentice, I had become king and he my sole advisor. Where we had once focused on natural history and philosophy, we now concentrated on administration, taxation, and the prosecution of war.
>
> He had begun his lessons by quoting the duke of Melfi: "To make war you need three things: one, money; two, money; and three, money." He went on to tell me the things I should have known already, that I would have known if I had been a more promising heir to the throne and not exclusively interested in poetry.

- Author: [Megan Whalen Turner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner.md)
- Book: [A Conspiracy of Kings](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Megan_Whalen_Turner#A_Conspiracy_of_Kings_(2010)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/everything-it-seemed

## More from this book

> "Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them.
>
> They thought it was how a king behaved.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/ten-thousand-i-shouted.md)

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/eschewing-ceremony-eugenides.md)

> "In my experience, the more you know of the gods, the more you know what you cannot understand."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/in-my-experience.md)