Never destroy without thought your enemy's pretences; they are usually your best weapon against him.

Alexander, of whom men tell many legends, lived by his own. Achilles must have Patroklos. He might love his Briseis; but Patroklos was the friend till death. At their tombs in Troy, Alexander and Hephaistion had sacrificed together. Wound Patroklos, and Achilles will have your blood.

All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one will ever make a tragedy - and that is as well, for one could not bear it - whose grief is that the principals never met.

There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.

Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.

Longing performs all things

I was a king and a king's heir and now I am a slave.