“Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.”
“She is a woman, and what women want, they get, and if the world and all it holds must be broken in the getting, then so be it.”
“My dear Lord,’ I said, but not to him. I spoke to Arthur. And I watched and wept, my arm around Ceinwyn, as the pale boat was swallowed by the shimmering silver mist. And so my Lord was gone. And no one has seen him since.”
“Dreams are like songs. Their task is not to offer an exact image of the world, but a suggestion of it.”
“History is not just a tale of men’s making, but is a thing tied to the land. We call a hill by the name of a hero who died there, or name a river after a princess who fled beside its banks, and when the old names vanish, the stories go with them and the new names carry no reminder of the past.”
“Guinevere grimaced. ‘Do you know how cloying love can be, Derfel? I don’t want to be worshipped. I don’t want every whim granted. I want to feel there’s something biting back.”
“And afterwards, you recall little, except the blows that so nearly killed you. You work and push and stab to make an opening in their shield wall. And then you grunt and lunge and slash to widen the gap. And only then does the madness take over. As the enemy breaks and you can begin to kill like a god. Because the enemy is scared and running or scared and frozen. And all they can do is die while you harvest souls.”
“- Nós queremos a fidelidade nas pessoas que amamos, senhora, então não é óbvio que elas a queiram em nós? A fidelidade é um presente que oferecemos aos que amamos.”
“Christianity is not a religion that offers the solace of revenge to its adherents. For that you must go to the old women who know which herbs to pluck and what charms to say under a waning moon.”
“So now I shall write the tale’s ending with my sword beside me and I shall hope that I am given time to finish this tale of Arthur, my Lord, who was betrayed, reviled and, after his departure, missed like no other man was ever missed in all of Britain’s history.”
“So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons.”
“Quando a gente está com problemas é útil descobrir alguém que esteve na mesma dificuldade.”
“there was something about Gawain’s youth and credulity that was driving me to puncture his pious innocence.”
“You don’t understand,” she said meekly. “Really? Okay, you’re a special case then, are you? Unlike all the others in abusive relationships, your man really does love you. He’s a good man deep down. Tells you he’ll change.”
“I see you have returned, my love; and your mood is as dark as ever. Did your soldiers not adore you to your complete satisfaction?”
“¿hay acaso algo más íntimo o más interior que el dolor?”
“I believed him because the truth is never hard to recognize. Nothing is ever quite so drab and repetitious and forlorn and ludicrous as truth.”
“The men could be easily distinguished as fellow Americans by the quality of their mustaches and the innocent and amicable expressions on their faces; the several women could only have come from New England, making this clear, he felt, by their willingness to allow their menfolk the right to speak at length while confining their own talk to short and brisk, intelligent interruptions or slightly disagreeable remarks once the men had finished.”
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