Fed by neither Heaven nor by Earth he was going forward . . . He hadn't a God or a lover--the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch hims...
For no matter how many battles had been won or lost, no matter how many friends and soldiers killed, every battle felt like the first. And I realized that it wasn't the training, nor the pain of seeing friends die, nor the will to win that made the m...
I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram:...
Usually, you get to interview that one girl who plays the sister on some Disney show - you interview that girl a lot - but sometimes, every once in a while, you get to interview a legend. I have interviewed some amazingly iconic people, including Mic...
I have a very clear memory of my first encounter with myth, sitting in a mobile library and travelling, at the same time, with Theseus on the road to Athens. By the time we'd met, and disposed of, the pine-bending giant Sinis, I'd become completely e...
We have scholars galore, and kings and emperors, and statesmen and military leaders, and artists in profusion, and inventors, discoverers, explorers - but where are the great lovers? After a moment's reflection one is back to Abelard and Heloise, or ...
The loss of that oral tradition and the breakdown of communication between generations had set my family adrift, floating aimlessly without history and all its accumulated experience to guide us. We need context, we need myths, we need family legends...
For, he (The Devil) observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of twilight, as you know, I have bee...
Tristan: Samuel, God bless you. You are good at everything you try to do. I'm sure it'll be the same with fucking. Samuel: Tristan, really. We're talking about my future wife. Tristan: Oh, you're not gonna fuck her? Samuel: No! Tristan: No? Samuel: N...
Tristan: Alfred's going to do well wherever he is. Colonel Ludlow: Except here with us. Tristan: That's my fault. Colonel Ludlow: I didn't say that. Tristan: I couldn't bring Samuel back home alive either, could I? Colonel Ludlow: Don't you dare say ...
The alternative is to locate large deposits of specifically what we need, and extract it in bulk from the earth.” “That’s mining,” said the Drip. “There is a twenty-third century legend that youth was conscripted to work in mines. Anyhow, a...
But all I could see was her. No skill of mine, no artist anywhere, could’ve immortalized how gorgeous she was. It was impossible to believe she’d ever had any doubts about her body. The firelight shone on her skin, golden and perfect, making her ...
It is no surprise that the only woman in antiquity who could be the subject of a full-length biography is Cleopatra. Yet, unlike Alexander, whom she rivals as the theme of romance and legend, Cleopatra is known to us through overwhelmingly hostile so...
Do you know what religion is, Martin, my friend? -I can barely remember Lord's Prayer. -A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends,myths, or any type of literary device in or...
A letter?” repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. “Really Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous—a legend—I wouldn’t be surprised ...
Why d’you think she did it?” I told him I had no idea. He seemed disappointed that I shouldn’t know. “A broken heart,” I suggested. “Do people suffer so much?” “For love? Oh, I imagine so.” “To drown herself?” “Why does that a...
Throughout the world what remains of the vast public spaces are now only the stuff of legends: Robin Hood’s forest, the Great Plains of the Amerindians, the steppes of the nomadic tribes, and so forth… Rousseau said that the first person who want...
There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together fr...
o There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together ...
a gang of unpredictable ruffians by day who turned to enthralling storytellers after dark. "I would sometimes join them, and listen for a great part of the night to some of the finest fairy tales and most romantic legends it has ever been my fortune ...
It was inevitable, as soon as legends of miracles became attached to the names of the great mystics, that the credulous masses should applaud imposture more than true devotion; the cult of the saints, against which orthodox Islam ineffectually protes...
