Cleopatra's Quotes & Sayings

I immediately thought of the stars. Stars. Heavenly bodies formed by huge clouds of dust and gas bumping
into one another, getting bigger, their gravity getting stronger. Once hot enough, nuclear fusion occurs. And then a star is formed.
People are shaped in a similar way - just like stars - excessive amounts of dust and hot gas. And like stars, everyone's life has a turning point prior to their big bang. The shit show before the creation. Y 'know, one of those moments that can fuck you up.
Cleopatra's was when her father named her joint regent at fourteen. Fucked-up.
Bruce Wayne's when he witnessed his parents get murdered. Fucked-up.
Charles Manson's when his mother sold him for a pitcher of beer. Fucked. Up.
Not to mention 'Helter Skelter. — Jorge Enrique Ponce

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. — Stacy Schiff

The studio system collapsed only when Elizabeth Taylor charged $1 million for Cleopatra. — Leslie Caron

You could have been Bethany Matthews, Delia Hopkins, Cleopatra - it wouldn't matter. And if you'd grown up with a thousand lemon trees in the middle of the desert, with a cactus instead of a Christmas tree and a pet armadillo, well then, I would have gone to law school at Arizona State, I guess. I would have defended illegal aliens crossing the border. But we still would have wound up together, Dee. No matter what kind of life I had, you'd be at the end of it. — Jodi Picoult

His words hit me. He knew about Mila's and Gabriel's love ... perhaps he could change things. If he did, Eli and I could be together freely, but until then there was no happy ending. I could feel it. The love that Eli and I have was great, but when has any great love in history ended well? Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, or Tristan and Isolde? Each and every one ended in tragedy, be it death or banishment. — Skyla Madi

Being an artist:
And this susceptibility of theirs is doubly unfortunate , I thought, returning again to my original enquiry into what state of mind is propitious for creative work, because the mind of an artist, in order to achieve to the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in him, must be incandescent, like Shakespeare's mind, I conjectured, looking at the book which lay open at Antony and Cleopatra. There must be no obstacle in it, no foreign matter unconsumed. — Virginia Woolf

Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [ ... ]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.
Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it. — Robert Greene

I knew that a man was not only himself but also who he wished to be. — Stephanie Dray

Why is it that we honor the Great Thieves of Whitehall, for Acts that in Whitechapel would merit hanging? Why admire one sort of Thief, and despise the other? I suggest, 'tis because of the Scale of the Crime.
What we of the Mobility love to watch, is any of the Great Motrices, Greed, Lust, Revenge, taken out of all measure, brought quite past the scale of the ev'ryday world, approaching what we always knew were the true Dimensions of Desire. Let Antony lose the world for Cleopatra, to be sure,
not Dick his Day's Wages, at the Tavern. — Thomas Pynchon

Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare. — Virginia Woolf

Diadem, Cleopatra took part throughout the trip in religious — Stacy Schiff

I was full of myth, which is to say full of an idea. — Cleopatra Mathis

The truth is very few of us are related to Napoleon or Cleopatra. Although, those are bad examples as I am actually descended from both of them. — Jim Piddock

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: 'There's no further new material; there are only new questions.' — Stacy Schiff

Cleopatra descended from a long line of murderers and faithfully upheld the family tradition but was, for her time and place, remarkably well behaved. — Stacy Schiff

I'm probably the highest paid outdoor entertainer since Cleopatra, — Gypsy Rose Lee

Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra. — Blaise Pascal

It was rare to find a member of the family who did not liquidate a relative or two, Cleopatra VII included. — Stacy Schiff

I wouldn't dare to speculate as to Cleopatra's falling in love. Her relationships are too convenient for that. — Stacy Schiff

The movie I was working on, "Cleopatra", it's about how destructive a force love can be. But maybe that's what every story is about. — Jess Walter

Whether or not that's how it is," I said, "we must live according to what we believe, not the beliefs of others."

"The beliefs of others are not irrelevant, not when they shape the world we live in!"

"I didn't say they were irrelevant. But they will never dictate my judgment or my decisions," I snapped back. "Because others believe something does not make it true. You are not stupid because Plato says you must be, nor is Cleopatra a whore because some Roman wit will say it. I will never trust any learned opinion more than what I see in front of my face. — Jo Graham

The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor. The word 'honey skinned' recurs in descriptions of her relatives and would presumably applied to hers as well, despite the inexactitudes surrounding her mother and paternal grandmother. There was certainly Persian blood in the family, but even an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies. She was not dark skinned. — Stacy Schiff

If you are really Master of your Fate, it shouldn't make any difference to you whether Cleopatra or the Bearded Lady is your mate. — Ogden Nash

Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century. Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the — Malcolm Gladwell

I checked to see if there'd been a really good book published in the last few decades. Then I started with what Cleopatra would have read, asking myself, 'What can we know about her education?' It turns out to be a very great deal, and bizarrely, no one had written about that before. — Stacy Schiff

We have ample testimony to her sense of humor; Cleopatra was a wit and a prankster. There is no cause to question how she read Herodotus's further assertion that Egypt was a country in which the women urinate standing up, the men sitting down. — Stacy Schiff

Cleopatra: You come before me as a suppliant.
Antony: If you choose to regard me as such.
Cleopatra: You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.
Antony: I will *what*?
Cleopatra: On-your-knees!
Antony: You dare ask the Proconsul of the Roman Empire?
Cleopatra: I *asked* it of Julius Caesar. I *demand* it of you — Elizabeth Taylor

No text more thoroughly penetrated Cleopatra's world. In an age infatuated with history and calibrated in glory, Homer's work was the Bible of the day. — Stacy Schiff

You have to scuba dive in the Alexandrian harbor if you want to see what remains of the lighthouse of Cleopatra's day, and the water in the Alexandrian harbor is not really something you want to come into contact with. — Stacy Schiff

The interesting thing about Cleopatra is that she is such a shape-shifter. I mean through history we've all molded her to our times and our places. So there's room for a movie for her, but I don't think it will hew to the book. — Stacy Schiff

I went out to the desert where Cleopatra camped out with her mercenary army. It's a desolate outpost. Nothing has changed since her day. You realize how far she had to travel. Not only is it a good 150 miles against the current, you can't take a ship. — Stacy Schiff

From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra's irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect. — Stacy Schiff

CLEOPATRA: If it be love indeed, tell me how much. ANTONY: There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned. CLEOPATRA: I'll set a bourne how far to be belov'd. ANTONY: Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth. — William Shakespeare

I was startled by his touch. I hadn't realized he was so close to me, because I seemed so far from myself. — Stephanie Dray

The April's in her eyes: it is love's Spring,
And these the showers to bring it on.. — William Shakespeare

We have scholars galore, and kings and emperors, and statesmen and military leaders, and artists in profusion, and inventors, discoverers, explorers - but where are the great lovers? After a moment's reflection one is back to Abelard and Heloise, or Anthony and Cleopatra, or the story of the Taj Mahal. So much of it is fictive, expanded and glorified by the poverty-stricken lovers whose prayers are answered only by myth and legend. — Henry Miller

[Books] will visit you at your convenience, whether you are lonesome or not, on rainy days or fair. They propose themselves as either transient acquaintances or permanent friends. They will stay as long as you like, departing or returning as you wish. Their friendship entails no obligation. Best of all, and not always true of our merely human friends, they have Cleopatra's infinite variety. — Clifton Fadiman

Selene's life is a lesson to us that the trajectory of women's equality hasn't always been a forward march. In some ways the ancients were more advanced than we are today; there have been setbacks before and may be more in the future. — Stephanie Dray

The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts. — Stacy Schiff

Suicides also involuntarily prove that life has a meaning, for their despair is due to the fact that life does not fulfill their arbitrary and contradictory demands. These demands could only be fulfilled if life were devoid of meaning; the non-fulfillment proves that life has a meaning which these persons, owing to their irrationality, do not wish to know (instances: Romeo, Cleopatra). — Vladimir S. Soloviev

Cleopatra: Oh, Charmian, Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he?
Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse, for wott'st thou whom thou mov'st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
Or murmuring "Where's my serpent of old Nile?"
For so he calls me. Now I feed myself
With most delicious poison. Think on me,
That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black
And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted Caesar,
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch. And great Pompey
Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow.
There would he anchor his aspect, and die
With looking on his life. — William Shakespeare

I see all this and I feel no amazement because making the shell implied also making the honey in the wax comb and the coal and the telescopes and the reign of Cleopatra and the films about Cleopatra and the Pyramids and the design of the zodiac of the Chaldean astrologers and the wars and empires Herodotus speaks of and the words written by Herodotus and the works written in all languages, including those of Spinoza in Dutch, and the fourteen-line summary of Spinoza's life and works in the instalment of the encyclopedia in the truck passed by the ice-cream van, and so I feel as if, in making the shell, I had also made the rest. — Anonymous

I'm very aware that after you've played Cleopatra, there's not a lot that can top that in this sphere, so it means that I want to almost change the sphere I work in rather completely because I will always be comparing it to Cleopatra. — Harriet Walter

There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does. — John Green

I would not for the whole world diminish you. I know it is usual in these circumstances to protest - "I love you for yourself alone" - "I love you essentially" - and as you imply, my dearest, to mean by "you essentially" - lips hands and eyes. But you must know - we do know - that it is not so - dearest, I love your soul and with that your poetry - the grammar and stopping and hurrying syntax of your quick thought - quite as much essentially you as Cleopatra's hopping was essentially hers to delight Antony - more essentially, in that while all lips hands and eyes resemble each other somewhat (though yours are enchanting and also magnetic) - your thought clothed with your words is uniquely you, came with you, would vanish if you vanished - — A.S. Byatt

During the two months of our stay at Biarritz, my passion for Colette all but surpassed my passion for Cleopatra. Since my parents were not keen to meet hers, I saw her only on the beach; but I thought of her constantly. If I noticed she had been crying, I felt a surge of helpless anguish that brought tears to my own eyes. I could not destroy the mosquitoes that had left their bites on her frail neck, but I could, and did, have a successful fistfight with a red-haired boy who had been rude to her. She used to give me warm handfuls of hard candy. One day, as we were bending together over a starfish, and Colette's ringlets were tickling my ear, she suddenly turned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. So great was my emotion that all I could think of saying was, 'You little monkey. — Vladimir Nabokov

As incandescent as was her personality, Cleopatra was every bit Caesar's equal as a coolheaded, clear-eyed pragmatist, though what passed on his part as strategy would be remembered on hers as manipulation. — Stacy Schiff

Once an opportunist like Mickey, who took the argument when she jumped on some devastated wretch's machine and jackpotted that it was the "cash-ino's money" she was winning, Moon returned after her six month break with the view that the separation had somehow sweetened the honeypot. The sad reality, she quickly learned, was that she was not irreplaceable; as such, the Casino felt no compunction to welcome her back with multi-jackpots. Instead, it took her money everyday and did not once give her a jackpot so that she could say, "Ah. They missed me." Instead, all she could keep saying was, "Verr-y bed. Verr-y bed. Suck-ah all my money! — Hope Barrett

We're talking about, essentially, the Roman historians, who wrote Cleopatra into the story mostly so that they could talk about the rise of Rome. And that is one of the problems, of course, in recounting her life. She's only ever apparent to us when there is a Roman in the room, or when her story intersects with the rise of Rome. — Stacy Schiff

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed. — Caitlin Moran

The curves of his smile become the waves in my ocean. — Stephanie Dray

[At Marc Antony's tomb:] Nothing could part us in life, but now in death we are likely to change places, you the Roman lying here in Egyptian soil, and I, helpless woman that I am, being buried in Italy. — Cleopatra

The legion was raised by Mark Antony. He filled the ranks with men from Cleopatra's army. When Antony was defeated by Octavian, the Twenty-Second was integrated into the rest of the army and has been stationed on the Nile since then. They're a mix of Greeks and Egyptians from the Nile cities. — Simon Scarrow

But the ifs of history: if Cleopatra's nose had been one inch longer,' he said, 'would Antony have lost the battle of Actium? — William Dalrymple

It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stolen our jewel. — William Shakespeare

What dazzles us in Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra are not the alluring mythologies about the evasive queen, but the astonishing if rare historical facts that Schiff has meticulously and lovingly excavated. Schiff offers not just Cleopatra's story but the story of an amazing era, one that has vanished but still affects us, questioning the way we look at myth, history, and ourselves. — Azar Nafisi

I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at. — Susan Beth Pfeffer

What was said of an earlier tribune was more true of Antony: "He was a spendthrift of money and chastity - his own and other people's." The brilliant cavalry officer had all of Caesar's charm and none of his self-control. In 44 the conspirators had deemed him too inconsistent to be dangerous. After the Ides Mark Antony was in his glory, entirely the man of the hour - at least until Octavian arrived. Cleopatra — Stacy Schiff

J.B. Bury once followed Pascal in suggesting that the cause of the foundation of the Roman Empire was the length of Cleopatra's nose: had her features not been perfectly proportioned, Mark Antony would not have been entranced; had he not been entranced he would not have allied himself with Egypt against Octavian; had he not made that alliance, the battle of Actium would not have been fought - and so on. — Alasdair MacIntyre

The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow. — William Wetmore Story

MESSENGER
I didn't say free, madam. No, I didn't say that. He's bound to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA
For what favor?

MESSENGER
For the favor of sleeping in her bed.

CLEOPATRA
I am pale, Charmian.

MESSENGER
He's married to Octavia, madam.

CLEOPATRA
May you die of the worst disease! — William Shakespeare

I had come to Rome in chains, but I would leave Rome a queen. — Stephanie Dray

There was good reason why Cleopatra's subjects viewed time as a coil of endless repetitions. — Stacy Schiff

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP

The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it
Loved me like my soul, my soul:
Now that I seek myself in a serpent
My smile is fatal.

Nile moves in me; my thighs splay
Into the squalled Mediterranean;
My brain hides in that Abyssinia
Lost armies foundered towards.

Desert and river unwrinkle again.
Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk
Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank.
Now let the snake reign.

A half-deity out of Capricorn,
This rigid Augustus mounts
With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn
Summarily the moon-horned river

From my bed. May the moon
Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole
With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta
Swim like a fish toward Rome. — Ted Hughes

For ten generations her family had styled themselves pharaohs. The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor. — Stacy Schiff

A capable, clear-eyed sovereign, she knew how to build a fleet, suppress an insurrection, control a currency, alleviate a famine. An eminent Roman general vouched for her grasp of military affairs. Even at a time when women rulers were no rarity she stood out, the sole female of the ancient world to rule alone and to play a role in Western affairs. She was incomparably richer than anyone else in the Mediterranean. And she enjoyed greater prestige than any other woman of her age ... Cleopatra descended from a long line of murderers and faithfully upheld the family tradition but was, for her time and place, remarkably well behaved. She nonetheless survives as a wanton temptress, not the last time a genuinely powerful woman has been transmuted into a shamelessly seductive one. — Stacy Schiff

So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it. — Margaret George

Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater. — Stacy Schiff

Thank you," he said as he gathered his bags and looked at me. "I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the history of the world. Do you know that? Do you know that Antony didn't love Cleopatra as much as I love you? Do you know that Romeo didn't love Juliet as much as I love you?"

I laughed. "I love you, too," I said. "More than Liz Taylor loved Richard Burton. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history. — Chuck Palahniuk

All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise. — Cleopatra

Le nez de Cle opa" tre: s'il e u" t e te plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait change . Cleopatra'snose: if it had beenshorter the whole face of the earth would have been different. — Blaise Pascal

These heads sheltered by umbrellas
be they of Zeb-un-Nisa, or Catherine
of Cleopatra or Fenichka
live with their own stories — Suman Pokhrel

Fool! Don't you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you. — Cleopatra

Some air you inhale was exhaled by Cleopatra. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Cleopatra: Whoever is born on a day I forget to send a message to Antony will die a beggar. Bring ink and paper, Charmian. Welcome, my good Alexas. Charmian, did I ever love Caesar as much as this?
Charmian:
Oh, that splendid Caesar!
Cleopatra:
May you choke on any other sentiments like that! Say, "That splendid Antony."
Charmian:
The courageous Caesar!
Cleopatra:
By Isis, I'll give you bloody teeth if you ever compare Caesar with Antony, my best man among men. — William Shakespeare

Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed. — Blaise Pascal

Each word's evocative value or virtue, its individual power of touching springs in the mind and of initiating visions, becomes a treasure to revel in. Besides this hold on affection a word may well have about it the glamorous prestige of high adventures in great company. Think of that the plain word "dust" calls to mind. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was." "Dust hath closed Helen's eye." "All follow this and come to dust." "The way to dusty death." So, to the lover of words, each word may be not a precious stone only, but one that has shone on Solomon's temple or in Cleopatra's hair. — C.E. Montague

For all its erudition, Cleopatra's Egypt produced no fine historian. — Stacy Schiff

Girls have always wanted to be pretty, even in Egyptian times. Cleopatra wore all that eyeliner, you know. — Rita Ora

She knew neither that she was living in the first century BC nor in the Hellenistic Age, both of them later constructs. (The Hellenistic Age begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends in 30 BC, with the death of Cleopatra. — Stacy Schiff

It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture, and finally to popular biography, by which time it will be one of those things about Shakespeare that we thought we knew all along. Right now, though, for those who teach the plays and write about his life, it hasn't been easy abandoning old habits of mind. I know that I am not alone in struggling to come to terms with how profoundly it alters one's sense of how Shakespeare wrote, especially toward the end of his career when he coauthored half of his last ten plays. For intermixed with five that he wrote alone, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, are Timon of Athens (written with Thomas Middleton), Pericles (written with George Wilkins), and Henry the Eighth, the lost Cardenio, and The Two Noble Kinsmen (all written with John Fletcher). — James Shapiro

If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Antony and Cleopatra - Act 1, Scene 1 — William Shakespeare

[Cleopatra's] power has been made to derive from her sexuality, for obvious reason; as one of Caesar's murderers had noted, 'How much more attention people pay to their fears than to their memories!' It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life. — Stacy Schiff

Caesar might have married Cleopatra, but he had a wife at home. There's always something. — Will Cuppy

Cleopatra breathed my air,' Katherine muttered.
'She's delirious!' Chip said.
'No, she's right,' Alex said. 'Haven't you heard that thing about how, at any given moment, at least one atom of the air in your lungs was probably once in Cleopatra's lungs? Or George Washington's or Albert Einstein's or Martin Luther King's, or whoever you want to pick from history? — Margaret Peterson Haddix

What we know about Cleopatra's looks is based purely on her coin portraits. Engraving was imperfect, and that when you are a ruler and you ask for a coin to be engraved with your likeness on it, you are probably trying to project a certain air of authority. — Stacy Schiff

He's meeting his girl now, a girl not much older than 14. A five-and-ten-cents store Cleopatra, a four letter word. — Kurt Vonnegut

Champagne with its foaming whirls/As white as Cleopatra's pearls. — Lord Byron

Antony and Cleopatra: "what love, what accomplishments, what repetitions of natural affections passed between them is not for vulgar minds to imagine, none but so great hearts know them. — James Shapiro

They'll try to make you forget who you are or try to make you ashamed. But you mustn't forget and you mustn't be ashamed. — Stephanie Dray

I have never wanted to be a queen! Cleopatra was a role, and I am an actor, so it was fun to play one, but it's not real. — Elizabeth Taylor

The remainder of my estate, including twenty-two percent of Barrington Shipping, as well as the Manor House - " Mr. Siddons couldn't resist a glance in the direction of Lady Virginia Fenwick, who was sitting on the edge of her seat - "is to be left to my beloved ... daughters Emma and Grace, to dispose of as they see fit, with the exception of my Siamese cat, Cleopatra, who I leave to Lady Virginia Fenwick, because they have so much in common. They are both beautiful, well-groomed, vain, cunning, manipulative predators, who assume that everyone else was put on earth to serve them, including my besotted son, who I can only pray will break from the spell she has cast on him before it is too late. — Jeffrey Archer

There will come a time', I said, 'when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this.'
I gestured encompassingly
'will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organis,s experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does.' -Hazel Grace Lancaster — John Green

It is no surprise that the only woman in antiquity who could be the subject of a full-length biography is Cleopatra. Yet, unlike Alexander, whom she rivals as the theme of romance and legend, Cleopatra is known to us through overwhelmingly hostile sources. The reward of the 'good' woman in Rome was likely to be praise in stereotyped phrases; in Athens she won oblivion. — Sarah B. Pomeroy

I especially treasured my glimpses of Mother, Queen Cleopatra VII. She sat on a golden throne, looking as resplendent as one of the giant marble statues guarding the tombs of the Old Ones. Diamonds twinkled in a jungle of black braids on her ceremonial wig. She wore a diadem with three rearing snakes and a golden broad collar, shining with lapis lazuli, carnelian, and emeralds, over her golden, form-fitting pleated gown. In one hand, she held a golden ankh of life, while the other clasped the striped crook and flail of her divine rulership. Her stillness radiated power, like a lioness pausing before the pounce. It left me breathless with awe. — Vicky Alvear Shecter

Princess," he said, spreading his arms in a shrug, "how does such a little thing like you get such a big temper?"
I held up my hand to shield my eyes from the sun.
"Marc Antony," I said, "how does such a big man like you have such a little brain? — Kristiana Gregory

And why do you want to be near me?
Because you're all I can think about, day and night. I don't know what the hell is going on with us; I only know I can't get rid of it. I don't care if you're batshit insane and think you're the reincarnation of Cleopatra. I hear voices; you hear dogs. We'll work it out. Maybe get a discount on therapy. — Jennifer Crusie

She was not a white woman. She was not a Greek ... Until the emergence of the doctrine of white superiority, Cleopatra was generally pictured as a distinctly African woman, dark in color. — John Henrik Clarke

I will wait for Cleopatra, for I know my time must come. And I'm getting ready for wherever she'll be at-tra, cause I'm getting stronger now and not so dumb. — Jonathan Richman