I haven't done a quote post in a while, and The God of Small Things definitely deserves one, so I might as well take care of two books with one post.
For The God of Small Things:
She had forgotten just how damp the monsoon air in Ayemenem could be. Swollen cupboards creaked. Locked windows burst open. Books got soft and wavy between their covers. Strange insects appeared like ideas in the evenings and burned themselves on dim forty-watt bulbs.
...
Estha had always been a quiet child, so no one could pinpoint with any degree of accuracy exactly when (the year, if not the month or day) he had stopped talking. Stopped talking, altogether, that is. The fact is that there wasn't an "exactly when." It had been a gradual winding down and closing shop.
...
He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn't know that in some places, like the country that Rahel had come from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening.
...
Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant (lighting cigarettes, refilling glasses).
...
He walked on water. Perhaps. But could He have swum on land?
...
Ammu wondered at the transparency of that kiss. It was a clear-as-glass kiss. Unclouded by passion or desire - that pair of dogs that sleep so soundly inside children, waiting for them to grow up. It was a kiss that demanded no kiss-back.
...
And from The Book of Evidence:
It was that abstracted, mildly dissatisfied air which first drew my attention to her. She was not nice, she was not good. She suited me.
...
We understood each other, yes, but that did not mean we knew each other, or wanted to. How would we have maintained that unselfconscious grace that was so important to us both, if we had not also maintained the essential secretness of our inner selves?
...
It is just that I do not believe that such moments mean anything - or any other moments, for that matter. They have significance, apparently. They may even have value of some sort. But they do not mean anything.
...
I have never really gotten used to being on this earth. Sometimes I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. how could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was made to contain us?
...
The question is wrong, that's the trouble. It assumes that actions are determined by volition, deliberate thought, a careful weighing-up of facts, all that puppet-show twitching which passes for consciousness.
...
Monday morning. Ah, Monday morning. The ashen light, the noise, the sense of pointless but compulsory haste. I think it will be Monday morning when I am received in Hell.
...
Showing posts with label Quote Storms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quote Storms. Show all posts
Friday, August 1, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Quote Storm: The Luminaries
I debated doing a storm post for this book, but I have some time, so I guess you get one, haha. This book does not lend itself to pulling out a couple of witty sentences here and there. But on reflection - there are so many sentences in this book; a few are bound to work for my purpose!
...
"A lucky man, I've always said, is a man who was lucky once, and after that, he learned a thing or two about investment."
...
One of the main characters, assessing another:
His prosperity sat easily with him, Moody thought, recognizing in the man that relaxed sense of entitlement that comes when a lifelong optimism has been ratified by success.
...
Another of the twelve, making an observation about the men and a local prostitute:
"Every man has his currency," Gascoigne added after a moment. "Perhaps it's gold; perhaps it's women. Anna Wetherell, you see, was both."
...
Some subtle humor:
"My father hails from the county Tyrone. Before I came here, I was in Dunedin; before that, I was in New York."
"New York - now there's a place!"
The reverend shook his head. "Everywhere is a place," he said.
...
Charlie Frost was no great observer of human nature, and as a consequence, felt betrayed by others very frequently.
...
And this part, describing Anna's relationships with her customers - while she is representing the moon, astrologically speaking.
The men with whom she plied her trade were rarely curious about her. If they spoke at all, they spoke about other women - the sweethearts they had lost, the wives they had abandoned, their mothers, their sisters, their daughter, their wards. They sought these women when they looked at Anna, but only partly, for they also sought themselves: she was a reflected darkness, just as she was a borrowed light. Her wretchedness was, she knew, extremely reassuring.
...
"I daresay the afterlife is a very dreary place."
"How do you conceive it so?"
"We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored. We would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. Time would have no consequence."
...
He possessed a fault common to those of high intelligence, however, which was that he tended regard the gift of his intellect as a license of a kind, by whose rarefied authority he was protected, in all circumstances, from ever behaving ill.
...
When the sun and moon meet:
"I am afraid I am interrupting your solitude," Anna said.
"No, no," the boy said. "Oh, no. Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company."
...
And a segment about the same, from one of the long chapter introductions:
... a connexion by virtue of which he feels less, rather than more, complete, in the sense that her nature, being both oppositional to and in accord with his own, seems to illuminate those internal aspects of his character that his external manner does not or cannot betray, leaving him feeling both halved and doubled, or in other words, doubled when in her presence, and halved when out of it...
...
...
"A lucky man, I've always said, is a man who was lucky once, and after that, he learned a thing or two about investment."
...
One of the main characters, assessing another:
His prosperity sat easily with him, Moody thought, recognizing in the man that relaxed sense of entitlement that comes when a lifelong optimism has been ratified by success.
...
Another of the twelve, making an observation about the men and a local prostitute:
"Every man has his currency," Gascoigne added after a moment. "Perhaps it's gold; perhaps it's women. Anna Wetherell, you see, was both."
...
Some subtle humor:
"My father hails from the county Tyrone. Before I came here, I was in Dunedin; before that, I was in New York."
"New York - now there's a place!"
The reverend shook his head. "Everywhere is a place," he said.
...
Charlie Frost was no great observer of human nature, and as a consequence, felt betrayed by others very frequently.
...
And this part, describing Anna's relationships with her customers - while she is representing the moon, astrologically speaking.
The men with whom she plied her trade were rarely curious about her. If they spoke at all, they spoke about other women - the sweethearts they had lost, the wives they had abandoned, their mothers, their sisters, their daughter, their wards. They sought these women when they looked at Anna, but only partly, for they also sought themselves: she was a reflected darkness, just as she was a borrowed light. Her wretchedness was, she knew, extremely reassuring.
...
"I daresay the afterlife is a very dreary place."
"How do you conceive it so?"
"We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored. We would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. Time would have no consequence."
...
He possessed a fault common to those of high intelligence, however, which was that he tended regard the gift of his intellect as a license of a kind, by whose rarefied authority he was protected, in all circumstances, from ever behaving ill.
...
When the sun and moon meet:
"I am afraid I am interrupting your solitude," Anna said.
"No, no," the boy said. "Oh, no. Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company."
...
And a segment about the same, from one of the long chapter introductions:
... a connexion by virtue of which he feels less, rather than more, complete, in the sense that her nature, being both oppositional to and in accord with his own, seems to illuminate those internal aspects of his character that his external manner does not or cannot betray, leaving him feeling both halved and doubled, or in other words, doubled when in her presence, and halved when out of it...
...
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Quote Storm: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Flavia is one of a kind. These are a few of my favorite glimpses into her world.
...
(I'm with you on this one, Flavia!)
As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
...
The de Luce children love squabbling with each other. Flavia, in church with her older sister:
Now, glancing over at Feely as she knelt with her eyes closed, her fingertips touching and pointed to Heaven, and her lips shaping soft words of devotion, I had to pinch myself to keep in mind that I was sitting next to the Devil's Hairball.
...
On poisons:
Although I have to admit that I have a soft spot for cyanide - when it comes to speed, it is right up there with the best of them. If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide.
...
A simile that really caught my imagination. This is Flavia, catching the scent of her long-dead mother's perfume:
The scent was of small blue flowers, mountain meadows, and of ice.
A peculiar feeling passed over me - or, rather, through me, as if I were an umbrella remembering what it felt like to pop open in the rain.
...
And Flavia, describing herself and her family:
Once, when I was about nine, I had kept a diary about what it was like to be a de Luce, or at least what it was like to be this particular de Luce. I thought a great deal about how I felt and finally came to the conclusion that being Flavia de Luce was like being a sublimate: like the black crystal residue that is left on the cold glass of a test tube by the violet fumes of iodine.
As I have said, there is something lacking in the de Luces: some chemical bond, or lack of it, that ties their tongues whenever they are threatened by affection. It is as unlikely that one de Luce would ever tell another that she loved her as it is that one peak in the Himalayas would bend over and whisper sweet nothings to an adjacent crag.
...
...
(I'm with you on this one, Flavia!)
As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
...
The de Luce children love squabbling with each other. Flavia, in church with her older sister:
Now, glancing over at Feely as she knelt with her eyes closed, her fingertips touching and pointed to Heaven, and her lips shaping soft words of devotion, I had to pinch myself to keep in mind that I was sitting next to the Devil's Hairball.
...
On poisons:
Although I have to admit that I have a soft spot for cyanide - when it comes to speed, it is right up there with the best of them. If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide.
...
A simile that really caught my imagination. This is Flavia, catching the scent of her long-dead mother's perfume:
The scent was of small blue flowers, mountain meadows, and of ice.
A peculiar feeling passed over me - or, rather, through me, as if I were an umbrella remembering what it felt like to pop open in the rain.
...
And Flavia, describing herself and her family:
Once, when I was about nine, I had kept a diary about what it was like to be a de Luce, or at least what it was like to be this particular de Luce. I thought a great deal about how I felt and finally came to the conclusion that being Flavia de Luce was like being a sublimate: like the black crystal residue that is left on the cold glass of a test tube by the violet fumes of iodine.
As I have said, there is something lacking in the de Luces: some chemical bond, or lack of it, that ties their tongues whenever they are threatened by affection. It is as unlikely that one de Luce would ever tell another that she loved her as it is that one peak in the Himalayas would bend over and whisper sweet nothings to an adjacent crag.
...
Friday, February 28, 2014
Quote Storm: Get a Life
I am going to include a few of my favorites. As I put this post together, I realized that there were many passages I liked, but few that made sense when just a few sentences were singled out. But here are some that work, more or less.
...
Rarely do I get a quote from the very first page of a book:
Radiant.
Literally radiant. But not giving off light as saints are shown with a halo. He radiates unseen danger to others from a destructive substance that has been directed to counter what was destroying him. Had him by the throat. Cancer of the thyroid gland.
...
His work is scientific, in collaboration with the greatest scientist of all, nature, who has the formula for everything, whether discovered or still a mystery to research by its self-styled highest creation.
...
Surely there is no purposelessness the music you love cannot deny by the act of your listening.
...
This passage actually goes on for far longer and makes the entire book worth it, in my opinion:
The Okavango delta in co-existence with a desert is a system of elements contained, maintained-by the phenomenon itself, unbelievably, inconceivably. ... Where to begin understanding what we've only got a computerspeak label for, ecosystem? Where to decide it begins.
...
Visting a natural area with nesting endangered eagles:
Lyndsay was the one who noticed the leafy twigs, as the leaflet had described, on the mess of the nest on the right--from the viewer's not the bird's point of view. The wings of night against sun-paled sky continued to plane and dip; and then there was a descent, the transforming mastery that was the eagle's was gone, collapsed in a bird.
...
Rarely do I get a quote from the very first page of a book:
Radiant.
Literally radiant. But not giving off light as saints are shown with a halo. He radiates unseen danger to others from a destructive substance that has been directed to counter what was destroying him. Had him by the throat. Cancer of the thyroid gland.
...
His work is scientific, in collaboration with the greatest scientist of all, nature, who has the formula for everything, whether discovered or still a mystery to research by its self-styled highest creation.
...
Surely there is no purposelessness the music you love cannot deny by the act of your listening.
...
This passage actually goes on for far longer and makes the entire book worth it, in my opinion:
The Okavango delta in co-existence with a desert is a system of elements contained, maintained-by the phenomenon itself, unbelievably, inconceivably. ... Where to begin understanding what we've only got a computerspeak label for, ecosystem? Where to decide it begins.
...
Visting a natural area with nesting endangered eagles:
Lyndsay was the one who noticed the leafy twigs, as the leaflet had described, on the mess of the nest on the right--from the viewer's not the bird's point of view. The wings of night against sun-paled sky continued to plane and dip; and then there was a descent, the transforming mastery that was the eagle's was gone, collapsed in a bird.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Quote Storm: Fingersmith
I reread my review of Fingersmith and realized that I made the book sound just super-dreary. Which it is. But, there is a surprising amount of humor in Sue's frank descriptions of her thieving lifestyle, early in the book. I'm including a few examples of that here, along with a few other quotes that caught my eye.
And another thing about Waters - you don't realize just how complicated her sentence structure can get until you attempt to correctly type out a paragraph or two!
...
Sue, the young pickpocket, talking about reading and writing:
I believe I learned my alphabet, like that: not by putting letters down, but by taking them out (removing identifying monograms from stolen goods). I know I learned the look of my own name, from handkerchiefs that came, marked Susan. As for regular reading, we never troubled with it. Mrs. Sucksby could do it, if she had to; Mr. Ibbs could read, and even write; but, for the rest of us, it was an idea - well, I should say, like speaking Hebrew or throwing somersaults: you could see the use of it, for Jews and tumblers; but while it was their lay, why make it yours?
...
Training Sue to act as a lady's maid for their scheme:
'Why don't she wear the kind of stays that fasten at the front, like a regular girl?' said Dainty, watching.
'Because then,' said Gentleman, 'she shouldn't need a maid. And if she didn't need a maid, she shouldn't know she was a lady. Hey?' He winked.
...
On husbands:
She hummed along until her eyes grew damp, and then the hum got broken. Her husband had been a sailor, and been lost at sea. - Lost to her, I mean. He lived in the Bermudas.
...
On servants and their masters:
I should never have put her down as the motherly sort, myself; but servants grow sentimental over the swells they work for, like dogs grow fond of bullies.You take my word for it.
...
Sue, justifying her part in scamming Miss Lilly (Maud), which is all the more delicious as Maud is actually double-crossing Sue:
And then, say I gave it all up - how would that save Maud? Say I went home: Gentleman would go on and marry her, and lock her up anyway. Or, say I peached him up. He would be sent from Briar, Mr. Lilly would keep her all the closer - she might as well be put in a madhouse, then. Either way, I didn't say much to her chances.
But her chances had all been dealt to her, years before. She was like a twig on a rushing river. She was like milk - too pale, too pure, too simple. She was made to be spoiled.
...
And another thing about Waters - you don't realize just how complicated her sentence structure can get until you attempt to correctly type out a paragraph or two!
...
Sue, the young pickpocket, talking about reading and writing:
I believe I learned my alphabet, like that: not by putting letters down, but by taking them out (removing identifying monograms from stolen goods). I know I learned the look of my own name, from handkerchiefs that came, marked Susan. As for regular reading, we never troubled with it. Mrs. Sucksby could do it, if she had to; Mr. Ibbs could read, and even write; but, for the rest of us, it was an idea - well, I should say, like speaking Hebrew or throwing somersaults: you could see the use of it, for Jews and tumblers; but while it was their lay, why make it yours?
...
Training Sue to act as a lady's maid for their scheme:
'Why don't she wear the kind of stays that fasten at the front, like a regular girl?' said Dainty, watching.
'Because then,' said Gentleman, 'she shouldn't need a maid. And if she didn't need a maid, she shouldn't know she was a lady. Hey?' He winked.
...
On husbands:
She hummed along until her eyes grew damp, and then the hum got broken. Her husband had been a sailor, and been lost at sea. - Lost to her, I mean. He lived in the Bermudas.
...
On servants and their masters:
I should never have put her down as the motherly sort, myself; but servants grow sentimental over the swells they work for, like dogs grow fond of bullies.You take my word for it.
...
Sue, justifying her part in scamming Miss Lilly (Maud), which is all the more delicious as Maud is actually double-crossing Sue:
And then, say I gave it all up - how would that save Maud? Say I went home: Gentleman would go on and marry her, and lock her up anyway. Or, say I peached him up. He would be sent from Briar, Mr. Lilly would keep her all the closer - she might as well be put in a madhouse, then. Either way, I didn't say much to her chances.
But her chances had all been dealt to her, years before. She was like a twig on a rushing river. She was like milk - too pale, too pure, too simple. She was made to be spoiled.
...
Monday, February 10, 2014
Quote Storm: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell
I have so many for this book (and if you haven't read it already, you'll see how very unique her style is!)
...
"My dear Lascelles," cried Drawlight, "what nonsense you talk! Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what every body does all the time."
...
It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.
...
A footnote explaining why Jonathan Strange's father did not keep the child from his mother's people:
Upon the contrary Laurence Strange congratulated himself on avoiding paying for the boy's food and clothes for months at a time. So may a love of money make an intelligent man small-minded and ridiculous.
...
About Lady Pole and her butler, Stephen, both suffering under a fairy enchantment:
But perhaps it was not so curious. The different styles of life of a lady and a butler tend to obscure any similarities in their situations. A butler has his work and must do it. Unlike Lady Pole, Stephen was not suffered to sit idly by the window, hour after hour, without speaking. Symptoms that were raised to the dignity of an illness in Lady Pole were dismissed as mere low spirits in Stephen.
...
Strange's vision of the army's future, on the eve of the carnage of Waterloo:
Men and horses began to disappear, few by few at first, and then more quickly - hundreds, thousands of them vanishing from sight. Great gaps appeared among the close-packed soldiers. A little further to the east, an entire regiment was gone, leaving a hole the size of Hanover-square. Where, moments before, all had been life, conversation and activity, there was now nothing but the rain and the twilight and the waiving stalks of rye.
...
It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.
...
On cats:
For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.
"Such nonsense!" declared Dr. Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
...
...
"My dear Lascelles," cried Drawlight, "what nonsense you talk! Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what every body does all the time."
...
It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.
...
A footnote explaining why Jonathan Strange's father did not keep the child from his mother's people:
Upon the contrary Laurence Strange congratulated himself on avoiding paying for the boy's food and clothes for months at a time. So may a love of money make an intelligent man small-minded and ridiculous.
...
About Lady Pole and her butler, Stephen, both suffering under a fairy enchantment:
But perhaps it was not so curious. The different styles of life of a lady and a butler tend to obscure any similarities in their situations. A butler has his work and must do it. Unlike Lady Pole, Stephen was not suffered to sit idly by the window, hour after hour, without speaking. Symptoms that were raised to the dignity of an illness in Lady Pole were dismissed as mere low spirits in Stephen.
...
Strange's vision of the army's future, on the eve of the carnage of Waterloo:
Men and horses began to disappear, few by few at first, and then more quickly - hundreds, thousands of them vanishing from sight. Great gaps appeared among the close-packed soldiers. A little further to the east, an entire regiment was gone, leaving a hole the size of Hanover-square. Where, moments before, all had been life, conversation and activity, there was now nothing but the rain and the twilight and the waiving stalks of rye.
...
It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.
...
On cats:
For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.
"Such nonsense!" declared Dr. Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
...
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Quote Storm: Fire from Heaven
I intended to post some of my favorite quotes from the Man Booker Challenge books I read. And I'm already behind, so here goes.
Fire from Heaven, by Mary Renault
Alexander and a tutor discussing the proto-Olympic Games:
"No. When I went to watch, I thought nothing would be so wonderful. But we stayed on after, and I met the athletes; and I saw how it really is. I can beat the boys here, because we're all training to be men. But these boys are just boy athletes. Often they're finished before they're men; and if not, even for the men, the Games is all their life. Like being a woman is for women."
Epikrates nodded. "It came about almost within my lifetime. People who have earned no pride in themselves are content to be proud of their cities through other men. The end will be that the city has nothing left for pride, except the dead, who were proud less easily."
Hercules, to young Alexander in a vision:
By laying myself on the pyre I became divine. I have wrestled Thanatos (death) knee to knee, and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.
Alexander and Hephaistion, at a turning point in their relationship:
Alexander rested from his thoughts in a waking sleep. Hephaistion watched him, with the steadfast eyes and tender patience of the leopard crouched by the pool, its hunger comforted by the sound of light distant footfalls, straying down the forest track.
At the assassination of Philip, Alexander's father, by the bodyguard Pausanias:
Philip slid stiffly down, smiled, and began to speak. Pausanias' left hand took his arm in a tightening drip. Their looks met. Pausanias brought out his right hand from his cloak, so swiftly that Philip never saw the dagger, except in Pausanias' eyes.
There are actually quite a few more, but they need more background to set up than I care to include here!
Fire from Heaven, by Mary Renault
Alexander and a tutor discussing the proto-Olympic Games:
"No. When I went to watch, I thought nothing would be so wonderful. But we stayed on after, and I met the athletes; and I saw how it really is. I can beat the boys here, because we're all training to be men. But these boys are just boy athletes. Often they're finished before they're men; and if not, even for the men, the Games is all their life. Like being a woman is for women."
Epikrates nodded. "It came about almost within my lifetime. People who have earned no pride in themselves are content to be proud of their cities through other men. The end will be that the city has nothing left for pride, except the dead, who were proud less easily."
Hercules, to young Alexander in a vision:
By laying myself on the pyre I became divine. I have wrestled Thanatos (death) knee to knee, and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.
Alexander and Hephaistion, at a turning point in their relationship:
Alexander rested from his thoughts in a waking sleep. Hephaistion watched him, with the steadfast eyes and tender patience of the leopard crouched by the pool, its hunger comforted by the sound of light distant footfalls, straying down the forest track.
At the assassination of Philip, Alexander's father, by the bodyguard Pausanias:
Philip slid stiffly down, smiled, and began to speak. Pausanias' left hand took his arm in a tightening drip. Their looks met. Pausanias brought out his right hand from his cloak, so swiftly that Philip never saw the dagger, except in Pausanias' eyes.
There are actually quite a few more, but they need more background to set up than I care to include here!
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