Quotes from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“I loved him so, even his past was precious to me. I found myself kissing each mark, thinking, I would have had it never happen, I would wish it away, taking him further and further back to a time when he had known no disappointments, no battles, no wounds, as I erased each one. To make him again like Caesarion. Yet if we take the past away from those we love - even to protect them - do we not steal their very selves?”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Things do not happen, we must make them happen”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“The strong look for more strength, the weak for excuses.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“In my experience, there are two things that no one will admit to: having no sense of humor and being susceptible to flattery.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“What is one person's diversion may be another's supreme test.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one's human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death - in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Lying in bed, half-covered by the blankets, I would drowsily ask why he had come to my door that night long ago. It had become a ritual for us, as it does for all lovers: where, when, why? remember...I understand even old people rehearse their private religion of how they first loved, most guarded of secrets. And he would answer, sleep blurring his words, "Because I had to." The question and the answer were always the same. Why? Because I had to.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“It is only when our fate hangs in the balance, when our very life depends on something, that we see whether or not we trust that the rope to which we are clinging will support us. If we do not, then we let of of the ledge and swing on it with our full weight.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“We are more than our bodies, it is true; but we cannot be divorced from them. They are us, and the only way in which we can see one another. Perhaps the gods are above this, but in their mercy, they have given us the guise of bodies.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Fortune offers you opportunities to create; she does not hand you presents.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“It is thus that inanimate objects seem to soak up the essence of living things, and later cause pain or pleasure when we merely look at them.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“As long as the sun rose each day, as long as they could behold it, there life was secure.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“I thought of the “Roman way” of impaling oneself on a sword. Certainly poison seemed more civilized. And I thought the Romans were a little too eager to commit suicide. It did not take much of a setback before they were reaching for their swords, or opening their veins.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“For a man, however, it was the opposite. Alexander’s beauty was not felt to detract from his generalship. Nowhere was it hinted that a handsome man could not be a good ruler, or clever, or strong, or brave. In fact, people longed for a resplendent king. But for a woman…I shook my head. It was as if beauty in a woman rendered all other traits suspect.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Gaul was brought to shame by Caesar; By King Nicomedes, he. Here comes Caesar, wreathed in triumph For his Gallic victory! Nicomedes wears no laurels, Though the greatest of the three.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“I noted that he had a new type of sandal to go with his clothes—they had a special strap circling the big toe, and another for the rest of the toes. Around the soles, gilded lotuses were painted directly on the leather.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“«No se conoce a un hombre hasta que se le ve perder.»”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Every inch of land there is so contested,” I observed, more to myself than to him. “How many lives have been lost fighting over Jerusalem? Yet it is not special in terms of architecture, or location, or works of art.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“alguien a quien aborrecemos nos hace un favor, despreciamos tanto a la persona como el favor.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“No matter what they are in life, in memory they always seem to rearrange themselves in the opposite manner. All pleasures are seen as foreshortened and hasty and fleeting, and all pain lingering.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“You must bear losses like a soldier, the voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“La voluntad puede ser útil cuando el talento, la inspiración e incluso la suerte nos abandonan. Pero cuando la voluntad nos abandona, estamos realmente perdidos.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Todas queremos que nuestro enamorado sea amado por una mujer digna de él, pero jamás que sea más digna que nosotras. —Habladme de esta casa —dije—.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Caesar tarried in Egypt, Taking in all the spoils, The Lighthouse, the Library, Queen Cleopatra and Her many-perfumed oils.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra

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Popular quotes

“And no matter how much the gray people in power despise knowledge, they can’t do anything about historical objectivity; they can slow it down, but they can’t stop it. Despising and fearing knowledge, they will nonetheless inevitably decide to promote it in order to survive. Sooner or later they will be forced to allow universities and scientific societies, to create research centers, observatories, and laboratories, and thus to create a cadre of people of thought and knowledge: people who are completely beyond their control, people with a completely different psychology and with completely different needs. And these people cannot exist and certainly cannot function in the former atmosphere of low self-interest, banal preoccupations, dull self-satisfaction, and purely carnal needs. They need a new atmosphere— an atmosphere of comprehensive and inclusive learning, permeated with creative tension; they need writers, artists, composers— and the gray people in power are forced to make this concession too. The obstinate ones will be swept aside by their more cunning opponents in the struggle for power, but those who make this concession are, inevitably and paradoxically, digging their own graves against their will. For fatal to the ignorant egoists and fanatics is the growth of a full range of culture in the people— from research in the natural sciences to the ability to marvel at great music. And then comes the associated process of the broad intellectualization of society: an era in which grayness fights its last battles with a brutality that takes humanity back to the middle ages, loses these battles, and forever disappears as an actual force.”
― Arkady Strugatsky, quote from Hard to Be a God

“I miss you,” he said softly ... “I miss the feeling of completeness I have when you’re in my arms. Do you ever feel that way? Like a part of you is missing when we’re apart.”
― Tina Reber, quote from Love Unrehearsed

“When Derek hesitated, Chloe said, "If you leave, either I go with you and take the same risk or stay here, with strangers. Without you."
He scowled at her.
"Yes, it's a low blow," she said. "But I'll use whatever works right now." ”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from The Rising

“Поради горделивостта на своите майки и поради изключителните обстоятелства в своя живот, когато бе дванайсетгодишен, Омар Хаям Шакил не знаеше абсолютно нищо за чувството, което му бяха забранили да изпитва.
- Какво е „срам” – попита той, а като видяха колко е объркан, майките му отговориха кратко:
- Когато изпитваш срам, лицето ти пламва от горещина, ала душата ти зъзне, сякаш е скована от лед – каза най-младата Буни.
- Той кара жените да плачат и да молят смъртта да ги отнесе, а мъжете – да губят ума си – каза мама Чхуни.
- Само че понякога става тъкмо обратното - измърмори средната му по възраст майка с глас на пророчица.”
― Salman Rushdie, quote from Shame

“Tam: What begg’st thou then? fond woman, let me go.
Lav: ’Tis present death I beg; and one thing more That womanhood denies my tongue to tell.
O! keep me from their worse than killing lust,
And tumble me into some loathsome pit,
Where never man’s eye may behold my body:
Do this, and be a charitable murderer.
Tam: So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee:
No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.
Dem: Away! for thou hast stay’d us here too long.
Lav: No grace! no womanhood! Ah, beastly creature,
The blot and enemy to our general name.
Confusion fall—”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Titus Andronicus

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