Death Comes As The End Quotes
"It is so easy and it costs so little labor to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt - and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattle - but all the same the fields and the barley and the cattle are real - they are not just marks of ink on papyrus."
"You cannot go back, Renisenb. It is like my measures here. I take a half and add to it a quarter, and then a tenth and then a twenty-fourth - and at the end, you see, it is a different quantity altogether."
"Men are made fools by the gleaming limbs of women, and lo, in a minute they are become discolored carnelians... A trifle, a little, the likeness of a dream, and death comes as the end."
"What does a woman's life come to in the end, after all? It is spent in the back of the house - amongst the other women."
"This is your doing, Nofret. I shall not forget. No, I shall not forget..."
"It is dangerous to give a man power when he is too young. But it is also dangerous to give it to him too late."
"As sure as Re sails the Heavens this will be more trouble!"
"Evil has come from outside! And I know who has brought it. It is Nofret."
"Death is the chief source of wealth here in Egypt."
"I have been with him to Syria - to Byblos beyond the Gazelle's Nose."
"You are beautiful, Nofret, and the sight of you pleases my old eyes."
"I must toil ceaselessly for my family - little though they sometimes appreciate it."
"People are confused. Everybody is different from what I thought they were."
"I feel sometimes that even Henet may be quite different from what she appears to be!"
"Well, people are like that too. They create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves."
"But when reality in the form of danger threatened, her true nature appeared. She did not change - that strength and that ruthlessness were always there."
"You see? You have said it yourself. That is the word of reality - need! You are not the happy, unthinking child you have always appeared to be."
"I seem to know what she felt. She was very unhappy, Hori, I know that now, though I didn't at the time. She wanted to hurt us all because she was so unhappy."
"Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen."
"But when fear came, it took her unawares. She learned then that courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen - and she had not got that courage."
"If one is to live always in fear it would be better to die - so I will overcome fear."
"Life and death, are not of such great account."
"But Yahmose will not die now," said Renisenb. "He will live."
"I, Renisenb, am an old woman, and I love life as only the old can, savoring every hour, every minute, that is left to them."
"Fear is only incomplete knowledge," said Hori.
"There are things which have to be said must be known only to us three. I trust you, Hori."
"You are lucky, Renisenb. You have found the happiness that is inside everybody's own heart."
"To most women, happiness means coming and going, busied over small affairs."
"Women have power in Egypt - inheritance passes through them to their children. Women are the life blood of Egypt."
"She is me - and she is Khay... No, she is not me and she is not Khay - she is herself. She is Teti."
"If there is love between us we shall be friends all our life - but if there is not love she will grow up and we shall be strangers."
"If I turn my head, I shall see Hori. He will look up from his papyrus and smile at me."
"How peaceful it is here. One can't imagine anything - horrible - happening here."
"What is strength? Ipy was strong - strong in youth and beauty - and now he lies in the brine bath."
"All life is a jest, Imhotep - and it is death who laughs last."
"Trust no one. That is the first, the most vital thing."
"There is always poison in your tongue, Henet. It stings like a scorpion."
"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die."
"Then Hori had gone on to speak of changes that came from within, of a rottenness that left no outward sign."
"It had taken Nofret's coming to open her eyes... Yes, Nofret's coming. It had all hinged on that."
"She felt like a sleeper awakening from a feverish dream."
"In this evening hour up here, there were clarity and truth. No confusion. She was Renisenb, walking here above the world, serene and unafraid, herself at last."
"All that Nofret's coming did was to bring it from its hidden place into light."
"It may be that there must always be growth - and that if one does not grow kinder and wiser and greater, then the growth must be the other way, fostering the evil things."
"Once the heart is opened to evil - evil blossoms like poppies amongst the corn."
"Life will be again as I knew it with Khay... What could I ask more than that? What do I want more than that?"
"Your mind is like my mind, it looks out over the River, seeing a world of changes, of new ideas - seeing a world where all things are possible to those with courage and vision..."
"I cannot tell you what to do with your life, Renisenb - because it is your life - and only you can decide."
"I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes..."