“Power is of the individual mind, but the mind's power alone is not enough. The power of strength decides everything in the end, and only Might is right.”
This conversation occurs after Merlyn turns Wart into a perch and he encounters the Great Pike, a large fish that rules over the moat. He makes this statement about "might" being equivalent to "right" as a means of circularly asserting his dominance over the waters. He justifies his own cruelty and brutality by saying that the fact of it (his might) is what makes him the leader. It is a markedly important moment in the narrative as it shows Wart learning the dangers of violence and self-justification. Where the pike is a cruel and selfish ruler, Wart will learn to take a different approach, in part from this encounter.
A good while after that, when they had been whistling and luring and following the disturbed and sulky hawk from tree to tree, Kay lost his temper.
"Let him go, then," said Kay. "He's no use anyway."
"Oh, we couldn't leave him," cried the Wart. "What would Hob say?"
"It's my hawk, not Hob's," exclaimed Kay furiously. "What does it matter what Hob says? He is my servant.”
This moment effectively characterizes Kay as petulant and obnoxious. He and Wart are following his hawk Cully. He grows increasingly frustrated and simply wants to leave the hawk for someone else to find. His nasty comments about owning Cully and Hob merely being his "servant" show that he views the world around him as something he controls and owns, with little regard for the feelings or well-being of others. This instance is one of many in which White mocks the arrogance and selfishness of his upper-class characters, showing them to be spoiled by their cushy upbringing.
“That was why I showed you the looking glass. Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards instead of backwards and inside out. But I, unfortunately, was born at the wrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight.”
In this scene, Merlyn describes his non-linear perception of time. This will become important later, as it is the reason he is able to see that Wart will become king and it motivates him to make sure he is a kind and just ruler. He uses the image of the dots in the letter "W" as a means of explaining how average people perceive time from a single fixed perspective. In contrast, as he explains, he sees it "backwards and inside out," meaning that while he is living with people who are moving "forward" through time, he himself has a much wider, more complex view of it.
The ingenious magician had turned himself successively into the microbes, not yet discovered, of hiccoughs, scarlet fever, mumps, whooping cough, measles and heat spots, and from a complication of all these complaints the infamous Madame Mim had immediately expired.
This moment occurs at the end of Merlyn's battle with Madame Mim. After transforming into a succession of strange and frightening creatures, he narrowly defeats her with this clever choice. Rather than becoming something fearsome and large, he chooses to make himself a tiny microbe and infect her with a disease. This moment reaffirms the idea within the story that imposing strength does not determine victory, but cleverness often can. It also supports Merlyn's many claims about the inherent value and importance of being educated, as here, it allows him to defeat his foe.
“You said Pax!"
"I said Pax Non under my breath."
"It's a swindle."
"It isn't, so nuts to you."
"You cad."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are.”
This ridiculous exchange occurs while King Pellinore and Grummore are jousting. It follows a moment in which King Pellinore was supposedly admitting defeat; now he does an about-face and claims to have been lying. The childish nature of their dialogue points to the way in which the chivalry and dignity of knights were largely a construct of their portrayal, and White imagines their motivations to be just as selfish or silly as a regular person's. It also indicates how absurd their displays of strength often end up being, as neither of them will simply concede defeat with grace or dignity.
The poor Wart realized that now he must choose between confessing himself a human, and learning no more of their secrets, or going through with his ordeal in order to earn his education. He did not want to be a coward.
This excerpt is from the chapter in which Wart becomes a hawk and meets a group of powerful falcons. Frightened by their intensity and fervor, he considers admitting he is a human, in the interest of his well-being, but ultimately decides to conceal his identity to learn what he can from their world and "be a coward." This moment is indicative of how he often ends up experiencing these quests, skirting danger but never backing out or fleeing, as he wants to learn the lessons being offered to him by these various creatures.
“Yes, Wart," said Merlyn. "Or rather, as I should say (or is it have said?), Yes, King Arthur.”
This quote is from the final scene in the book, in which Merlyn tells Wart that he has known about his true parentage and his eventual ascent to the throne all along. He also says that he has been training him in preparation to be a good ruler. This quote is important to the book in that it marks Wart's transition from his life as a child to that of an adult with weighty responsibilities. As Merlyn calls him Wart one last time before switching to the title "King Arthur," he definitively ends the latter's playful adolescence and childhood and announces the start of his many challenges and duties.
“Oh, Merlyn," cried Wart, "help me to get this sword." There was a kind of rushing noise, and a long chord played along with it. All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together, like the Punch and Judy ghosts of remembered days, and there were otters and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and serpents and falcons and fishes and goats and dogs and dainty unicorns and newts and solitary wasps and goat-moth caterpillars and corkindrills and volcanoes and mighty trees and patient stones. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come from the banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about, but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow.”
This moment happens towards the end of the novel, as Wart attempts to wrest the sword from the anvil, not knowing it is the sacred sword they have traveled to find. He is initially unable to do so, but by calling on the strength of his many new friends, he is empowered. This moment shows how much Wart has grown as a result of his many quests and adventures and highlights the meaningful nature of the friendships he forged with his kindness and good nature. This is also a fitting end to his story, as it shows him thinking about the many people he has come to know, in much the same way a king must consider his constituents.
“This is the Forest of the Burbly Water," said Merlyn, "and we are going to visit the giant Galapas. Now listen. You are invisible at the moment, because you are holding my hand. I am able to keep myself invisible by an exercise of will-power — an exceedingly exhausting job it is — and I can keep you invisible so long as you hold on to me. It takes twice as much will-power, but there. If, however, you let go of me even for a moment, during that moment you will become visible, and, if you do it in the presence of Galapas, he will munch you up in two bites. So hold on.”
This passage is from the chapter in which Wart, Kay, and Merlyn travel to a giant's house. He describes how his invisibility hinges upon great exertion and the clasping of their hands. The faultiness of this spell shows how the magic in this universe is not unstoppable and does not automatically make the user invincible. It also functions as a good stand-in for political power, as it shows that Merlyn, Wart, and Kay must work in harmony to keep the spell going and protect one another. This moment emphasizes the importance of unity and trust, as they would be killed by the giant if they failed to work together.
The huntsman nodded to Robin, who was standing behind, and held the hound's eyes with his own. He said, "Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog." Then Robin's falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and to roll among the stars. The Wart did not like to watch Master Twyti for a moment or two. The strange, little leathery man stood up without saying anything and whipped the hounds off the corpse of the boar as he was accustomed to do. He put his horn to his lips and blew the four long notes of the mort without a quaver. But he was blowing the notes for something else, and he startled the Wart because he seemed to be crying.
This quote is another critique of the violence at court. After narrowly escaping death from the tusks of a boar, Twyti sends the hunting dogs down upon it. One of them is injured terribly, and to spare it further pain, Robin kills it. Wart is upset by this because Twyti himself shows little remorse despite the fact that he had to be saved by Robin and was single-mindedly pursuing this boar. Wart is disgusted by Twyti's behavior because it treats the consequences of violence as negligible, even when they includes the life of a beloved dog.
