The Women of Troy Quotes

“Achilles’ story never ends: wherever men fight and die, you’ll find Achilles.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“It was one of those moments that I think everybody experiences - and they don't have to be dramatic - when things begin to change; and you know there's no point ruminating about it, because thinking isn't going to help you understand. You're not ready to understand it yet; you have to live your way into the meaning.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“We women are peculiar creatures. We tend not to love those who murder our families.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Achilles' story never ends: wherever men fight and die, you'll find Achilles.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Men experience their own ageing in the bodies of women”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“So Agamemnon fears the dead? Well there are plenty of them to fear - young men with all their lives ahead of them do not go down into the darkness reconciled.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“People believed that whenever Helen cut a thread in her wool, a man died on the battlefield.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Crows are ferociously intelligent birds. I used to watch them gather as the men set off for another day of war. Drums, pipes, trumpets, the rhythmical pounding of swords on shields—to the fighters, this music meant honour, glory, courage, comradeship…To the crows, it only ever meant food.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“I was too young to understand that elation is one of the many faces of grief. At the funeral, in front of the entire Greek army, she would represent Priam. More than that: she would be Priam. Because isn’t that, ultimately, the way we cope with grief? There’s nothing sophisticated or civilized about it. Like savages, we ingest our dead.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Achilles’s story never ends: wherever men fight and die, you’ll find Achilles.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“I hadn’t realized till then that people who’ve been shocked into muteness can still sing.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Perhaps, confronted by this sight, words felt like such debased currency she couldn’t be bothered to use them anymore.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“You’re taken at your own evaluation in this life. In her mind, she’s still a queen.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“was one of those moments that I think everybody experiences—and they don’t have to be dramatic—when things begin to change; and you know there’s no point ruminating about it, because thinking isn’t going to help you understand. You’re not ready to understand it yet; you have to live your way into the meaning.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“At last, we were all settled. Amina and Helle nodded to show they were ready. “Nothing sad,” I said. The girls began calling out their favourites—and many of them were happy, even jolly, songs; but as soon as the singing started, they all sounded sad. Perhaps all songs do when they’re sung in exile. Soon, many of the girls were in tears.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Many of the girls were crying again; I wondered how many of them had been promised in marriage to young men whose bodies now lay rotting inside the walls of Troy.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

“Ik wachtte tot Hekabe zou spreken, maar ze zei niets. Misschien dat ze, oog in oog met dit uitzicht, woorden zo'n gedevalueerd ruilmiddel vond dat ze het als verloren moeite beschouwde ze nog te gebruiken.”
― Pat Barker, The Women of Troy