Thomas Malory Quotations

What, nephew, said the king, is the wind in that door?

Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England.

And much more am I sorrier for my good knights' loss than for the loss of my fair queen; for queens I might have enough, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company.

For as well as I have loved thee heretofore, mine heart will not serve now to see thee; for through thee and me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed.

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit.

For, as I suppose, no man in this world hath lived better than I have done, to achieve that I have done.

For love that time was not as love is nowadays.

Wit thou well that I will not live long after thy days.

Through this same man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain.

This beast went to the well and drank, and the noise was in the beast's belly like unto the questing of thirty couple hounds, but all the while the beast drank there was no noise in the beast's belly.

King Pellinore that time followed the questing beast.

Enough is as good as a feast.

Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.

The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady.

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.

We shall now seek that which we shall not find

The sweetness of love is short-lived, but the pain endures.

It was the month of May, the month when the foliage of herbs and trees is most freshly green, when buds ripened and blossoms appear in their fragrance and loveliness. And the month when lovers, subject to the same force which reawakens the plants, feel their hearts open again, recall past trysts and past vows, and moments of tenderness, and yearn for a renewal of the magical awareness which is love.

With that truncheon thou hast slain a good knight, and now it sticketh in thy body.

Always Sir Arthur lost so much blood that it was a marvel he stood on his feet, but he was so full of knighthood that knightly he endured the pain.

It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all England, and so reigned, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long time. And the duke was called the duke of Tintagil.

Then he looked by him, and was ware of a damsel that came riding as fast as her horse might gallop upon a fair palfrey. And when she espied that Sir Lanceor was slain, then she made sorrow out of measure, and said, O Balin ! two bodies hast thou slain and one heart, and two hearts in one body, and two souls thou hast lost.

The joy of love is too short, and the sorrow thereof, and what cometh thereof, dureth over long.

Nowadays men cannot love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty, heat soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so.