Lena Manta > Quotes

“He couldn't shame his father; they hadn't raised him that way. And the blood of the revolution didn't run in his veins. He would have to bury his heart.”
― Lena Manta, La lettera d'oro

“Gail Holst-Warhaft is a poet and translator and has worked as a journalist, broadcaster, prose writer, academic, and musician. Among her many publications are Road to Rembetika, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music, The Collected Poems of Nikos Kavadias, Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek Literature, The Cue for Passion: Grief and Its Political Uses, I Had Three Lives: Selected Poems of Mikis Theodorakis, and Penelope’s Confession. She has published translations of Aeschylus and”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“my grandmother always says, ‘When people make plans, God laughs!”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“There’s nothing stupider than holding words inside you that should have been spoken at the time. Except hiding feelings that should have been expressed as soon as you felt them.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“If people don’t suffer, they don’t learn.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Lagonisi.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“the leader of the troupe, looked carefully at the girl in front of him. She was a real windfall, and since she herself was prepared to starve with them, he had no objection. She might even, if she had talent as she said, be good for the troupe. For years now he’d been traveling all over Greece. He had given performances in cafés, in the open air, even in barns. Once, when he was young, he had begun his career with lots of dreams, and he’d played beside some serious actors of the day. He’d managed to make a name for himself, but he very soon started to get into the drink. The beginning of the end had arrived, but he hadn’t understood it at the time. He began to forget his words onstage and to delay his entrances, creating gaps in the performance. Soon he stopped being in demand. When he met Zoe, he stopped drinking, but it was too late. Nobody trusted him, nobody would offer him even a small role. But the bug for acting didn’t leave him. He formed his own troupe and from then on he traveled around the countryside. A lot of people had been with him and moved on. Some were real actors and some didn’t want to believe that they would never become actors. Very occasionally, real talent had appeared beside him, but precisely because of that talent they always left for some theater in Athens. He had suffered hundreds of humiliations. Frustrated by the troupe’s poor performances, audiences often threw whatever they found at them, forcing the show to end. And it wasn’t so unusual for them to have to flee from a village in the night so that the disgruntled locals, who felt they’d been cheated after such a bad show, didn’t beat them up. Tickets were often used to barter for eggs, honey, corn, even vegetables—the important thing was for the troupe to eat. When they were lucky, though, they ate in a restaurant. They’d been able to do so today because the tour in Pieria had gone very well thanks to Martha, the woman who was observing Polyxeni so carefully. Lambros had to admit that her acting had saved the whole troupe. She’d been with them for two months, and things”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“life is like the river that flows in front of us. It carries you easily with it and pulls you wherever it’s going. And a river doesn’t come back. If it takes you away, you can’t come back. Always be careful of the river . . . make sure it doesn’t carry you away.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Every one of you will do whatever is in store for you, and what that is, only God knows. I hope I won’t lose you, but if it’s for your good, let that be! Just remember that as long as I live here this house will exist, and the door will be open to all of you.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“You’ll tell them what to do, you’ll relax,”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Peter had barely managed to”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“If is a word that exists only to drive us crazy. It’s meaningless.”
― Lena Manta, The Gold Letter

“And who told you, Fenia, that we are owed happiness in this life? It’s not a birthright, my sweet, it’s an achievement. And like a mathematical equation, it has many, many variables.”
― Lena Manta, The Gold Letter

“I’ll tell you something to remember this hour by: life is like the river that flows in front of us. It carries you easily with it and pulls you wherever it’s going. And a river doesn’t come back. If it takes you away, you can’t come back. Always be careful of the river . . . make sure it doesn’t carry you away.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Only God forgives, my child. People give understanding and love. Welcome home.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“She wouldn’t open her heart to me, because she’d know someone else would read the letter and learn her secrets. And I don’t even know who writes her letters. Anna didn’t go to school either. Is that really how a civilized society is made? Only men get to know how to read and write? Why don’t all people learn to read and write? You know it’s different in the cities. It’s only in the villages that we girls don’t learn. But that’s not right! Gerasimos, I want our girls to go to school.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Anyway, we parents must never think about ourselves, but about what’s good for our children.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“The woman hurried to obey his order. She set the lamp on the bedside table, ran to the window, and flung it open. Cool air rushed into the room and she breathed it greedily. She”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Then didn’t it occur to you that stones sink just because they’re stones, Mother? They reach the bottom and they stay there; they don’t go anywhere! I’d rather be a little branch and travel than a stone and drown at the bottom of the river.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“pressed her lips to his again, but then he”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Many things will happen to us in our lives. Some of them are terribly painful. But remember that life, rightly or wrongly, is for the strong. For those who manage to overcome hurdles, to survive, and finally to win.”
― Lena Manta, The Gold Letter

“We can’t even read a newspaper or write a letter! It’s a wonderful thing to know how to do these things. But I know why you don’t want us educated. You’re afraid of us.” “I”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“to”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“The house by the river shook lightly. The big chestnut trees framing it seemed to be trying to protect the house from a mysterious danger.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“flash of lightning lit up the landscape, and then everything plunged into darkness again. She knew every hill from where she stood, every stone, every tree. Although she knew that”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Theodora gave up and turned”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“deus ex machina,”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Only the trees and the plants have roots. People have legs to go forward.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“Grandmother says, if you don’t suffer, you don’t learn.”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River

“if the man who asks for your hand is not the one and only, don’t take him!”
― Lena Manta, The House by the River