Carmen > Carmen's Quotes

“God is indeed a jealous God —
He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
But with each other play.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I wish I wasn't such a dreamer. I've ruined this life for myself.”
― N.M. Sanchez, Initial Meeting

“Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“My name is Nobody.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing... it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Few sons are like their fathers--most are worse, few better.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Now from his breast into the eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big serf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“out of sight,out of mind”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“down from his brow
she ran his curls
like thick hyacinth clusters
full of blooms”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“For they imagined as they wished--that it was a wild shot,/ an unintended killing--fools, not to comprehend/ they were already in the grip of death./ But glaring under his brows Odysseus answered:

'You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it/ home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder,/ twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared/ bid for my wife while I was still alive./ Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven,/ contempt for what men say of you hereafter./ Your last hour has come. You die in blood.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:

'Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?'

'This dog,' answered Eumaeus, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.'

So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years…”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“The goddess did not shoot me in my home,
aiming with gentle arrows. Nor did sickness
suck all the strength out from my limbs, with long
and cruel wasting. No, it was missing you,
Odysseus, my sunshine; your sharp mind,
and your kind heart. That took sweet life from me.
— The Odyssey (11.198-203)”
― Emily Wilson, The Odyssey

“What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles, when it is their own wickedness that brings them sufferings worse than any which destiny allots them.”
― Homer, The Odyssey