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Book: The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Quotes of Book: The Memoirs of Cleopatra
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  1. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    For a man, however, it was the opposite. Alexander's beauty was not felt to detract from his generalship. Nowhere was it hinted that a handsome man could not be a good ruler, or clever, or strong, or brave. In fact, people longed for a resplendent king. But for a woman…I shook my head. It was as if beauty in a woman rendered all other traits suspect.
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  2. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    I thought of the "Roman way" of impaling oneself on a sword. Certainly poison seemed more civilized. And I thought the Romans were a little too eager to commit suicide. It did not take much of a setback before they were reaching for their swords, or opening their veins.
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  3. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.
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  4. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    I will even not rant about treachery. I was brought up in a sea of treachery and deceit and betrayal. I swam in it like perch in the Nile. I am completely at home in it. I shall not drown.
    book-quotecleopatra

  5. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others.
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  6. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    As long as the sun rose each day, as long as they could behold it, there life was secure.
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  7. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    It is thus that inanimate objects seem to soak up the essence of living things, and later cause pain or pleasure when we merely look at them.
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  8. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    You must bear losses like a soldier, the voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong.
    book-quoteinspirationalwarloss

  9. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    It is only when our fate hangs in the balance, when our very life depends on something, that we see whether or not we trust that the rope to which we are clinging will support us. If we do not, then we let of of the ledge and swing on it with our full weight.
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  10. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    Fortune offers you opportunities to create; she does not hand you presents.
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  11. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    Lying in bed, half-covered by the blankets, I would drowsily ask why he had come to my door that night long ago. It had become a ritual for us, as it does for all lovers: where, when, why? remember...I understand even old people rehearse their private religion of how they first loved, most guarded of secrets. And he would answer, sleep blurring his words, "Because I had to." The question and the answer were always the same. Why? Because I had to."
    book-quotesecretslovers-love-story

  12. Margaret George _ The Memoirs of Cleopatra

    Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one's human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death - in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.
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