Helen of Sparta Quotes

“Perhaps Zeus was king, but I was Spartan, a princess twice over, and queen of Athens besides. I knew my duty. And I would rule my own fate.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“I did not want to worship gods as cruel as this—gods cruel enough to rape my mother after she objected to being deceived, or willing to waste the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of men in a useless war. I did not want to believe we could not be free.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“Stay with me?” His fingers wound into my hair, and his arm tightened around me. “Always.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“The future is never certain, Theseus, not even in the eye of the Fates. What comes depends as much on our choices as the determination of the gods. Obedience, disobedience, prayer, and sacrifice, all of these things change the course of our lives. The only certainty in life is death.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“You can’t really want to be married to some fool who only sees your beauty and your kingdom, who cannot appreciate you for the sharpness of your mind, or the kindness of your heart. You think that Athenian will treat you as anything more than his whore?”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“My mother had always resented me, but I’d never expected to be half-drowned by her hands. As queen, she had always left this sort of mothering to the maids.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“In Helen of Sparta, I wanted to give Helen the opportunity for something better—a chance to take her life into her own hands. After more than twenty-five hundred years of texts in which she’s been pushed around by men and gods, I think she’s earned it.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“Helen appears to have very little power beyond the singular ability to incite lust, and even less agency. She is a plaything, a pawn of the gods, used to bring about the destruction of civilization, and an end to the Age of Heroes.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“It was as if the future itself were still in motion, unset until the moments claimed us.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“I wanted to scream, but Pollux had returned. My father promised Menelaus the right to make his own future, but at what cost to mine? I already knew what Menelaus would choose. My nails dug into the skin of my palms.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“The dreams did not tie me to the future, but they gave me the opportunity to alter it. I saw it even in the small details that changed from nightmare to nightmare. One night, Ajax the Lesser would find me in the temple; the next, I cowered in a bedroom, listening to a warrior break down my door. It was as if the future itself were still in motion, unset until the moments claimed us. The priests would not see it that way; nor would Menelaus, I was certain. He would see my dreams as proof that we were meant to marry, and he would use it to win me. But if I did not marry Menelaus, no stranger could steal me away. Everything rested upon that choice. “Good day, Princess,” the priestess said. When I looked up, she was gone.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“I can ask for peace. I can ask for war to be averted. There are other men,” I said. “Greater men than Menelaus.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta

“Knowing this and proclaiming it are two different things, I fear. Can you not see, Helen, how this might offend them? We should not criticize the gods in any small way. Your mother and I know this better than most.” He took Leda’s hand, and I looked away from the intimacy of the gesture. “I cannot put my fate in their hands, Father. I cannot trust them.”
― Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta