King Arthur Quotes

1. "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp"
Author: Albert Einstein

2. "Rise early and seize each day, learn much and use this knowledge well, spend time with those you love, never abuse your pets, use logic to fight the irrational (for it is everywhere), defend the environment and its wildlife as a knight would protect King Arthur, meld mind and heart for greatest creativity, follow your dreams, and become all that you can be."
Author: Charles Kohlhase

3. "Operating by trial and error mostly, we've evolved a tacitly agreed upon list of the elements that make for a good fantasy. The first decision the aspiring fantasist must make is theological. King Arthur and Charlemagne were Christians. Siegfried and Sigurd the Volsung were pagans. My personal view is that pagans write better stories. When a writer is having fun, it shows, and pagans have more fun than Christians. Let's scrape Horace's Dulche et utile off the plate before we even start the banquet. We're writing for fun, not to provide moral instruction. I had much more fun with the Belgariad/Malloreon than you did, because I know where all the jokes are.All right, then, for item number one, I chose paganism. (Note that Papa Tolkien, a devout Anglo-Catholic, took the same route.)"
Author: David Eddings

4. "Contemporary fantasists all bow politely to Lord Tennyson and Papa Tolkien, then step around them to go back to the original texts for inspiration--and there are a lot of those texts. We have King Arthur and his gang in English; we've got Siegfried and Brunhild in German; Charlemagne and Roland in French; El Cid in Spanish; Sigurd the Volsung in Icelandic; and assorted 'myghtiest Knights on lyfe' in a half-dozen other cultures. Without shame, we pillage medieval romance for all we're worth."
Author: David Eddings

5. "It wasn't the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say they've played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie."
Author: David Thewlis

6. "I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'""What did she say?""She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly."I think i can confirm that was my daughter.""Sweet kid.""You have to get to know her," said Arthur."She eases up, does she?""No, but you get a better sense of when to duck."
Author: Douglas Adams

7. "They've discovered how to turn excess body fat into gold," he said, in a sudden blur of coherence."You're kidding.""Oh yes," he said, "no," he corrected himself, "they have."He rounded on the doubting part of his audience, which was all of it, and so it took a little while to round on it completely."Have you been to California?" he demanded. "Do you know the sort of stuff they do there?"Three members of his audience said they had and that he was talking nonsense."You haven't seen anything," insisted Arthur. "Oh yes," he added, because someone was offering to buy another round."
Author: Douglas Adams

8. "His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice, which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully to the ground."
Author: Douglas Adams

9. "John Kerry wants to be the hero in his own drama. He likes King Arthur and the Round Table. He likes the young swashbuckling Churchill, and he loved the early antics of Theodore Roosevelt."
Author: Douglas Brinkley

10. "Talking films revealed [Jean Arthur]'s quirky, remarkable voice: nasal, raspy, querulous— an odd, expressive voice which somehow fit her intense, funny and very smart screen persona."
Author: Eve Golden

11. "I bumped into every kind of disappointment, and was frustrated at every turn. Roles promised me were given to other players, pictures that offered me a chance were shelved, no one was particularly interested in me, and I had not developed a strength of personality to make anyone believe I had special talents. I wanted so desperately to succeed that I drove myself relentlessly, taking no time off for pleasures, or for friendships." - Jean Arthur"
Author: Eve Golden

12. "Her first really great role, the one that cemented the "Jean Arthur character," was as the wisecracking big-city reporter who eventually melts for country rube Gary Cooper in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). It was the first of three terrific films for Capra: Jean played the down-to-earth daughter of an annoyingly wacky family in Capra's rendition of Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You (1938), and she was another hard-boiled city gal won over by a starry-eyed yokel in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). "Jean Arthur is my favorite actress," said Capra, who had successfully worked with Stanwyck, Colbert and Hepburn. ". . . push that neurotic girl . . . in front of the camera . . . and that whining mop would magically blossom into a warm, lovely, poised and confident actress." Capra obviously recognized that Jean was often frustrated in her career choice."
Author: Eve Golden

13. "When Lalit Modi came to the podium after the final of the third Indian Premier League, with minutes ticking away on his reign, he had what few administrators at presentation ceremonies can claim to have enjoyed: a captive audience. What would it be? You won't have Modi to kick around any more, a la Richard Nixon? Old BCCI vice-presidents never die, they just fade away, a la Douglas MacArthur?Not quite, although Modi, for him, flirted with rhetoric: 'Indian People's League… I have lived a dream… Humble servant of the game.' Then there was the quote from the Bhagavad Gita, which some oblivious viewers may have mistaken for another sponsor (coming soon: the Mahabharata Moment of Success). Finally there came a defiant roar: 'We should not allow this brand to be diluted and we will not."
Author: Gideon Haigh

14. "Atticus sat looking at the floor for a long time. Finally he raised his head. "Scout," he said, "Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?"Atticus looked like he needed cheering up. I ran to him and hugged him and kissed him with all my might. "Yes sir, I understand," I reassured him. "Mr. Tate was right."Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me. "What do you mean?""Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. "Thank you for my children, Arthur." he said."
Author: Harper Lee

15. "Henry went down on one knee. 'Like King Arthur's knights,' Mr. Fogarty had told him, but he didn't feel much like a knight. In fact he felt like a twit."
Author: Herbie Brennan

16. "His very first story, he told me as he was dying, was set in Camelot, the court of King Arthur in Britain: Merlin the Court Magician casts a spell that allows him to equip the Knights of the Round Table with Thompson submachine guns and drums of .45-caliber dumdums. Sir Galahad, the purest in heart and mind, familiarizes himself with this new virtue-compelling appliance. While doing so, he puts a slug through the Holy Grail and makes a Swiss cheese of Queen Guinevere."
Author: Kurt Vonnegut

17. "King Arthur was one of my heroes - I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle's cane for the sword Excalibur."
Author: Lloyd Alexander

18. "You may think I'm doing this without taking the time to really think it through, and you're absolutely right. It would take me the rest of my life to think this thing through. But it's while you're thinking, while you're weighing the pros and cons, that life goes on. It passes by you while you're doing nothing. - Arthur"
Author: Marc Levy

19. "...and that bastard Breckinridge Scott, yes, the Phalanx king, still hiding like a rat in his Antarctic Fortress of Scumditude.--Arthur Sinclair"
Author: Max Brooks

20. "I should begin at the beginning. I know that. But the trouble is that I don't know the beginning. I wish I did. I do know my name, Arthur Hobhouse. Arthur Hobhouse had a beginning, that's for certain. I had a father and a mother too, but God only knows who they were, and maybe even he doesn't know for sure. I mean, God can't be looking everywhere all at once, can he? So where the name Arthur Hobhouse comes from and who gave it to me I have no idea. I don't even know if it's my real name. I don't know the date and place of my birth either, only that it was probably in Bermondsey, London, sometime in about 1940."
Author: Michael Morpurgo

21. ". . . and it came out that this King Arthur and his knights had done nothing of real note but to kill innocent dragons all around Britain: almost certainly a pack of lies, as Forthing admitted they had not possessed even any guns at the time, and unpleasant lies at that."
Author: Naomi Novik

22. "I swear I will never trust Edward again. This is not kingly, this is not as Arthur of Camelot. This is behaviour as base as an archer's bastard and I cannot meet his eyes when I see him stuffing his mouth at King Louis' table and pocketing the gold forks."
Author: Philippa Gregory

23. "MacArthur himself was more interested in the similarities among phenomena, because similarities reveal the workings of regular processes....I've already quoted MacArthur's statement that to do science "is to search for repeated patterns, not simply to accumulate facts."
Author: Quammen, David

24. "You still haven't told me what King Edward will do when he has all four relics,' Robert said, fixing Humphrey with his gaze.‘We aren't privy to all his plans, Robert, as I've told you. Only the men of the Round Table know his full intentions. We have to prove ourselves worthy to be trusted as they are.'‘Do you not ever wonder?'Humphrey paused. ‘I just know my kingwill do what is best for my kingdom.'Robert said nothing. He thought of hisown kingdom, beleaguered by Edward'sinterference, and a ghost of a threat drifted in his mind.But even as it appeared, he pushed itaway. Scotland was its own kingdom, with its own king. It wasn't Wales or Ireland, fractured and isolated. However much Edward had desired the Crown of Arthur he had come here, first and foremost, to put down a rebellion. Yet still, on this bleak shore with Humphrey beside him, Robert felt a sense of standing at a crossroads with many paths leading away before him. In his mind they all led into darkness."
Author: Robyn Young

25. "The fairy or fantastic world replaces the classical Hades (or Hell) in Sir Orfeo, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes this fantasy element to new heights. Sir Gawain is one of the Knights of the Round Table, the followers of King Arthur, who is so much of a presence in English history, myth and literature."
Author: Ronald Carter

26. "Also, on account of the odd relationship between time and space, the people who do manage to time-jump sometimes space-jump at the same time and end up in places where they simply don't belong. Over there, for example," he said as a raucous DeLorean sports car rared into view from nowhere, "is that crazy American professorwho can't seem to stay put in one time, and, I must say, there is an absolute plague of of killer robots from the future being sent to change the past. Sleeping there under that banyan tree is a certain Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, who was accidentally transported one day back to King Arthur's Court, and stayed there until Merlin put him to sleep for 1300 thirteen hundred years. He was suppsoed to wake up back in his own time, but look at this lazy fellow! He's still snoring away, and has missed his slot."
Author: Salman Rushdie

27. "We are the poem's ancient band of twelve that proceeds through the ages. There were twelve of us, when we ruled the world on the cloud-covered top of Olympus, and twelve when we lived as birds in Ygdrasil's green crown. Wherever poetry went forth, there we followed. Did we not sit, twelve men strong, at King Arthur's round table, and did twelve paladins not go in Charles the Twelfth's great army? On of us has been Thor, another Jupiter, as any man should be able to see in us yet today. The divine splendor can be sensed under the rags, the lion's mane under the donkey hide. Time has treated us badly, but when we are there, the smithy becomes Mount Olympus and the cavalier's wing a Valhalla."
Author: Selma Lagerlöf

28. "Arthur is no fit king. Uther's bastard, Merlin's pawn, he is lowborn and a fool. He is wanton and petty and cruel. A glutton and a drunkard, he lacks all civilized graces. In short, he is a sullen, ignorant brute.All these things and more men say of Arthur. Let them. When all the words are spoken and the arguements fall exhausted into silence, this single fact remains: we would follow Arthur to the very gates of Hell and beyond if he asked it. And that is the solitary truth.Show me another who can claim such loyalty."
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

29. "All that winter's day and far into the night the kings twisted and squirmed, but Merlin held them in his iron grasp and would not let go. He became first a rock, and then a mountain in Arthur's defence. Arthur stood equally unmoved. No power on earth could have prevailed against them . . ."
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

30. "He holds the sword!' shouted Merlin. 'And that has not changed. Whoever would be king must first take the sword from Arthur's hand. For I tell you truly, none among you will be king without it!"
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

31. "Yet, there was once a king worthy of that name. That king was Arthur. It is paramount disgrace of this evil generation that the name of that great king is no longer spoken aloud except in derision. Arthur! He was the fairest flower of our race, Cymry's most noble son, Lord of the Summer Realm, Pendragon of Britain. He wore God's favour like a purple robe.Hear then, if you will, the tale of a true king."
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

32. "Yes Wart' said Merlyn 'Or rather, as I should say (or is it have I said?), Yes, King Arthur"
Author: T.H. White

33. "This coming from the god who zinged Guinevere and Lancelot while King Arthur was away slaying dragons."
Author: Tai

34. "Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross."
Author: Thomas Malory

35. "Now, said Sir Ector to Arthur, I understand ye must be king of this land. Wherefore I, said Arthur, and for what cause? Sir, said Ector, for God will have it so; for there should never man have drawn out this sword, but he that shall be rightwise king of this land"
Author: Thomas Malory

36. "I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle."
Author: Zadie Smith

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