33 Quotes by Arthur Phillips

He considered her ruthless, in his moments of pain, but also in moments of happiness, experienced mere feet from her but bound right wrist to left ankle by her rules: nothing could evolve, nothing could be consummated, nothing repressed could surface, nothing previously accepted could be ignored. One must not speak of it, in case one could no longer sing of it. Instead, she only kept directing his attention to the wondrously charged air they could tame and make dance between them.

Perhaps men could accustom themselves to living with a small amount of doubt. I think doubt a necessary ingredient to live.

But the reality of power – a field of study Ezzedine had ignored, even as he benefited from it – could not be denied infinitely. He would be subject to its immutable laws whether he studied them or pretended they didn’t exist.

The highest task of intelligence: to imagine a future and then smooth its approach.

History is written by the future, and therefore distorted at its start.

Fiction isn't memoir and memoir isn't fiction.