Mary Renault Quotes

When I rode on to meet the army, I learned a thing one never forgets after: how much easier it is to move the many than the few.

With new friendships had come visits to the philosophers and teachers of rhetoric; and, presently, the chance to learn from experts the art of war. He had longed for home and had returned with gladness; but by then he had been received into the mystery of Hellas, forever her initiate.

Athens was her altar, almost her self. All he asked of Athens was to restore her glories; her present leaders seemed to him like the Phokians at Delphi, unworthy men who had seized a holy shrine. Deep in his mind moved a knowledge that for Athenians freedom and glory went together; but he was like a man in love, who thinks the strongest trait of the loved one’s nature will be easily changed, as soon as they are married.

He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, 'I am not afraid.

Miss Searle had always considered boredom an intellectual defeat.

"His mouth felt cold to mine ; he neither opened his eyes, nor spoke, nor moved. I said in my heart, "Too late I am here within your cloak, I who never of my own will would have denied you anything. Time and death and change are unforgiving, and love lost in the time of youth never returns again.

Hephaistion had known for many ages that if a god should offer him one gift in all his lifetime, he would choose this. Joy hit him like a lightning-bolt.

It is a grief to see a hero go down to the house of Hades. It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.

That,” I said, “is the business of the gods, who made us.”

“Yes, but for what? We ought to be good for it, whatever it is. How can we live, until we know?”

I gazed at him; such desperate words, yet he looked all lit from within. He saw I was paying attention; that was enough to draw him on.

Sometimes things are easier if there isn’t anyone to know how you’re feeling.

you’ll get into this morbid state when you think if you want something, then you shouldn’t have it.

Now for the first time he realized how important it had been not to admit any alternative to the hard, decent, orthodox choice which need not be regarded as a choice at all; how important not to be different.