Quotes About Strength

A true-made bow, Odysseus had called her. A fixed star. A woman who knew herself. "I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.

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.

The beginning of hope. We have given each other wounds, but they are not mortal.

Daedalus had said to me once: Even the best iron grows brittle with too much beating.

whatever tears might have been in me for that lost dream had been parched away.

I did not go easy to motherhood. I faced it as soldiers face their enemies, girded and braced, sword up against the coming blows. Yet all my preparations were not enough.

She was a goddess of torment and understood the eloquence of violence.

I will not be silenced on my own island.

I covered myself with my hands and made soft noises like a child. Blush, blush, I prayed. Blush for him, or he will kill you. And I was fortunate, for it was warm in the room, and I was angry, and ashamed too,

In our stories these divinities had to work by wheedling and flattery, by favors won from stronger gods. They could not do much themselves. Except live, forever.

I fled so she would not see my tears and wear them as another of her trophies.

there was something in me that was sick of fear and aw, of gazing at the heavens and wondering what someone would allow me

I believed that she would rather set the world on fire than lose.

They gave her to a mortal, trying to shackle the child's power. Dilute him with humanity, diminish him.

Penelope said, '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.

They will seek to undermine you at every turn.

You do not command me. The silence went on and on, painful and breathless, like a singer overreaching to finish a phrase. Then,

She wears a cape, and it is this that undoes her—that allows her to be pulled, limbs light and poised as a cat, from her horse.

They moaned and squealed, and pressed their snouts to the earth. We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

Such passive, pale words for what she was.

Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow.

You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.

dux femina facti.