“The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.”
Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 77
Quotes from book
The Charioteer
The Charioteer is a war novel by Mary Renault first published in London in 1953. Renault's US publisher refused to publish it until 1959 due to its generally positive portrayal of homosexuality. The Charioteer is significant because it features a prominent - and positive - gay theme at an early date and quickly became a bestseller - particularly within the gay community.
Phaedrus by Plato, as translated in the novel, p. 104
The Charioteer (1953)
Phaedrus as translated in the novel, p. 104
The Charioteer (1953)
Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 164
Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 141
Context: After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, an what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb.
Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 285
Context: You mustn't get so upset about what you feel, Spud. No one's a hundred per cent consistent all the time. We might like to be. We can plan our lives along certain lines. But you know, there's no future in screwing down all the pressure valves and smashing in the gauge. You can do it for a bit and then something goes. Sometimes it gets so that the only thing is just to say, 'That's what I'd like to feel twenty-four hours a day; but, the hell with it, this is how I feel now.
