Troy Quotes

“Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worst suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshipers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.

Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretense
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slam of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meaning are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mothers was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look - my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.”
― Margaret Atwood, Morning In The Burned House: Poems

“..and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea
and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl...”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“The signs of the old flame, I know them well.
I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down
or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,
the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,
before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.”
― Virgil

“You're not seriously going?" Troy asks.
"Of course I'm going," I say. "What other choice do I have?"
"Um...not going.”
― Tera Lynn Childs, Goddess Boot Camp

“This was a man who moved like the gods were watching: every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector”
― Madeline Miller

“Did you-"

Griffin shoves past him and grabs me by the shoulders. "Are you alright?"
"Of course. Didn't they tell you?"

From the dark look in his normally bright eyes, I'm going to guess no.

He twists to look back over his shoulder and practically growls. "They didn't tell me anything. Except that I had to wait out here."

"Um, I need to go," Troy says, backing down the steps. "I have class in the morning."
"Coward," I taunt.”
― Tera Lynn Childs, Goddess Boot Camp

“I’d start by laying her down on my bed and undressing her. Slowly. Carefully. So she wiggled and stretched and soft pants escaped her lips. My hands would be all over her. My mouth, too. When she wore nothing but the blue scrap of lace between her legs, I’d take her wrists and cuff her hands to my bedpost.”
― Robin Bielman, Wild About Her Wingman

“Choose,' she says, reaching out towards him. 'Choose to which of us the apple most belongs...”
― Emily Hauser, For the Most Beautiful

“Troy, I have to find out what happened to my dad."
"We know what happened to your dad. He got smoted. End of story.”
― Tera Lynn Childs, Goddess Boot Camp

“We walk up the sandy slope toward the dining terrace. I see Troy sitting at a table with some people I know. I look at Scottie to see if she sees him, and she is giving him the middle finger. The dining terrace gasps, but I realize it’s because of the sunset and the green flash. We missed it. The flash flashed. The sun is gone, and the sky is pink. I reach to grab the offending hand, but instead, I correct her gesture.

“Here, Scottie. Don’t let that finger stand by itself like that. Bring up the other fingers just a little bit. There you go. That’s the cool way to do it.”

Troy stares at us and smiles a bit. He’s completely confused.

“All right, that’s enough.” I suddenly feel sorry for Troy. He must feel awful.”
― Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants

“What did they say about Helen of Troy? That her face launched a thousand ships? That’s you, you’re that beautiful. A thousand ships.”
― Edmund White, Our Young Man

“Komm, Prinzessin, wir sehen nach, ob der Laden deines Vaters noch steht.”
― Josephine Angelini, Goddess

“Quando arrivi a un bivio e non sai da che parte andare, ti fermi e sogni. Sogni cosa ti aspetta nella strada a dritta, poi sogni cosa ti aspetta nella strada a manca. E la strada che vince questo duello di sogni diventa quella che imboccherai.”
― Sergio Claudio Perroni, Nel ventre

“God, he was so beautiful. It was the tragic kind of beauty too, the kind you knew was doomed from the start. A face that launched a thousand ships and dug a million graves.”
― Andrea Speed, Shift

“He slid the jack beneath the frame. “I’m down here now...Might as well go all the way.”
Joss shut her eyes as his words conjured other things he could do while he was down there.
Oh God. She was going to hell.”
― Amy Andrews, Troy