Elektra Quotes

Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live.

Orestes: How could you recognize me after all these years? Elektra: What a stupid question. I was born knowing you.

Can’t you see that it just goes on, over and over? The gods demand their justice, but we suffer for it, every time.

Let him come back so that I can see his eyes as the light drains from them. Let him come back and die at the hands of his bitterest enemy. Let him come back so that I can watch him suffer. And let me make it slow.

You have used me strangely.

Sophokles is a playwright fascinated in general by people who say no, people who resist compromise, people who make stumbling blocks of themselves, like Antigone or Ajax.

I stayed silent. I realised that when I had seen all those suitors clamour in the hall for Helen, I had believed they were there because they loved her, but I had been wrong. They hated her. They hated her because she was so beautiful and because she made them want her so much. Nothing brought them more joy than the fall of a lovely woman. They picked over her reputation like vultures, scavenging for every scrap of flesh they could devour.

She was old enough to be married, but still young enough to believe I could solve any problem.

What was the loss of a parent compared to that of a daughter? I didn’t want him here, comparing his grief to mine.

Yet again, isn’t there something terrible in randomness—the idea that at the very bottom of its calculations, real depravity has no master plan of any kind, it’s just a dreamy whim that slides out of people when they are trapped or bored or too lazy to analyze their own mania.

To what end did I teach them to weave or dance or sing? How did I know I did not raise another child for slaughter?

Remember, America... not Wind like a watch, but Wind... like the air...

The gods demand their justice, but we suffer for it every time.

I need one food: I must not violate Elektra

Nothing brought them more joy than the fall of a lovely woman. They picked over her reputation like vultures, scavenging for every scrap of flesh they could devour.

Oh love, you break on me like light!

I truly had the gift of prophecy, breathed into my mouth by Apollo himself. But no one would ever believe another word I said.

Here he lies like something melting away. His mother’s blood comes quaking howling brassing bawling blacking down his mad little veins.

You can have your rich table and life flowing over the cup. I need one food: I must not violate Elektra.

Such a man speaks poetry in place of facts and thinks he tells a higher truth when all he spins is fantasy.

Often, they would say that at the very moment Agamemnon raised the knife, Artemis took pity on Iphigenia and swapped her for a deer. In this version of the story, my daughter lives on as a priestess and favourite of the goddess on an island somewhere. Crucially, in this telling, Agamemnon did nothing more than slaughter a simple animal. It’s poetic and pretty, and so very clean.

No one intervened to try to stop me from becoming what I became.

I had gone everywhere before her; trodden the paths I sent her down to make sure they were safe before I let her go. How could I let her go now, to where I did not know, without me at her side?

If I could descend to the Underworld swiftly and painlessly, then I would. I would gulp at the waters of the Lethe and let their soporific streams wash away every memory I possess. But I cannot.

KLYTEMNESTRA Go ahead. Permission granted. If you always spoke in a tone this calm, it wouldn’t be so painful.

We would lay down our lives for our children, and every time we faced birth, we stood on the banks of that great river that separated the living from the dead. A massed army of women, facing that perilous passage with no armour to protect us, only our own strength and hope that we would prevail. It didn’t feel like the right conversation to have on the way to her wedding.

I wondered how many of them had wives waiting for them, mothers and daughters perhaps. What would those women think if they could see their menfolk, as they stood guard over us, the weeping, grieving survivors of Troy?

...for example, if Freud is wrong, as i and many others believe, where does that leave any number of novels and virtually the entire corpus of surrealism, Dada, and certain major forms of expressionism and abstraction, not to mention Richard Strauss' 'Freudian' operas such as Salome and Elektra, and the iconic novels of numerous writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf? It doesn't render these works less beautiful or pleasurable, necessarily, but it surely dilutes their meaning. They don't owe their entire existence to psychoanalysis. But if they are robbed of a large part of their meaning, can they retain their intellectual importance and validity? Or do they become period pieces? I stress the point because the novels, paintings and operas referred to above have helped to popularise and legitimise a certain view of human nature, one that is, all evidence to the contrary lacking, wrong.

She is disturbed and disturbing.

This time let me be. Let me rage.

Yours is a grief that can't be quenched.

Tell me, why do you love misery so much?

Hopeless frustration devoured my youth.

I'm so immersed in all this evil, how could I not be evil too?

make grief a weapon!

Not the shape of one I loved. The ashes of a ghost.

Women are warlike too.

If what you plan is just, why do it in the dark?

I'm forced to be outrageous by the outrage all around me!

How do you measure misery?

The sinuous shadows of the palace remind me of it but this time, when I emerge, it will be into another world entirely. One I shape myself. One where even a king knows justice.

It can be dangerous, though, to let a son grow up with vengeance in his heart.

You won't listen to reason at all, will you?" "No. My mind is my own.

I’d rather have sung one of Elektra’s solos. I can relate to her anger.” “You

That look stamped across her face - part excitement, part dread. The way she was unable to take another step, so uncertain and exhilarated all at once. She was luminous with it.

The wine tasted like dirt to me. I could shriek out my warnings, claw at my flesh, hurl my goblet right into Paris' face, but they would still carry on as though I did not exist.

Bu durumda dostlarım, ne akıllı ne dindar olmak mümkündür; kötülüğün içinde bizi kötülüğe zorlayan güç çok büyüktür.

I had not dreamed I would bring my children into a world that could drain their blood in the light of dawn before they’d had a chance to live at all.

vengeance no one outruns

inside me I'm dying

To be surprised, you had to have a belief that the world would follow its rhythms and patterns as it had always done.

I felt a yearning all at once for something I couldn’t name. So much was happening—weddings and war—and none of it involved

Every word I speak is unwelcome. My throat is raw from the words that are torn from me when I touch someone, when I look into their eyes and see the blinding white truth.

I felt a yearning all at once for something I couldn’t name. So much was happening—weddings and war—and none of it involved me.

Somehow, women always came after a death.

It would be a convenient route for an inconvenient daughter.

Look at him, look how he drips unhealth—shudder object!

They hated her. They hated her because she was so beautiful and because she made them want her so much. Nothing brought them more joy than the fall of a lovely woman. They picked over her reputation like vultures, scavenging for every scrap of flesh they could devour.

Crucially, in this telling, Agamemnon did nothing more than slaughter a simple animal. It's poetic and pretty, and so very clean. But I saw her body convulse in her father's arms as he drew that blade across her throat. I held her, warm and bleeding and dead on the beach, while the sun climbed higher in the sky and the winds whipped up around us. I remember how the crimson-streaked saffron fabric fluttered around her ankles, and how I stared for so long at her face, not believing that he eyes would not open again and that she would not look at me and call me mother and kiss me.

We would lay down our lives for our children, and every time we faced birth, we stood on the banks of that great river that separated the living from the dead. A massed army of women, facing that perilous passage with no armor to protect us, only our own strength and hope that we would prevail.

I had felt the grip of his immortal hands on me. I had felt the burn of his venom in my mouth. The memory of it flowed in my bloodstream; the echo of his touch imprinted on my skin; the visions he had given me flickered and twisted in my head, all of them fighting for supremacy, never settling into one clear picture.

I watched the fire spark into the night sky and wondered where she could be. Making her way down that dank, twisting path to the Underworld alone? I had gone everywhere before her; trodden the paths I sent her down to make sure they were safe before I let her go. How could I let her go now, to where I did not know, without me at her side?

My children came from my body; their flesh was born of mine. Their arms reached out for me first, they called for me in the night and I scooped them into my embrace and breathed in the sweet scent of their little bald heads. As they grew, I felt the echo always of their infant selves. My body could not know what my mind did; it ached with her absence. I had feared to send her to wifehood, to become a mother herself one day. That separation was hard enough. I watched the fire spark into the night sky and wondered where she could be. Making her way down that dank, twisting path to the Underworld alone? I had gone everywhere before her; trodden the paths I sent her down to make sure they were safe before I let her go. How could I let her go now, to where I did not know, without me at her side?

I have been played at being a HERO. But I could not bear how FOOLISH I felt every time I spared someone who was determined to kill me." -Elektra (Elektra #1, page 4)

Elektra: I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.

Bryan’s Elektra demos would finally be released, by Sundazed Records, in 1997, as the album ifyoubelievein.

Elektra touches the base of her neck with two fingers. It is so thin he can see each ridge of her windpipe like the steps of a ladder down to the bridge of her collarbone.

There is something grotesque in having my own evils save my life.

We like to think of ourselves as civilized but contrary to popular belief the human race is still young and evolving. Many of us are only two words away from are next argument or fight and even I used to think that whenever a fight came it was my duty to take that challenge and defeat the opposing force. Today I am aware that you must pick your battles because around every corner is a fight waiting to be wrestled to the floor. Knowing this and having the maturity to pick and avoid illogical confrontations by walking away puts you Eons of Light Years ahead of ignorance.

Oke, kamu sudah connect. Ini channel-nya asyik. Gaul abis. Oh, ya, nick kamu sengaja saya bikin tetap Elektra. Pasti laku. Percaya, deh. Nama kamu komersial." "Memang yang komersial itu yang kayak apa?" tanyaku. "Yang funky, yang cool, pokoknya yang, ya, gimana gitu." Jawaban Betsye semakin membingungkan. "Lho, jadi, kamu biasanya nggak pakai nama sendiri?" aku terus bertanya. "Nggak, dong!" Ia mengeluarkan tawa kecil yang bernada oh-gobloknya-lu-Etra. "Saya biasa pakai Nadya, Nathalie, Natasya. Kata cowokku, yang nama depannya dari 'Na' biasanya cakep-cakep." "Nanang? Nasrul? Nano? Nasgor?" Betsy tidak tertawa.

I think I'll accept the challenge to battle. I can choose the terms, right? And I don't have the faintest idea how to 'prevent' a revolution. Besides, as far as I know, revolutions can get out of hand. Remember the German revolution, with the guillotine?" Derna smirked. "German revolution? Guillotine? The guillotine was used in the French revolution. Nice try, little brother." "I'm actually impressed he knew what a guillotine was," commented Armen, deadpan. I glared at the two of them. Typical big sisters. They'd just ruined my chance to show off my knowledge.

God knows the outcome of the play. But I still have to write the lines and live with their consequences on his stage.

It also occurs to Telemachus that Elektra is, in a strange way, the most sexual woman he has ever seen, and yet oddly, and at the same time, about as attractive as a nosebleed. He is a young man who finds this dichotomy very confusing, though perhaps in time he will learn.

It would be kind now for Elektra to speak her mind, to lay it out fully. But she is not kind. She has sworn never to be kind ever again.

Elektra gives a scream, an animal howl of fury and rage, a little too loud, a little too dramatic for my taste, but it gets the job done.

Her eyes run past Elektra to Penelope, and again, a smile, sadder now, another nod. “Little duck,” she breathes. “Learnt to be a queen after all.

out.

All this for a guy?”Elektra said, rolling her eyes. “No,” she said firmly. “It’s not. All of this is for me. I mean, I’ve never met anyone like Eric, but it’s more like he left a door open, and I want to see what’s on the other side.

I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.

CHOURS: Poor victim of acts sent by god! ELEKTRA: Wrong were the acts, wrong was the god! But ifyou murder your mother, what are the odds?

I have never feared the forgetful river of Hades,” Elektra replies, soft as a mountain stream, and Priene is familiar enough with killing to see the truth of it, and wise enough to wonder why.

ELEKTRA: I need one food: I must not violate Elektra.

had believed they were there because they loved her, but I had been wrong. They hated her. They hated her because she was so beautiful and because she made them want her so much. Nothing brought them more joy than the fall of a lovely woman. They picked over her reputation like vultures, scavenging for every scrap of flesh they could devour.

ELEKTRA: If this is all you were, Orestes, how could your memory fill my memory, how is it your soul fills my soul?.... Look! You are nothing at all. Just a crack where the light slipped through. Oh, my child, I thought I could save you. I thought I could send you beyond. But there is not beyond. .....somewhere, I don't know where - suddenly alone you stopped - where death was. You stopped. And I would have waited and washed you and lifted you up from the fire like a whitened coal. ....Into your child's fingers I put the earth and the sky. No mother did that for you. No nurse. No slave. I. Your sister, without letting go, day after day, year after year, and you my own sweet child. But death was a wind too strong for that. One day three people vanished. Father. You. Me. Gone. Now our enemies rock with laughter. And she runs mad for joy - that creature in the shape of your mother - how often you said you would come one secret evening and cut her throat! But our luck canceled that, whatever luck is. And instead my beloved, luck sent you back to me colder than ashes, later than shadows. ....Oh, my love, take me there. Let me dwell where you are. I am already nothing. I am already burning. Oh, my love, I was once part of you - take me too! Only void is between us. And I see that the dead feel no pain. (Elektra, by Sophocles)

ELEKTRA: Apollo made us sacrificial victims in his murder exchange of father for mother. CHORUS: Justice, on the one hand. ELEKTRA: Evil, on the other. Mother, as you killed so you die. But you've ruined us all. You at least went off to be among the dead. I live on here as corpse beside Orestes' bed. Nights and tears and groaning, nothing else is mine. No marriage, no house, no children, just time. (Orestes)

ELEKTRA: Whatever dooms there are men die, whatever harms there are men have-- Godsent: they blast, we bend. (Orestes)