Troy Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Troy. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." [Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]
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E.B. White
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Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. β€œWhat has Hector ever done to me?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I was pushing boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon.... [disgustedly] in Cardiff!
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Russell T. Davies
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Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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Nothing of real worth can ever be bought. Love, friendship, honour, valour, respect. All these things have to be earned.
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David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
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It's first owner...well, things didn't turn out too well for her. Her name was Helena.' Piper let that sink in. "Wait, you mean the Helena? Helena of Troy?' Annabeth nodded. "And it's just sitting in your toolshed?
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Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
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The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
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Brad Pitt
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I will go,” he said. β€œI will go to Troy.” The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again. He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. β€œWill you come with me?” he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. β€œYes,” I whispered. β€œYes.” Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us. Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.
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Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd)
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We’re going to survive–our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams–and in their worst nightmares too.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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I may be stupid, as you say, to believe in honour and friendship and loyalty without price. But these are virtues to be cherished, for without them we are no more than beasts roaming the land.
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David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
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Do you know the song Violet Crowned Athens?” he asked. Yellow hair like hers was rare among the Greeks. Though some people say that Helen of TroyΒ .Β .Β .
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Yvonne Korshak (Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece)
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Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be more lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
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Brad Pitt
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This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you -- and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life. [Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]
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Isaac Asimov
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I trust everyone. I just don’t trust the devil inside them.
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Troy Kennedy Martin
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The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Maybe I should drive,” Troy said. β€œShe knows what she’s doing,” Mad Rogan said. I sniffed. β€œWhat?” β€œThe fragrance of a genuine compliment from Mad Rogan. So rare and sweet.
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Ilona Andrews (Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy, #1))
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Grief's only ever as deep as the love it's replaced.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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Let me tell you, Alex. He's a crook. He's based here in Miami. He's a nasty piece of work." "He's mexican" Troy added.
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Anthony Horowitz (Skeleton Key (Alex Rider, #3))
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And overpowered by memory Both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely For man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching Before Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself, Now for his father, now for Patroclus once again And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.
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Homer (The Iliad)
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In eternity this world will be like Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.
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Marilynne Robinson (Gilead (Gilead, #1))
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Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?
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W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
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Don’t go to troy.
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MesserMoon (Choices)
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She probably thinks Troye Sivan's songs are about girls.
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Becky Albertalli (Leah on the Offbeat (Simonverse, #3))
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Read a verse of Homer and you can walk the walls of Troy alongside Hector; fall into a paragraph by Fitzgerald and your Now entangles with Gatsby’s Now; open a 1953 book by Ray Bradbury and go hunting T. rexes. Ursula Le Guin said: β€œStory is our only boat for sailing on the river of time,” and she’s right, of course. The shelves of every library in the world brim with time machines. Step into one, and off you go.
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Anthony Doerr
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I’ve seen this movie, you know. It always ends with them falling in love.
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Kelly Moran (The Dysfunctional Test)
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I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself. - Troy -
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August Wilson (Fences (August Wilson Century Cycle))
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This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history.
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Chuck Palahniuk (Tell-All)
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She was his north star, the fixed point round which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he believed they would always share a destiny.
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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Troy and I loved each other. We called it 'unconditional love', which was true. Once conditions arose, the love dissipated.
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Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale (Welcome to Night Vale, #1))
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After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?
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Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose)
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Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.
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Iris Murdoch
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Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles … How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things; we called him β€˜the butcher’.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy #1))
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Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine.
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Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd)
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Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.
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Clare Ansberry (The Women Of Troy Hill: The Back-Fence Virtues of Faith and Friendship)
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I loved the kiss. That's why I smiled at you. I loved it. I was embarrassed by how much I loved it. (Troy Summer)
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Suzanne Selfors (Saving Juliet)
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He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. "Will you come with me?" he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Rest in Peace?’ Why that phrase? That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard! You die, and they say β€˜Rest in Peace!’ …Why would one need to β€˜rest’ when they’re dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne d’Arc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and I’m only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly won’t need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
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Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
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Look to your kingdomsβ€” I am coming for them all.
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Elisabeth Hewer (Wishing for Birds)
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Hate is the father of all evil.
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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Men carve meaning into women’s faces; messages addressed to other men.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good and bad, while his heart, through all the sea-faring, ached with an agony to redeem himself and bring his company safe home. Vain hope – for them. The fools! Their own witlessness cast them aside. To destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun, wherefore the Sun-god blotted out the day of their return. Make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, O Muse.” – from Homer’s Odyssey, translation by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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When he comes into a room, you give a little gasp, deep inside, far inside,' someone once said when trying to describe what it meant to love.
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Margaret George (Helen of Troy)
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And there they ring the walls, the young, the lithe. The handsome hold the graves they won in Troy; the enemy earth rides over those who conquered.
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Aeschylus (Agamemnon (Oresteia, #1))
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Love is not about conquest. The truth is a man can only find true love when he surrenders to it. When he opens his heart to the partner of his soul and says: "Here it is! The very essence of me! It is yours to nurture or destroy.
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))
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But the queen--too long she has suffered the pain of love, hour by hour nursing the wound with her lifeblood, consumed by the fire buried in her heart. [...] His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling-- no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.
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Virgil (The Aeneid)
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Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning.
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Emily Wilson (The Odyssey)
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It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die.
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Tom Waits
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Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))
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The purpose of debates is to explore issues, not end them.
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))
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I thought: Suppose, suppose just once, once, all these centuries, the slippery gods keep their word and Achilles is granted eternal glory in return for his early death under the walls of Troy...? What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant times? One thing I do know: they won't want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won't want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won't want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they'll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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You have to take a chance sometimes for the person you love. Sometimes you just know that a huge risk is worth it.
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Shana Norris (Troy High)
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Alexander, of whom men tell many legends, lived by his own. Achilles must have Patroklos. He might love his Briseis; but Patroklos was the friend till death. At their tombs in Troy, Alexander and Hephaistion had sacrificed together. Wound Patroklos, and Achilles will have your blood.
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Mary Renault (The Persian Boy (Alexander the Great, #2))
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Jedi Masters do not crack up- they just get eccentric.- Luke Skywalker
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Troy Denning (Star by Star (Star Wars: The New Jedi Order, #9))
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You do not convince me. You rationalize your actions and because the result is favorable you become right.
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))
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Through their kisses and caresses they experienced a joy and wonder the equal of which has never been known or heard of. But I shall be silent...; for the rarest and most delectable pleasures are those which are hinted at, but never told.
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ChrΓ©tien de Troyes
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The boy's eyes went to him, and a shock passed through Magnus. They were not Will's eyes, the eyes Magnus remembered being as blue as a night sky in Hell, eyes Magnus has seen both despairing and tender. This boy has shining golden eyes, like crystal glass filled brimful with crisp white wine and held up to catch the light of a blazing sun. If his skin was luminous, his eyes were radiant. Magnus could not imagine these eyes as tender. The boy was very, very lovely, but his was a beauty like that of Helen of Troy might have had once, disaster written in every line. The light of his beauty made Magnus think of cities burning.
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Cassandra Clare (The Midnight Heir (The Bane Chronicles, #4))
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This is what free people never understand. A slave isn't a person who's being treated as a thing. A slave is a thing, as much in her own estimation as in anybody else's.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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Old age is not as honorable as death, but most people seek it.
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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There is a darkness in you. In all of us, probably. Beasts we keep chained. Ordinary men have to keep the chains strong, for if we let the beast loose then society will turn upon us with fiery vengeance. Kings though...well, who is there to turn upon them? So the chains are made of straw. It is the curse of kings, Helikaon, that they can become monsters. And they invariably do.
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David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
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Love is a mystery. We embrace it where we can. Mostly we do not choose whom we love. It just happens. A voice speaks to us, in ways the ears cannot hear. We recognize a beauty the eye does not see. We experience a change in our hearts that no voice can describe.
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David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
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I was a man before I was a king, and no true man walks away when a friend needs him.
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly . . . I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.
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Marilynne Robinson (Gilead (Gilead, #1))
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At Night Love said, "Wake still and think of me," Sleep, "Close your eyes till break of day," But Dreams came by and smilingly Gave both to Love and Sleep their way.
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Sara Teasdale (Helen of Troy and Other Poems)
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Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom.
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August Wilson (Fences (The Century Cycle, #6))
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It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence.
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Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
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Silence becomes a woman.' Every woman I’ve ever known was brought up on that saying.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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How do you separate a tiger's beauty from its ferocity? Or a cheetah's elegance from the speed of its attack? Achilles was like that -- the beauty and the terror were two sides of a single coin.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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[...] but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality?
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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You must all swear to me that you will protect my sister and her child. If Helen and her line of daughters die, there will be nothing on Earth for me to love,” she said, her eyes falling apologetically on her son, Aeneas, for a moment before they hardened against him. He dropped his head with a wounded look, and Aphrodite turned to Hector. β€œAs long as my sister and her line of daughters lasts, there will be love in the world. I swear it on the River Styx. But if you let my sister die, Hector of Troy, son of Apollo, I will leave this world and take love itself away with me.
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Josephine Angelini (Goddess (Starcrossed, #3))
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Now it’s high watermark and floodtide in the heart and time to go. The sea-nymphs in the spray will be the chorus now. What’s left to say? Suspect too much sweet-talk but never close your mind. It was a fortunate wind that blew me here. I leave half-ready to believe that a crippled trust might walk and the half-true rhyme is love.
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Seamus Heaney (The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes)
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the dank night is sweeping down from the sky and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.
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Virgil
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Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one - and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle!
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Homer (The Odyssey)
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No. I came here to see you. I didn’t believe the rumors,but after hearing it on so many continents I had to come andsee for myself.” β€œSee what?” His eyes widened in adulation, his voice taking on areverent tone. β€œIf it was true that Helen of Troy, nay, Aphrodite herself had been reincarnated in gym teacher form.” The room was utterly silent. Except Vicious Redhead’s jaw dropping to the ground with a little plink. Or maybe I imagined that. And then the class did the worst thingpossible: They started giggling. Miss Lynn was going tomurder me.
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Kiersten White (Supernaturally (Paranormalcy, #2))
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I don't want anyone fighting over me," Kate said. "It's not worth it." "Like hell it's not." Samuel turned to her. "Don't ever say you're not worth it, Katie. You're worth epic battles. Entire wars." Her heart pinched. "Samuel..." "Yes, Helen of Troy?" She thought she saw him wink as he backed away, reaching for a sword to match Evan's. After all this time...he would choose this moment to be charming.
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Tessa Dare (A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove, #3))
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No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little.
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Barbara W. Tuchman (The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam)
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Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium-- Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.-- ''[kisses her]'' Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!-- Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd; And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, And then return to Helen for a kiss. O, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter When he appear'd to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!
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Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus)
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For they imagined as they wished--that it was a wild shot,/ an unintended killing--fools, not to comprehend/ they were already in the grip of death./ But glaring under his brows Odysseus answered: 'You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it/ home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder,/ twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared/ bid for my wife while I was still alive./ Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven,/ contempt for what men say of you hereafter./ Your last hour has come. You die in blood.
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Homer (The Odyssey)
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She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants, and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has molded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.
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Walter Pater
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Yes, the death of young men in battle is a tragedy - I’d lost four brothers, I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. A tragedy worthy of any number of laments - but theirs is not the worst fate. I looked at Andromache, who’d have to live the rest of her amputated life as a slave, and I thought: We need a new song.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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... Life can be savored only if you look to the future and leave vengeance to the gods
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David Gemmell (Fall of Kings (Troy, #3))
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The ship's boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now, we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us an end to this as well. You've threaded the rocks resounding with Scylla's howling rabid dogs, and taken the brunt of the Cyclops' boulders, too. Call up your courage again. Dismiss your grief and fear. A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this. Through so many hard straits, so many twists and turns our course holds firm for Latium. There Fate holds out a homeland, calm, at peace. There the gods decree the kingdom of Troy will rise again. Bear up. Save your strength for better times to come.
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Virgil (The Aeneid)
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...the most delightful and choicest pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told.
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ChrΓ©tien de Troyes (Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart (Chretien de Troyes Romances S))
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But as he stood watching Carthage burn, Scipio reflected on the fate of this once great power. Overcome with emotion, he cried. His friend and mentor Polybius approached and asked why Scipio was crying. "A glorious moment, Polybiius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country." Scipio then quoted a line from Homer: "A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain." Scipio knew that no power endures indefinitely, that all empires must fall.
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Mike Duncan (The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic)
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I say no wealth is worth my life! Not all they claim was stored in the depths of Troy, that city built on riches, in the old days of peace before the sons of Achaea came- not all the gold held fast in the Archer's rocky vaults, in Phoebus Apollo's house on Pytho's sheer cliffs! Cattle and fat sheep can all be had for the raiding, tripods all for the trading, and tawny-headed stallions. But a man's life breath cannot come back again- no raiders in force, no trading brings it back, once it slips through a man's clenched teeth. Mother tells me, the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies... true, but the life that's left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly.
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Homer (The Iliad)
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Regin the Radiant and Emmaline Troy: 'Alrighty then, have it your way- you're on your own... Now, if you come across a leech, no offense, remember your training.' 'None taken. And would that be the sword training where you fly past my defenses and swat me on the ass, chirping, 'Dead!'? Another swat. 'Dead!'? Yeah, I'll get right on that.' 'No, that would be the training where you sprint like hell whenever you hear that I'm looking for you to train.
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Kresley Cole (A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark, #1))
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As later Priam comes secretly to the enemy camp to plead with Achilles for the return of his son Hector's body, he says: "'I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son." Those words echoed round me, as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles had plundered from burning cities. I thought: "And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.
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Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy, #1))
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Some say an army of horsemen, some of footsoldiers, some of ships, is the fairest thing on the black earth, but I say it is what one loves. It's very easy to make this clear to everyone, for Helen, by far surpassing mortals in beauty, left the best of all husbands and sailed to Troy, mindful of neither her child nor her dear parents, but with one glimpse she was seduced by Aphrodite. For easily bent... and nimbly...[missing text]... has reminded me now of Anactoria who is not here; I would much prefer to see the lovely way she walks and the radiant glance of her face than the war-chariots of the Lydians or their footsoldiers in arms.
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Sappho
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We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die.
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David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
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We make choices everyday, some of them good, some of them bad. And if we are strong enough - we live with the consequences. To be truthful I am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists I have not discovered it.
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))
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You know,” he says, swallowing with some difficulty. β€œI always thought I was Achilles in this storyβ€”the over controlling mother, the famed heritage, the great expectations,” he smiles wryly. β€œBut here I am James, wearing your armour, rushing off into battles I have no business fighting. Playing the hero, and failing, like the secondary character I am,” he laughs. β€œBut that’sβ€”β€œ he has to clear his throat. β€œThat’s where the metaphor ends okay? Fuck fate, fuck prophecies, let someone else handle it. Let someone else save the day. You just…go away somewhere okay? Go live your beautiful life. Fade into obscurity, leave the heroics to people who have less to offer the world. Don’t go to Troy.
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MesserMoon (Choices)
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If people are honest with themselves when they choose a tattoo, the art will represent them better than anything that will ever come out of their mouth. The things that are most important to me are represented in the art that covers my body. My God, my family, my friends, my job, my social and historical beliefs and the aggressive or even violent nature with which I will protect all of them.....basically in that order of importance. Is it scarey or repulsive to some people? Yes. Does it change who I am? No. If anything it works as an outward conscience that will forever remind me of who I am and what is important during times of trial or long after my mind starts to fade due to old age if I'm blessed with a long life.Remove
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Troy Holloway
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Woman and children behind the lines!' he yelled, and all the girls jumped. Henry froze with his mouth open. 'Bang the drum slowly and ask not for whom the bell's ringing, for the answer's unfriendly!' He threw a fist in the air. 'Two years have my black ships sat before Troy, and today its gate shall open before the strength of my arm.' Dotty was laughing from the kitchen. Frank looked at his nephew. 'Henry, we play baseball tomorrow. Today we sack cities. Dots! Fetch me my tools! Down with the French! Once more into the breach, and fill the wall with our coward dead! Half a league! Half a league! Hey, batter, batter!' Frank brought his fist down onto the table, spilling Anastasia's milk, and then he struck a pose with both arms above his head and his chin on his chest. The girls cheered and applauded. Aunt Dotty stepped back into the dining room carrying a red metal toolbox.
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N.D. Wilson (100 Cupboards (100 Cupboards, #1))
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And so their spirits soared as they took positions own the passageways of battle all night long, and the watchfires blazed among them. Hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm... all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts the boundless bright air and all the stars shine clear and the shepherd's heart exults - so many fires burned between the ships and the Xanthus' whirling rapids set by the men of Troy, bright against their walls. A thousand fires were burning there on the plain and beside each fire sat fifty fighting men poised in the leaping blaze, and champing oats and glistening barley, stationed by their chariots, stallions waited for Dawn to mount her glowing throne.
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Homer (The Iliad)
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All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly. In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask: β€˜What is truth?’ So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgement-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world.
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G.K. Chesterton (The Everlasting Man)
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ROSE: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life, too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me not eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room...with the darkness falling in on me...I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the fines man in the world. And wherever you was going...I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always taking about what you give...and what you don't have to give. But you take too. You take...and you don't even know nobody's giving!
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August Wilson (Fences (The Century Cycle, #6))
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Odysseus draped the towel over his shoulders and stretched his back. "You remember practicing with wooden swords? All the moves, the blocks, the counters, getting your footwork right, learning how to be in balance always?" "Of course you were a hard master." "And you recall the first time you went into a real fight, with blood being shed and the fear of death in the air?" "I do" "The moves are the same, but the difference is wider than the Great Green. Love is like that, Helikaon. You can spend time with a whore and laugh and know great pleasure. But when love strikes--- ah, the difference is awesome. You will find more joy in the touch of a hand or the sight of a smile than you could ever experience in a hundred nights of passion with anyone else. The sky will be more blue, the sun more bright. Ah, I am missing my Penelope tonight
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David Gemmell (Lord of the Silver Bow (Troy, #1))