Quotes About Struggle

How often in those days did I think of Odysseus' smiling child? I tried his trick, along with all the rest. Held my son's floppy body up into the air, promised him he was safe. He only screamed louder. Whatever made the prince Telemachus so sweet, I thought, it must have come from Penelope. This was the child I deserved.

all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.

I lay on the dirt, weeping. Those flowers had made him his true being, which was blue, and finned, and not mine. I thought I would die of such pain, which was not like the sinking numbness Aeëtes had left behind, but sharp and fierce as a blade through my chest. But of course I could not die.

Such patience mortals must have, I thought, to drag themselves through it hour after hour.

I did not mind the emptiness either. For a thousand years I had tried to fill the space between myself and my family. Filling the rooms of my house was easy by comparison.

Podía transformar a un pez en pájaro, pelear con mi leona y luego echarme sobre su vientre con la melena suelta. Quería esuchar sus gritos y resuellos. ¡Me ha mirado! ¡Me voy a convertir en rana!

Everything they reach for slips from their grasp." A chill shivered across my skin. "How do they bear it?" "As best they can.

Ne diyebilirim? Dünya adil bir yer de?il.

You knew this would come. I cannot rot all my life underground, with nothing of my own.

A few of these, so few I can count them on my fingers, I let go. They did not see me as their dinner. They were pious men, honestly lost, and I would feed them and if there was a handsome one among them I might take him to my bed. It was not desire, not even its barest scrapings. It was a sort of rage, a knife I used upon myself. I did it to prove my skin was still my own.

Il semble que punir les femmes soit le passe-temps favori des poètes. Comme s'il ne pouvait pas y avoir d'histoire à moins que nous ne rampions en pleurant.

All around me are men carrying fallen comrades, limping on makeshift crutches, or crawling through the sand, dragging broken limbs behind them. I know them—their torsos full of scars my ointments have packed and sealed. Their flash that my fingers have cleaned or iron and bronze and blood. Their faces that have joked, thanked, grimaced as I worked over them. Now these men are ruined again, pulpy with blood and split bone. Because of him. Because of me.

Odysseus looks at the young man's implacable face. "I have done my best," he says. "Let it be remembered I tried." I remember.

Such were my years then. I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I'm afraid I might have floated on, believing those dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days.

Es correcto buscar la paz para los muertos. Tú y yo sabemos bien que no la hay para quienes sobreviven.

Humillar a las mujeres parece ser el pasatiempo predilecto de los poetas. Como si no pudiese haber historia a menos que nos arrastrásemos y sollozásemos.

I sat frozen, afraid to move lest I give myself away. I am bound to this war.

Madeline Miller

first blood was ours, spilt by the god-like prince of Phthia.

You are weak and blind, and it is worse because you choose it.

For me these four years had been an abundance, time that had been wrested from the hands of the miserly fates. But for them it was a life stolen: from children and wives, from family and home.

I lay on the ground after, breathing with effort. I would be left in peace. Peace. I would have laughed if I were not so ill.

His eyes opened. "Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.

I planted my hands on his chest and shoved, as hard as I could. Our land was one of grass and wheat. Tumbles should not hurt. I am making excuses. It was also a land of rocks. His head thudded dully against stone, and I saw the surprised pop of his eyes. The ground around him began to bleed.