The Iron King Quotes

“Every man believes to some extent that the world began when he was born and, at the moment of leaving it, suffers at having to let the Universe remain unfinished.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“It must be admitted that such things were common coin of the period. Kingdoms were often handed over to adolescents, whose absolute power fasinated them as might a game. Hardly grown out of the age in which it is fun to tear the wings from flies, they might now amuse themselves by tearing the heads from men. Too young to fear or even imagine death, they would not hesitate to distribute it around them.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed to the thirteenth generation!”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“For, in those centuries, when numbers of children died in the cradle and half the women in childbirth, when epidemics ravaged adult life, when wounds were but rarely cured, and sores did not heal, when the Church’s teaching was ceaselessly directed towards a consciousness of sin, when the statues in the sanctuaries showed worms gnawing at corpses, when each one carried throughout his life the spectre of his own decomposition before his eyes and the idea of death was habitual, natural and familiar, to be present at a man’s last breath was not, as it is for us, a tragic reminder of our common destiny.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“The hand of God strikes swiftly, particularly when assisted by the hand of man.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“Chaque homme, parce qu'il croit un peu que le monde est né en même temps que lui, souffre, au moment de quitter la vie, de laisser l'univers inachevé.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“A man who would agree to betray his own conscience for the sake of a mitre, might well also steal and betray.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“Ah”
― Maurice Druon, Les Rois maudits: 1: Le Roi de fer

“Gracias, Señor, Dios mío, por haberme dejado el odio. Es la única fuerza que me sostiene.”
― Maurice Druon, Reyes malditos I. El rey de hierro (Los Reyes Malditos / Cursed Kings) (Spanish Edition) (Spanish) Hardcover December 30, 2014

“The Grand Master felt surging within him one of those half-crazy rages which had so often come upon him in his prison, making him shout aloud and beat the walls. He felt that he was upon the point of committing some violent and terrible act – he did not know exactly what – but he felt the impulse to do something.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“For there are women who, when they look at you, seem to surrender to you in the first instant; but that is merely their natural expression; they look at a piece of furniture, at a tree, in exactly the same way and, in the end, give nothing at all.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“From being the permanent militia of the Christian world, they had become the permanent bankers of Church and King. To have many debtors is to have many enemies.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“El corazón le pesaba dentro del pecho y ni siquiera notaba cómo la cera goteaba en su mano.”
― Maurice Druon, El rey de hierro

“Beside London Bridge, the Ponte Vecchio at Florence seemed but a mere trifle in Guccio’s memory, and the Arno a brook compared with the Thames. He said so to his companion. ‘All the same we teach them everything,’ the latter replied.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“Funny weather today,’ said the ferryman, bending slowly to his oars. ‘In the morning you wake up to such a mist that you can’t see two fathoms distance. And then about ten o’clock out comes the sun. One says to oneself “Here’s spring on the way”. And no sooner said than hailstorms set in for the afternoon. And now the wind’s getting up, and there’s going to be quite a blow, that’s certain. Funny weather.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“I’m doing the best I can. Getting old, that’s what it is. I’ll be fifty-three at the feast of Saint Michael. I’m no longer as strong as you are, young sirs,’ said the ferryman.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“vous lui ressemblez,”
― Maurice Druon, Les Rois maudits: 1: Le Roi de fer

“Nearly all the poisons of the Middle Ages had mercury, a favourite material of alchemists, as their base. The name Pharaoh’s Serpent (serpent de Pharaon) later became the name of a children’s toy, in the composition of which this salt is used.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“It was a singular sight to see these two taking each other’s measure, to watch these two people with so many natural characteristics in common, these two cattle of the same blood, resembling each other so much, hating each other so well, come face to face.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“But destiny moves slowly and no one knows which of our actions, sown at hazard, will burgeon like trees.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“This man, due to his obsession, is capable of almost anything.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“Terrified by the curse, the crowd remained rooted to the spot. Nothing could be heard but sighs, murmurs of foreboding, consternation and anguish. The weight of the night and its horror seemed to lie over it; the shadows gradually gained ground against the dying light of the pyre.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“A fine vision of hell you’ve given us here, Nogaret!’ said Monseigneur of Valois. ‘Were you thinking of your future life?’ Guillaume de Nogaret did not reply.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“There was a barking from beneath the table at which everyone jumped except Philip the Fair, while the King of Navarre burst out laughing. The barking came from the largest greyhound. Philip the Fair had kept him close and he was not yet accustomed to these outbursts.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“He never blinked, and it was this peculiarity that gave his gaze a strangeness which frightened everyone.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King

“This cruel and dispassionate prince was concerned with the ideal of the nation. Under his reign France was great and the French wretched.”
― Maurice Druon, The Iron King