Arthur Rex Quotes

“Time is the bastard offspring of an incestuous act that God committed upon reality." Merlin to Arthur in "Arthur Rex”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“Tell us, Merlin,” said he, “why do we feel no sense of triumph in this?” And Merlin answered, “Well, is not triumph a childish feeling, Sire?”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“All human beings must perform according to their nature.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel

“Then I am fundamentally a slave, I whom you call the most glorious king of all?” said Arthur. “No man is free who needeth air to breathe,” said Merlin.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“like all wicked people he could do things which defied the means of honest men, for evil is always more easily managed than virtue.)”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel

“privilege is founded on duty, and if the horse carries the man, the animal is fed before the rider himself doth eat. Thus in certain respects the first comes last, and the greatest king is the loneliest.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel

“But, Sire, the curse which shall ruin you eventually is the selfsame which ruins all men, irrespective of their actions good or evil, and that is Time, which is the issue of an incestuous act performed by God on reality.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“It is finally only the fiend who doth truly worship God, as the felon adores the hangman, for the one is defined by the other.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“For what do mortals know, with their limited means? Except that earthly life, whether noble or base, is sad, and the oceans of the world are created from the salt tears of men.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“To the profound vision there is no virtue and no vice, and what is justice for one is injustice for another.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“And Launcelot and Guinevere were the most notable pair of adulterers ever to be, for their joining was not in ignorance of the consequences nor as a result of a magical potion, but they came together from Envy and Vanity and the offspring of these: the hunger for mastery by man over woman and vice versa.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel

“I must now return to my prayers in the chapel,” said Sir Meligrant, but when he left his father, he went rather to his private store of torture-instruments and taking up a file, did sharpen the steel tips of his cat-o'-nine-tails, the better to lacerate Guinevere’s white back, then he oiled the threads of the thumbscrews he would tighten to crack the bones of her delicate fingers, and whilst he was doing this he became so aroused in anticipation (for his greatest ambition had been realised: to have the most beautiful woman in the world as his helpless captive), that he fainted dead away in bliss.”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“Is it not human for us all to have two minds, the one that sees an aspect of eternity, the other that must deal with the life which is measured in Time?”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

“O foolish man, for God doth detect every nuance of the sick will!”
― Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex