Stone Blind Quotes

“Why would anyone love a monster?' asked Perseus.
'Who are you to decide who is worthy of love?' said Hermes.
'I mean, I wasn't...'
'And who are you to decide who is a monster?' added the messenger god.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind: Medusa's Story

“I’m wondering if you still think of her as a monster. I suppose it depends on what you think that word means. Monsters are, what? Ugly? Terrifying? Gorgons are both these things, certainly, although Medusa wasn’t always. Can a monster be beautiful if it is still terrifying? Perhaps it depends on how you experience fear and judge beauty.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“And the monster? Who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Men will tell you that Gorgons are monsters, but men are fools. They cannot comprehend any beauty beyond what they can see. And what they see is a tiny part of what there is.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“It's important that you know this because he will try to claim there was a battle. But there is no battle to be had between an armed man and a sleeping girl. Don't forget.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Imagine being a god, she thought, and still needing to tell everyone how impressive you were.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“You aren’t monsters,’ Medusa said. ‘Neither are you. Who decides what is a monster?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Medusa. ‘Men, I suppose.’ ‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our teeth, our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“I know when you talk of beauty you mean something different from what I mean.’ ‘I see.’ He took a step towards her, and she forced herself not to take a step back. ‘So what do you mean by beauty, little Gorgon?’ ‘Euryale tends every one of her sheep like it is a child. Sthenno learned to cook so she could feed me when I was little. They care about me and protect me. That is beauty.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“I feel like becoming the monster he made.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“You can't prove what you believe,' she said. 'You can only believe it.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“He thinks anyone who is not like him is a monster: have you noticed? And any monster needs killing.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“There is one question that devours me still. Why didn’t I close my eyes?”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“They will fear you and flee you and call you a monster, just like they do your sisters.' 'It doesn't matter what they think of me.' 'Then why do you want to protect them?' 'Because I can,' she said.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Then why do you protect them?”
“Because I can,” she said”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“When she blew into the top of it, the reed made exactly the penetrating scream she demanded. Musicians - satyrs, in the first instance - would come along later and bend the instrument to their talent, creating the far sweeter sound we associate with the flute today. But Athene was no musician, and nor was she looking to play a tune. The first flute therefore sounded exactly like what it was.

The desperate cry of a reed that has been severed from its root.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“And while I am all in favour of using precision to describe something, might I suggest that you would be better off not doing something so dangerous so often that you need a specific word for it? Perhaps develop your self-control rather than your vocabulary.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Would it kill you to be sympathetic about someone who isn't as fortunate as you are? Would it?”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Mortals are all the same,' she said to her sisters. 'They think their concerns are everyone's concerns.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“The sea gods keep their secrets deep; they always have.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“No sea god would want to feel so weakened. A shudder ran through Sthenno as she thought of what she had lost: the sweet sense of owning herself and her feelings, of having no concerns at all, or only the very mildest kind. All of this was gone, exchanged without warning for a cold, gripping panic whenever a child stumbled or hid or cried. This, she knew, was love. And she felt it even though she did not want it.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind: Medusa's Story

“Men often kill for trophies.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“You're the one who thinks anything that doesn't look like you must be a monster.' 'They have snakes for hair!' Perseus cried. 'Snakes are't monsters,' said Hermes. 'And tusks.' 'Wild boar aren't monsters either.' 'And wings.' 'I'm sure even you don't think birds are monsters.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“I'm wondering if you still think of her as a monster. I suppose it depends on what you think that word means. Monsters are, what? Ugly? Terrifying? Can a monster be beautiful if it is still terrifying? Perhaps it depends on how you experience fear and judge beauty. And is a monster always evil? Is there ever such a thing as a good monster? Because what happens when a good person becomes a monster?”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“No one could help being afraid of something. And being afraid of dying must be especially awful, because there was no hope of avoiding it.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“They care about me and protect me. That is beauty.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Euryale liked humans...She liked the way they were so prone to anxiety and haste.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Power is something you can control,’ Sthenno said. ‘Medusa can turn anything to stone, yes. But she can’t not do it, if she doesn’t want to.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“So you're homesick for somewhere you've never been?”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“Gorgons aren’t supposed to be like gods. We belong here, in the place between the land and the sea, not on a lofty mountain. They put our image on the outside of temples, not within. We look out on mortals, not down on them.”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind

“What happened to her?’ ‘You got her pregnant.’ ‘Marvellous. Will I have a new demi-god roaming the earth?’ ‘You already do.’ ‘That’s wonderful.’ ‘He’s about to drown.’ ‘Oh. Let me—”
― Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind