Alexander at the World's End Quotes

“You’d have to crush a dozen Alexanders in an olive-press before you could extract enough humanity to make up an ordinary person. As a human being, he was tiny.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“Once, when I was young, I believed in democracy. When I was a little older, I believed in oligarchy, government by the enlightened few; after that, in monarchy, the rule of the philosopher-king. Now I believe only in drainage, public sanitation and clean water.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“Glory,’ he added, reciting carefully, ‘is the only commodity that seems to increase the more you spread it around.’ I’d heard a similar version of that saying; it started Glory and dogshit are the two commodities . . .”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“really uncomfortable telling you about this,”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“And how is your brother? Did he ever marry that tart from over the Mesogaia he was so crazy about? What was her name, now? Callipyge, something like that.’ Sostratus looked at me. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I did.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander at the World's End

“*Gods help you if you fall asleep after a heavy dinner on the average Athenian dining-room couch; you’ll wake up feeling as if someone had cut off your head while you were asleep and then stuck it back on with fish-glue without taking proper care to see if the seams were lined up just right.*”
― Tom Holt, Alexander at the World's End

“Philip said, ‘In that case, I’d like to offer you a job as my son’s tutor.’ I felt - well, imagine how you’d feel after you’d been wandering in the desert for two days, slowly dying of thirst, and then someone sneaks up behind you, knocks you down and starts drowning you in a shallow pool of fresh spring water.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander at the World's End

“I suggest you take my word for it when I tell you that wisdom - which is just another way of saying ‘the truth’ - isn't’ something you want any truck with. Keep well clear of it; sell it to other people if it’ll make you a drachma, by all means, but don’t think of trying it yourself.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander at the World's End

“The worst thing a general can ever say is, Hell, I never expected that.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“Even more truly is it said: when you don’t know spit, bullshit.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“When I was a boy I heard the story of an enthusiastic but entirely talentless boxer; when he died, they said, his family and neighbours had a gravestone carved showing this man standing in the ring, his hands bound up for fighting, his arms raised to strike; and underneath, the inscription ‘In memory of Polydamas, of whom it can truly be said, he never harmed his fellow men’. You know, I feel a bit like that Polydamas, only the other way round. He tried to hurt people but never managed it. I’ve tried to do good, on and off, my whole life, and I’ve left a trail of dead and mutilated bodies behind me wherever I’ve gone.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“The truth is, my life never went according to plan, or a plan, or anything resembling a plan. It just sort of sprawled. Some lucky people have lives like a new colony, where the public buildings and houses and streets and markets and town walls are all laid out and completed before the first settler moves in. The rest of us are like old villages which grew up haphazard, strung out along a road or squashed in between two mountains.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End

“For some time now, Phryzeutzis, I’ve been hearing your voice at the back of my mind. You’re not complaining, exactly; you’re just asking in a bemused tone of voice why someone who’s led such a quiet and pedestrian life as I obviously have should feel any kind of obligation to make a record of it for future generations. It’s not, you point out, as if anything interesting ever happened to me. Oh, sure enough, you add, at various times I met a whole bunch of other people who led interesting lives, but that’s not the same thing. Maybe, you suggest, I should forget about telling my life story and tell theirs instead.”
― Tom Holt, Alexander At The World's End