Arthuriana Quotes

“Whatever small power of guilt Elaine once held over Lancelot, she’d used up long ago. Oh, self-reproach certainly stung him, but it is one of the most ironic paradoxes of the male temperament that the more shame a man feels, the less likely he is to be persuaded to repent by the person whom he has wronged, especially when she uses guilt as a motive. Like most men, Lancelot lashed out in anger when his shame was too much to bear, thus amplifying his guilt, rather than ameliorating it. It is an all too common downward spiral with men who cherish their honor but act dishonorably.”
― Scott Davis Howard, Three Days and Two Knights

“Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving you the candle now – you won’t let it out?”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“No mystical system or divinatory tool can ever replace personally observed patterns, since these alone are the inner messengers which convey to us the guidance and sustenance which we need. However, sometimes a divinatory tool can help us *trigger recognition* of these patterns. It is only the innately lazy who rely upon the Tarot as a daily crutch or decision-making process. Hence the warning in many Tarot books about over-use of the Tarot for divination.”
― Caitlín Matthews, The Arthurian Tarot: A Hallowquest Handbook

“My King and my old friends, a word before I go. My sentence is to leave this fellowship, which I have served in all my life. It is to depart your country, and to be pursued with war. I stand then, for the last time, as the Queen’s champion. I stand to tell you, lady and madam, in the presence of all this court, that if any danger may threaten you in future, then’ one poor arm will come from France to defend you – and so let all remember.’
He kissed her fingers deliberately, turned stiffly, and began to pace in silence down the long length of the room. His future closed about him as he went.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Now that she was dead, he had become her grave. She existed in him like the vampire. When he moved, when he blew his nose, he did it with her movement.”
― T.H. White, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me

“The old King felt refreshed, clear—headed, almost ready to begin again.”
― T.H. White, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me

“But it was too late for another effort then. For that time it was his destiny to die, or, as some say, to be carried off to Avilion, where he could wait for better days. For that time it was Lancelot’s fate and Guenever’s to take the tonsure and the veil, while Mordred must be slain. The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.

The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart.

EXPLICIT LIBER REGIS QUONDAM REGISQUE FUTURI
THE BEGINNING”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“But he had never had a happiness of his own, never had himself: never since he was a little boy in the Forest Sauvage. It was not fair to steal away everything from him. They had made him like the blinded gold—finch they were speaking of, which was to pour out its song for man until it burst its heart, but always blind.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“The wheel is come full circle: I am here.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King