Mary Renault

"The rightness of a thing isnt determined by the amount of courage it takes."

"Miss Searle had always considered boredom an intellectual defeat."

"It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death."

"A man is at his youngest when he thinks he is a man, not yet realizing that his actions must show it."

"You can make an audience see nearly anything, if you yourself believe in it."

"He sees himself in his lover as if in a mirror, not knowing whom he sees, And when they are together, he too is released from pain, and when apart, he longs as he himself is longed for; for reflected in his heart is loves image, which is loves answer. But he calls it, and believes it, not love but friendship…"

"After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandys first invitation, an what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb."

"You mustnt get so upset about what you feel, Spud. No ones a hundred per cent consistent all the time. We might like to be. We can plan our lives along certain lines. But you know, theres no future in screwing down all the pressure valves and smashing in the gauge. You can do it for a bit and then something goes. Sometimes it gets so that the only thing is just to say, Thats what Id like to feel twenty-four hours a day; but, the hell with it, this is how I feel now."

"He kept telling me I was queer, and I didnt like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you dont feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support."

"It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies."

"Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places."

"He had come back a man, and faithless like a man. He knew that he had longed for her; that true friends share everything, except the past before they met. If only she would weep, even that, and let him comfort her; but she would not humble herself before a man. if only he would run to her side and cling to her; but his manhood was hard-won, no mortal should make him a child again."