Marlowe Quotes

Charlie Marlowe never wrote horror, but somehow horror was writing Charlie Marlowe. ~ Ruta Sepetys

O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. ~ Christopher Marlowe

I am Envy ... I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned. ~ Christopher Marlowe

I am the girl who spends hours huddled in a corner of a library, trying to find what you love the most about Marlowe, just so I can write you a poem worthy of Shakespeare. I've made books my lovers, hours my enemies and you the only story. ~ Nikita Gill

Nobody yelled or ran out of the door. Nobody blew a police whistle. Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It's only Marlowe, finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe, they call him. They have the meat wagon following him around to follow up on the business he finds.
A nice enough fellow, in an ingenuous sort of way. ~ Raymond Chandler

Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead. ~ Christopher Marlowe

This tottered ensign of my ancestors
Which swept the desert shore of that dead sea
Whereof we got the name of Mortimer,
Will I advance upon these castle-walls.
Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport,
And sing aloud the knell of Gaveston! ~ Christopher Marlowe

Another longish pause. His eyelids were getting heavy. "Ever kill a man, Marlowe?" "Yes." "Nasty feeling, isn't it?" "Some people like it." His eyes went shut all the way. Then they opened again, but they looked vague. "How could they? ~ Raymond Chandler

Virginity, albeit some highly prize it, Compared with marriage, had you tried them both, Differs as much as wine and water doth. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Rolling onto his side, Jamie reached out and touched Evan's chest, two fingertips only tracing the curve of his pectoral and threading through the dark, curly hair. Something about that hairiness fascinated him, masculine yet soft. An unaccountable shyness wrapped around him, a weight upon his shoulders. His fingers trembled a little. "You'll, um, tell me if I do it wrong?"
Evan laughed softly, "Angel, there is no wrong. Go ahead and explore. If I don't like something, I'll tell you, 'kay? ~ Finn Marlowe

A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit: Bid Economy10 farewell, and11 Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus: Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure: Summum bonum medicinae sanitas, The end of physic is our body's health. ~ Christopher Marlowe

What art thou Faustus, but a man condemned to die? ~ Christopher Marlowe

Goodness is beauty in its best mistake ~ Christopher Marlowe

Make me immortal with a kiss. ~ Christopher Marlowe

You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,
And now and then stab, when occasion serves. ~ Christopher Marlowe

I'll be glad for your company," Will said as he draped her cloak over her shoulders and handed her the new muff. "But bundle up. Sounds colder than a banshee's tits out."
"And since when do ye know about any other tits but mine?" she asked tartly. ~ Mia Marlowe

Heavens can witness I love none but you:
From my embracements thus he breaks away.
O that mine arms could close this isle about,
That I might pull him to me where I would!
Or that these tears that drizzle from mine eyes
Had power to mollify his stony heart,
That when I had him we might never part. ~ Christopher Marlowe

If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death. ~ Christopher Marlowe

The kid poured him another straight rye and I think he doctored it with water down behind the bar because when he came up with it he looked as guilty as if he'd kicked his grandmother. ~ Raymond Chandler

My father is deceast, come Gaveston,'
And share the kingdom with thy deerest friend.'
Ah words that make me surfet with delight:
What greater blisse can hap to Gaveston,
Then live and be the favorit of a king?
Sweete prince I come, these these thy amorous lines,
Might have enforst me to have swum from France,
And like Leander gaspt upon the sande,
So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy armes.
The sight of London to my exiled eyes,
Is as Elizium to a new come soule.
Not that I love the citie or the men,
But that it harbors him I hold so deare,
The king, upon whose bosome let me die,
And with the world be still at enmitie:
What neede the artick people love star-light,
To whom the sunne shines both by day and night.
Farewell base stooping to the lordly peeres,
My knee shall bowe to none but to the king.
As for the multitude that are but sparkes,
Rakt up in embers of their povertie,
Tanti: Ile fawne first on the winde,
That glaunceth at my lips and flieth away: .... ~ Christopher Marlowe

For a brazen Libertine, an adulterer, a sodomite, an atheist, a fornicator, rakehell, heretic, godless playmaker and debaucher of innocents, you're a sorry state of affairs. ~ Elizabeth Bear

If I had a razor, I'd cut your throat - just to see what ran out of it."
"Caterpillar blood," I said. ~ Raymond Chandler

Wagner Doctor Faustus' student and servant: "Alas, poor slave! See how poverty jests in his nakedness. I know the villain's out of service, and so hungry that I know he would give his soul to the devil for a shoulder of mutton, though it were blood raw."
Robin a clown: "Not so, neither! I had need to have it well roasted, and good sauce to it, if I pay so dear, I can tell you. ~ Christopher Marlowe

YOUNGER MORTIMER: Fear'd am I more than lov'd; - let me be fear'd,
And, when I frown, make all the court look pale. ~ Christopher Marlowe

TAMBURLAINE: Nature, that fram'd us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure every wandering planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. ~ Christopher Marlowe

The inability to listen and to depict in the countenance what others have said has spoiled many a good actress. ~ Julia Marlowe

Time doth run with calm and silent foot,
Shortening my days and thread of vital life. ~ Christopher Marlowe

USUMCASANE: To be a king, is half to be a god. ~ Christopher Marlowe

What nourishes me, destroys me ~ Christopher Marlowe

Unless the actor is able to discourse most eloquently without opening his lips, he lacks the prime essential of a finished artist. ~ Julia Marlowe

Love is not ful of pittie (as men say)
But deaffe and cruell, where he meanes to pray. ~ Christopher Marlowe

FAUSTUS: Bell, book and candle, candle, book and bell,
Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Our swords shall play the orators for us. ~ Christopher Marlowe

He that pleasure loves must for pleasure fall ~ Christopher Marlowe

As in plain terms (yet cunningly) he crav'd it; / Love always makes those eloquent that have it (II.71-2). ~ Christopher Marlowe

When the power of the shift rips the human body apart and transforms it into its new shape, there lives a second, less than a second, a mere shimmer of time when the mind is without a home, no body to call its own. Existence is painless in there, nothing but formlessness beyond understanding. A secret place, it contains nothing but the essence of self, a lost self. In the fire of pain, Colton found a whisper of that place, its ghost, its echo, and from that echo he withdrew a thread of deepest black. ~ Finn Marlowe

Hell and confusion light upon their heads. ~ Christopher Marlowe

The only thing that had truly stuck in Sherman's mind about Christopher Marlowe, after nine years at Buckley, four years at St. Paul's, and four years at Yale, was that you were, in fact, supposed to know who Christopher Marlowe was. ~ Tom Wolfe

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Impressive," Court offered, gallantly bending to retrieve the shoe. "You should join the theater."
"Fuck you."
"I owed you that."
"Revenge is a dish best served with a side of handcuffs and a hard ass-fucking. Remember that."
Really is a dirty fighter. Goddamn. ~ Finn Marlowe

Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss? ~ Christopher Marlowe

It is a comfort to the miserable to have comrades in misfortune, but it is a poor comfort after all. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Confess and be hanged. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Ye're my wife, Katherine. Ye promised before God to obey me. If I want to sleep with ye, I damned well will. ~ Mia Marlowe

FAUSTUS. [Stabbing his arm.] Lo, Mephistophilis, for love of thee,
I cut mine arm, and with my proper blood
Assure my soul to be great Lucifer's,
Chief lord and regent of perpetual night! ~ Christopher Marlowe

God Is, Lucifer is a devil, and there is a Hell. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

That like I best that flies beyond my reach.
Set me to scale the high pyramids
And thereon set the diadem of France;
I'll either rend it with my nails to nought,
Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,
Although my downfall be the deepest hell. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Some swore he was a maid in man's attire,
For in his looks were all that men desire,
A pleasant smiling cheeke, a speaking eye,
A brow for loveto banquet roiallye,
And such as knew he was a man would say,
Leander, thou art made for amorous play:
Why art thou not in love and lov'd of all? ~ Deborah Harkness

So. Tell me," Marlowe tried gamely, "what do you think is man's greatest invention?"

Jericho turned his head just slightly toward Marlowe, looking him straight in the eye. "God. ~ Libba Bray

The requirements of the theatre are very great
a strong constitution, energy and unflagging purpose, charm of feature, these alone do not necessarily mean anything, and they must not be relied upon as assurances of an easy conquest of the public heart. It is not only a question of fitness for the work, but of long years of most diligent effort to master the technique of the theatre, and to develop whatever of the art instinct we may possess upon the simplest, broadest, and most human lines. ~ Julia Marlowe

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? ~ Christopher Marlowe

What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day? ~ Christopher Marlowe

Lucille has a dull life, Mr. Marlowe. She's stuck here with me and a PBX. And an itty-bitty diamond ring - so small I was ashamed to give it to her. But what can a man do? If he loves a girl, he'd like it to show on her finger."
Lucille held her left hand up and moved it around to get a flash from the little stone. "I hate it," she said. "I hate it like I hate the sunshine and the summer and the bright stars and the full moon. That's how I hate it".
I picked up the key and my suitcase and left them. A little more of that and I'd be falling in love with myself. I might even give myself a small unpretentious diamond ring. ~ Raymond Chandler

What virtue is it that is born with us?
Much less can honor be ascribed thereto,
Honor is purchased by the deeds we do.
Believe me, Hero, honor is not won,
Until some honorable deed be done.

----From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad I ~ Christopher Marlowe

Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. ~ Raymond Chandler

Ah fair Zenocrate, divine Zenocrate, Fair is too foul an epithet for thee. ~ Christopher Marlowe

There is no sin but ignorance. ~ Christopher Marlowe

O soul, be changed into little waterdrops, / And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found! ~ Christopher Marlowe

Okay Marlowe,' I said to myself. 'You're a tough guy. You've been sapped twice, choked, beaten silly with a gun, shot in the arm until you're crazy as a couple of waltzing mice. Now let's see you do something really tough - like putting your pants on.'" line from Farewell My Lovely 1944. ~ Phillip Marlow

Heaven, envious of our joys, is waxen pale;
And when we whisper, then the stars fall down
To be partakers of our honey talk.
(Dido, Queen of Carthage 4.4.52-54) ~ Christopher Marlowe

Or maybe aliens had abducted him - yeah, that was what happened. Knowing Evan, he'd spot the anal probe and want to try it out on them. ~ Finn Marlowe

She came back with the glass and her fingers, cold from holding the glass, touched mine, and I held them for a moment and then let them go slowly, as you let go of a dream when you wake with the sun in your face and you have been in an enchanted valley ~ Raymond Chandler

Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, Heavens conspir'd his overthrow.
~ Christopher Marlowe

The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: "Philip Marlowe ... Investigations." It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization. The door is locked, but next to it is another door with same legend which is not locked. Come on in
there's nobody here but me an a big bluebottle fly. But not if you're from Manhattan, Kansas. ~ Raymond Chandler

Thus Time, and all-states-ordering Ceremony
Had banished all offense: Time's golden thigh
Upholds the flowery body of the earth
In sacred harmony, and every birth
Of men and actions makes legitimate,
Being used aright. The use of time is Fate.

---From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad III ~ Christopher Marlowe

For years I happily wrote nothing but carefully researched and argued cultural history. Now with fiction I can begin where the archives end. It's like turning old black and white photos into a full-color video. Research reveals the past; fiction puts it in motion. And once history comes to life, it's clear that people then wrestled with troubles a lot like our own.
I love writing mysteries because they're ultimately about justice, and what's more complicated than guilt and innocence? I especially relish writing about crimes that pit the law against my characters' moral code. In the end justice is often about power, and the struggle over who gets to decide what's right or wrong makes for great stories in any genre. Historical mysteries are a great way into the life's most meaty stuff. ~ Marlowe Benn

BARABAS: A reaching thought will search his deepest wits,
And cast with cunning for the time to come;
For evils are apt to happen every day. ~ Christopher Marlowe

It is a comfort in wretchedness to have companions in woe. ~ Christopher Marlowe

While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. ~ Christopher Marlowe

All beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. ~ Christopher Marlowe

It was painful to contemplate the distance between the future of accomplishment I'd imagined for myself twenty years earlier ... it was painful to understand that the cushion of exceptionality invoked by the drug had made me oblivious to my inertia. And it was painful to have to define myself again, at an age when most people are happy in their own skins. ~ Ann Marlowe

Nothing violent, oft have I heard tell, can be permanent. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"I'm on the Senate," he reminded me. "It's Lord Obvious. ~ Karen Chance

Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, former paid companion to several of the ton's most successful debutantes of prior seasons, came to Havenhurst to fill the position of Elizabeth's duenna. A woman of fifty with wiry gray hair she scraped back into a bun and the posture of a ramrod, she had a permanently pinched face, as if she smelled something disagreeable but was too well-bred to remark upon it. In addition to the duenna's daunting physical appearance, Elizabeth observed shortly after their first meeting that Miss Throckmorton-Jones possessed an astonishing ability to sit serenely for hours without twitching so much as a finger.
Elizabeth refused to be put off by her stony demeanor and set about finding a way to thaw her. Teasingly, she called her "Lucy," and when the casually affectionate nickname won a thunderous frown from the lady, Elizabeth tried to find a different means. She discovered it very soon: A few days after Lucinda came to live at Havenhurst the duenna discovered her curled up in a chair in Havenhurt's huge library, engrossed in a book. "You enjoy reading?" Lucinda had said gruffly-and with surprise-as she noted the gold embossed title on the volume.
"Yes," Elizabeth had assured her, smiling. "Do you?"
"Have you read Christopher Marlowe?"
"Yes, but I prefer Shakespeare."
Thereafter it became their policy each night after supper to debate the merits of the individual books they'd read. Before long Elizabeth realized that she'd won the d ~ Judith McNaught

Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements,
Where we are tortured and remain forever.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that is not heaven. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Accurst be he that first invented war. ~ Christopher Marlowe

As far as I can see, in this world, you're a fool for not using whatever gifts
you're given. It's not as though you lied or cheated or stole to get Howard Marlowe as your father. That's
who he is; that's who you are. You got dealt a bad card when you were bitten - so use one of the better
cards you have in your hand to make up for it. ~ Claudia Gray

Edward:
Well Mortimer, ile make thee rue these words,
Beseemes it thee to contradict thy king?
Frownst thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster,
The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,
And hew these knees that now are growne so stiffe.
I will have Gaveston, and you shall know,
What danger tis to stand against your king.
Gaveston:
Well doone, Ned. ~ Christopher Marlowe

I bet it was also the triumphant Aha! and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names - Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like, Yeah! or Fuck, yeah! just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around; to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself. ~ Brock Clarke

I've always slightly preferred Spade to Marlowe, probably just because I thought Hammett was cooler than Chandler. He was leftwing, his name shortened to Dash rather than Ray, and he didn't smoke a pipe or like cats. ~ Mark Billingham

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
'[kisses her]'
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour! ~ Christopher Marlowe

They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o'-shanter which wasn't any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.
I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool, supercilious voice that sounded as if it thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered:
You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective? ~ Raymond Chandler

And so you're gonna beat yourself up forever for not being perfect all the time. Not everything's your responsibility. You don't have to be the best at everything. And don't you dare feel bad for being the best thing that's ever happened to me."
The best thing? Really? "I've never been anyone's best anything," he whispered. ~ Finn Marlowe

It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overruled by fate. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Shakespeare scholars just sigh and consign the book to the great pantheon of revelations .. I am accustomed to fanatics who get a funny look in the eye when they come to speak to me how about the Earl of Oxford or Marlowe really wrote the plays. She spoke rationally, and it's an intelligently readable book, but it floats way above the facts, as I told her. ~ William Shakespeare

I must have wanton Poets, pleasant wits,
Musitians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Musicke and poetrie is his delight,
Therefore ile have Italian maskes by night,
Sweete speeches, comedies, and pleasing showes,
And in the day when he shall walke abroad,
Like Sylvian Nimphes my pages shall be clad,
My men like Satyres grazing on the lawnes,
Shall with their Goate feete daunce an antick hay.
Sometime a lovelie boye in Dians shape,
With haire that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearle about his naked armes,
And in his sportfull hands an Olive tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring, and there hard by,
One like Actaeon peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angrie goddesse be transformde,
And running in the likenes of an Hart,
By yelping hounds puld downe, and seeme to die.
Such things as these best please his majestie,
My lord. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all for Mephistopheles! ~ Christopher Marlowe

It was lonely in that damn motel room. When I'm on the road, I usually have a dog with me. Animals I like. People I learned a long time ago to do without. ~ Dan J. Marlowe

If I had to offer up a one sentence definition of addiction, I'd call it a form of mourning for the irrecoverable glories of the first time ... addiction can show us what is deeply suspect about nostalgia. That drive to return to the past isn't an innocent one. It's about stopping your passage to the future, it's a symptom of fear of death, and the love of predictable experience.
And the love of predictable experience, not the drug itself, is the major damage done to users. ~ Ann Marlowe

I made a considerable dent in the bourbon reserves of three bars. Maybe I couldn't quite walk a straight line after that, but I was still thinking up a storm and getting nowhere. I switched to Calvert's the way the ads tell you, with no better results. I thought maybe if I got in touch with Doc Kincaid and asked him for a list of people who had answered his questions I'd be able to find out if the killer had broken his code. It seemed like a fine idea, but I wasn't buying any of that, either. It was the professional way to go about things and it might bring results in a month or two or twenty, but I didn't have the time. I'd drink myself into an alcoholic ward long before that.

But Tad Barrett might like the idea and might be able to do more about it with a whole staff of trained operatives.

Jason Chase, you are a genius. You must drink to this brilliant idea. You must. You will. But the barman shook his head.

"What do you mean, I've had enough?"

"I mean, I don't think you ought to take another. Not here."

"That's ridiculous, my good sir. ~ Stephen Marlowe

Pluck up your hearts, since fate still rests our friend. ~ Christopher Marlowe

'You've got a smart mouth, boy. And you swear too much. I should do what your mama failed to do and soap out your filthy mouth.'
Unwilling to hide the smirk, Jamie flashed it unrepentantly. 'Shit, your organic-oatmeal-and-mint soap probably tastes better than your cookies. Bring it on.' ~ Finn Marlowe

MACHEVILL: I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Very methodical guy, Marlowe. Nothing must interfere with his coffee technique. Not even a gun in the hand of a desperate character. ~ Raymond Chandler

This is getting surreal," Marlowe murmured. "Even for this place."
"Cassie is here-mentally," Mircea told him.
"I gathered that."
"She seems to find it difficult to understand why I do not wish to have her in my head, unannounced, any time she pleases
"
Marlowe gave a bark of a laugh. "Oh this should be fun. ~ Karen Chance

The delights of a thousand dreams await within,
Yet I stand rooted outside your window,
Trembling like a tamarind in the breeze.
Unable to move,
Unable to breathe,
Hoping for one flutter of your curtain.
~from Silk Dreams ~ Mia Marlowe

Once upon a time the future was supposed to be brighter, shinier and more fun. When did that vision pass? When did the word 'new' lose it's luster? Now the past is supposed to hold the hopes we once confided to the future. We're directing attachments that used to go forward backward. ~ Ann Marlowe

Love me little, love me long. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon The author of Lear remains unshaken Willie Herbert or Mary Fitton What does it matter? The Sonnets were written. ~ Noel Coward