Mary Renault Quotes

“One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.”
― Mary Renault, The Persian Boy

“He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, 'I am not afraid.”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“Alexander, of whom men tell many legends, lived by his own. Achilles must have Patroklos. He might love his Briseis; but Patroklos was the friend till death. At their tombs in Troy, Alexander and Hephaistion had sacrificed together. Wound Patroklos, and Achilles will have your blood.”
― Mary Renault, The Persian Boy

“At the stair-foot Hephaistion was waiting. He happened to be there, as he happened to have a ball handy if Alexander wanted a game, or water if he was thirsty; not by calculation, but in a constant awareness by which no smallest trifle was missed. Now, when he came down the stairs with a shut mouth and blue lines under his eyes, Hephaistion received some mute signal he understood, and fell into step beside him.”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“(Alexander)'Sometimes I forget all this for months on end. Sometimes I think of it day and night. Sometimes I think, unless I find out the truth of it, I shall go mad.'
(Hephaistion)'That's stupid. You've got me now. Do you think I'd let you go mad?”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.”
― Mary Renault

“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.”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“Alexander offered him (Aristotle)a hand to mount the gangplank, and
tried the effect of a smile. When the man returned it, it could be seen that
smiling was what he would do best; he would not often be caught with
his head back laughing. But he did look like a man who would answer
questions.”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“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.”
― Mary Renault, The Praise Singer

“All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is
purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one
will ever make a tragedy-and that is as well, for one could not bear it-whose grief is that the principals
never met.”
― Mary Renault