Rebel Queen Quotes
"Their spines all open, the books look like old moths, just too worn out and tired to fly away."
"What does a monkey know about the taste of ginger?"
"No one can expect to reach my age without witnessing great change."
"Memoirs are not open doors into another person’s house. They are more like broken windows."
"Every skill you master is like another chess piece, designed to bring you closer to the king."
"The Durga Dal are her personal guards, not the maharaja’s. They are there to protect and entertain her, no one else."
"Charming is something a woman learns when she realizes how beautiful she is."
"If you have ever witnessed something unspeakably painful, then you know what I mean when I say that everything stopped."
"Life was simply carrying on while Mother lay on her funerary litter. It made me think of the scene in King Lear when the king discovers his beloved daughter’s body."
"Because it was the right thing to do. The death of his brothers would save thousands of innocent lives in the future."
"Sometimes birds are injured and they die. But then they are reborn into healthy bodies. That is samsara."
"I didn’t recognize the girl with her long neck ringed in gold and her full lips bright against her pale face."
"It is only a little mutiny, Major Ellis, and nothing to be terribly alarmed about."
"The only words free of suspicious motives will be the ones I find in books."
"The Master of the Letters is in charge of correspondence, and any letter entering or leaving the palace is read by him."
"If you are incapable of telling an enemy from a friend, then it’s best to be alone."
"No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, 'I’ll do nothing until I can be sure.' Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don’t be one of those merchants who won’t risk the ocean."
"I have never seen the like. You are one of the queen’s female warriors?"
"By using my weapons. And if necessary, my words. Today, my words are all that I have, and I am here to ask that you protect the rani’s kingdom."
"Without the practice of yoga, it was entirely impossible to set the atman free."
"I will never leave you! But today, I humbly surrender the government of Jhansi to the British."
"The goal of yoga is to remind us that we are not oxen; we can put down the burden of our worries whenever we want."
"She may keep it or sell as she wishes. But I’d like her to have it."
"What Jhansi needs now is a leader, not a martyr!"
"What woman has ever changed her husband’s fate by joining him on his pyre? And what woman has ever built a stronger kingdom by disappearing from it?"
"Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?"
"We hadn’t ridden for long when word that we were being pursued made it to the front of our procession."
"In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus returned home after an absence of twenty years and wasn’t sure whom he could trust."
"The rani can fight again at Kalpi. Can you think of another way?"
"Nothing is finished unless you want it to be."
"The war stole so many people from us, and still it’s not over."
"We either needed to ride for Gwalior or commit to remaining in Barwa Sagar for the rest of the war."
"One of the guards met someone in the marketplace who has news of Jhansi."