Quotes About Power

For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such a power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt.

Every moment of my peace was a lie, for it came only at the gods' pleasure. No matter what I did, how long I lived, at a whim they would be able to reach down and do with me what they wished.

I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me.

I was a golden witch, who had no past at all.

I drew my divinity up, cold and bracing around me, and went to open the door.

It was our weakness that drew the war out, not her strength.

named me Hawk, Circe, for my yellow eyes, and the strange, thin sound of my crying.

I can please you, I swear it. You will find none more loyal than me. I will do anything." I do think he loved me a little. For before I could say the thousand humiliating things in my heart, all the proofs of passion I had hoarded, the crawling devotions I would do, I felt his power come around me. And with that same flick he had used upon the cushions, he sent me back to my rooms.

You are wrong about witchcraft," I told her. "It does not come from hate. I made my first spell for love of Glaucos." I could hear her mink-voice as if she stood before me. Yet it was in defiance of our father, in defiance of all those who slighted you and would keep you from your desires.

What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity?

What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity?' 'I do not know for certain,' I said. 'I once thought it was passed through blood, but Telegonus has no spells in him. I have come to believe it is mostly will.' She nodded. I did not have to explain. We knew what will was.

Circe," Apollo said, and it was the greatest chime of all. Every melody in the world belonged to him.

I clap my hands over my ears. The voices of the dead were said to have the power to make the living mad. I must not hear him speak.

Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt.

Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung.

It was like a great chain of fear, I thought. Zeus at the top and my father just behind. Then Zeus' siblings and children, then my uncles, and on down through all the ranks of river-gods and brine-lords and Furies and Winds and Graces, until it came to the bottom where we sat, nymphs and mortals both, each eyeing the other.

However I pretended I could conceal my thoughts as well as he, I knew it was not true. He would see down to my bones. He would gather my weaknesses up and set them with the rest of his collection, alongside Achilles' and Ajax's. He kept them on his person as other men keep their knives.

You cannot guess what spells I have cast, what poisons I have gathered to protect myself against you, how your power may rebound upon your head. Who knows that is in me? Will you find out?

Witchcraft transforms the world. He wanted only to join it.

My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch

I felt myself tremble, but I would not let him see it. Great gods smell fear like sharks smell blood, and they will devour you for it jus the same.

My uncles rubbed their hands and smiled back. They went away, bent over their hopes, thinking what they could not wait to do when Titans ruled again. It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.

Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child. Orpheus' voice made the trees weep, Heracles could kill a man by clapping him on the back. Achilles' miracle was his speed.

Monsters are a boon to gods. Imagine all the prayers.