Magus Quotes

Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden. That apparition, sole of men, he saw. (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
There's a card in the Tarot pack called The Magus. The magician, conjuror. Two of his traditional symbols are the lily and the rose.
John Fowles
Despair leads to many forms of thought,” said the magus, "and many kinds of action. Despair drives some to greater sanity, towards an analysis of the world as it is and what it might be. Others it drives to deep and dangerous insanity, towards an imposition of their own desires upon reality. I sympathize with your despair, Johannes Klosterheim, because it has no solace, in the end. Your despair is the worst there is to know. And yet men often look upon the likes of you and envy you, as you doubtless envy Duke Arioch, as Duke Arioch doubtless envies his master Lucifer, whom he would betray, and perhaps as Lucifer envied God. And what does God envy, I wonder? Perhaps he envies the simple mortal who is content with his lot and envies nobody.
Michael Moorcock
Now, at this very minute, another thing is happening which we cannot hear because most paintings do not have a sound-track. Peter is inventing the word "simony" to explain ecclesiastical purchase-power, for which, since his Church later exercised it so expertly, Simon Magus ought to be revered as a patron not a rogue.
Peter Greenaway
Ah," said the magus, understanding at once. "I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again." "Surely that's unlikely," said Sounis. "I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us," said the magus.
Megan Whalen Turner
Why did you come if not to murder my king?" "I came to steal his magus." "You can't," said the magus in question. "I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.
Megan Whalen Turner
Today those who peer into the future want only relief from anxiety. Unable to face the prospect that the cycles of war will continue, they are desperate to find a pattern of improvement in history. It is only natural that believers in reason, lacking any deeper faith and too feeble to tolerate doubt, should turn to the sorcery of numbers. Happily there are some who are ready to assist them. Just as the Elizabethan magus transcribed tables shown to him by angels, the modern scientific scryer deciphers numerical auguries of angels hidden in ourselves.
John N. Gray
Those forces that are preparing the appearance of Antichrist will have a leading significance in public life. Antichrist will be a man and not the devil incarnate. ... That man wants to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess that which Christ ought to possess. He wants to possess the same attraction and authority over the whole world. And he will receive that authority before his own destruction and that of the whole world. He will have a helper, a Magus, who, by the power of false miracles, will fulfill his will and kill those that do not recognize the authority of Antichrist.
John of Shanghai and San Francisco
"You can always give me some of Ambiades's food." The magus gave me an ugly look. "You'll get your share and nothing else. No one's going hungry so that you can eat." :"I don't see why not," I said as I lay down on the grass for a nap. It had dried in the sumer sun to crakling stalks that poked me in the arms and neck. "I'm a lot more important than anyone else here," I told the blue sky above me.
Megan Whalen Turner
I don't know how he would have gotten out of the prison on his own," said the magus. "It seems a foolhardy plan to have relied on my intervention.
Megan Whalen Turner
The magus described the fighting with the guard in detail and made me look very good indeed. (Megan Whalen Turner)
While the magus, realizing his error, was trying to word an apology, my father came to look in at me. "I thought I heard you laughing up your sleeve," he said.
Megan Whalen Turner
"Eugenides," he said. He had recognized the voice. "Yes." "What have you done?" "Not much yet," answered the Thief from the darkness. "I remain fairly limited in my physical activities." He held up his right arm, and the magus started before realizing that the hand he saw had to be a wooden one, concealed by a glove. Another booming explosion filled the air, and the magus turned back to the window but could see only a glare reflecting on the whitewashed walls of the buildings below. "I had to send someone else to light the fuses," Eugenides said behind him. "Fuses?" asked the magus, with a sick feeling. "In the powder magazines of your warships," Eugenides explained. "Powder magazines?" "You sound like the chorus in a play," said Eugenides. "And the play is a tragedy, I suppose?" "A farce," Eugenides suggested, and the magus winced.
Megan Whalen Turner
I'd suggested eating it before we left the market. I'd also suggested eating it on the road. I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say, "We eat the chicken now!" but the magus had seen that I was considering it.
Megan Whalen Turner
The magus and I had talked for many long hours about this marriage of Eugenides and the queen of Attolia. The magus insisted it was Eugenides's choice and his desire as well, but it was impossible to know whose influence would prevail and if Gen would grow more like his wife, or his wife like her king.
Megan Whalen Turner