Elektra Quotes

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

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

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

“She was old enough to be married, but still young enough to believe I could solve any problem.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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?”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“The gods demand their justice, but we suffer for it every time.”
― Jennifer Saint, 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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

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

“No one intervened to try to stop me from becoming what I became.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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?”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“Such a man speaks poetry in place of facts and thinks he tells a higher truth when all he spins is fantasy.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“It can be dangerous, though, to let a son grow up with vengeance in his heart.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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?”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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?”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“Somehow, women always came after a death.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

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

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“Ero abituata a venire fraintesa e male interpretata.
[Cassandra]”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“I longed to be lost in my own thoughts, my own plans and my one remaining dream. I lived for the quiet hours of the night, when all I could hear was the soft suck and hiss of the distant waves, when all that touched me was the cold caress of the dark breeze.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“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.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“things I did for my child so she could rest, even whilst my body felt like it would split apart, that no one could hold this much pain inside them and not shatter.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“My husband sailed soon to slaughter enemies in the pursuit of power and glory, but I had been slaying monsters for years, smoothing the path at my children’s feet so that they could step confidently into the future. And”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra

“My husband sailed soon to slaughter enemies in the pursuit of power and glory, but I had been slaying monsters for years, smoothing the path at my children’s feet so that they could step confidently into the future.”
― Jennifer Saint, Elektra