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Medusa Quotes

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Medusa Quotes

“There is no perfect trinity, for three connotes competition. Power struggles. Favoritism and loneliness. We were almost not a trio; although now that she is gone, neither of us feels like a duo. We are not twins, nor will we ever be. Our third was the center, and when we lost her, we also failed each other, collapsing inward upon ourselves. A broken triplet. Thrice blessed. Thrice cursed.”

FamilyMythologyGreek MythologyMedusaEuryaleStheno
Author:Lauren J.A. Bear
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“When Poseidon pinned her To the temple stones, her voice Flared like pyre-wood, Faded like smoke. ‘As Perseus bore down upon her She bestrode the pitted ground; The snakes that writhed from her head Cried mercy of the clouds. ‘From her neck, Pegasus sprang – The white horse spread his wings, And bore her name through Greece Swooping to Cretan shores. ‘Her blood birthed the corals Of the Red Sea – sharp as tongues. O Hera, grant Medusa Her legacy: woman, monster, might!”

PoetryMythologyPoetry QuotesGreek MythologyMedusa
Book:Orphia and Eurydicius
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“I transformed Medusa,' Athena continued, 'so that she would have protection against all those who would try to harm her.' 'That's bullshit. You didn't give her a choice, did you?' Lore bit back. 'And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die.' 'No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales. They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle's assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?”

MythologyMedusa
Book:Lore
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“I transformed Medusa," Athena continued, "so that she would have protection against all those who would try to harm her." "That's bullshit. You didn't give her a choice, did you?" Lore bit back. "And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die." "No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales," Athena said. "They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle's assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?”

Young AdultMythologyYoung Adult FictionGreek MythologyGreek GodsMedusa
Book:Lore
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“The fascination with Medusa did not diminish at the end of the Greek Classical Era. She continued to function as a lightning rod for prevailing cultural attitudes. During the Greco-Roman period, images of Medusa were reproduced for wealthy patrons on mosaics and sculptural reliefs as mostly young and beautiful rather than disturbingly ferocious. Nevertheless, Christian zealots, who were rising in prominence, considered all pagan images abominations to be destroyed, especially of the Gorgon Medusa. During the Medieval period in Europe, Christian scholars considered the beheading of Medusa by Perseus to be an allegory of the virtuous son of god destroying the manifestation of evil, intrinsic to all women, that threatens men's souls.”

Greek MythologyMedusaPerseus
Book:Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom
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“THE STAGE: The stage is empty, and you watch as the figure of Medusa steps into the gas-light. Her body is dressed in a crimson traversed by the golden branches of willow trees, colour and light held into shape by sharp black borders. Lifting languidly her hands, she reaches towards you. Her emerald vipers, in the cohesive movements of unseen mechanisms, weave loops about her head. Music is beginning, and from the shadows off-stage the narrator speaks. “Medusa had a beautiful name and a lovely voice, though no one cared to listen; seeking only the gaze of those famous eyes.” Perseus walks onto the stage, cloaked as though he were the blazing sun. Now what you have to understand is his voice – it is like nothing you could tie down. It feels peaceful to hear it, to see him flow into the song with his fine, clear looks and his finer, clearer voice. Is the head quite forgotten? Not quite but the horror exists alongside the beauty and they flow like twin rivers, and neither is able to wash the other from you.”

SunMythGoddessGreek MythologyDivine FeminineRetellingsMedusaSnakeMythology FictionFlash Fiction
Book:Mystical Tides
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“Renaissance artists, inspired by Greek mythological themes, created frighteningly realistic portrayals of decapitated women with snakes for hair. The elegantly crafted sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini of a youthful Perseus holding Medusa's head aloft while he stands on her decapitated body was erected in the center of Florence in the mid-16th century. This popular theme was emblematic of the Inquisitional murders of women taking place in many areas of Europe during that time, considered necessary to protect civil society from the dangers of uncontrolled female powers. Later, during the 18th-19th centuries, Romantic artists, poets, and Decadents recast Medusa as a beautiful victim, not a monster. In their view, She represented the ecstatic discord between pain and pleasure, beauty and horror, and divinely forbidden sexuality.”

MedusaPerseusBenvenuto Cellini
Book:Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom
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“In ancient times, the Gorgon Medusa lived on the far side of Oceanus in the land of Night. She was an awesome dragonlike creature with bronze claws, great golden wings, and fierce eyes that turned her beholder to stone. At one time she had been a beautiful young woman who filled the world with joy, not death, but in a moment of foolish pride she had compared herself to Athena. Such arrogance enraged the noble goddess, and in revenge she turned Medusa's lush hair into a tangle of vile, hissing snakes. From that moment on, Medusa's stare brought the stillness of death to anyone who dared look into her eyes. Meanwhile Polydectes, King of Seriphos, wanted to destroy Perseus, so he sent him off to bring back Medusa's head, knowing that her gaze would kill the young hero. But Athena heard the king's command. Still angry with Medusa, she gave Perseus her bronze shield to defend himself when he attacked the Gorgon. Holding the shield as a mirror, Perseus saw only Medusa's reflection, and her deadly stare did not harm him. He cut off her head and put it into a cloth bag, then flew away with the aid of a pair of winged sandals given to him by Hermes. As Perseus soared over the African desert, blood seeped through the bag and fell to the hot sands below. As each drop hit the scorching ground, it turned to steam, and the rising vapors transformed into three dangerously beautiful nymphs.”

ReflectionAthenaNymphsMedusaPerseusMedusa MythologyGorgonMedusa Girls
Book:The Choice
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“Athena placed the apotropaic image of Medusa's severed head on her aegis or breastplate and on Zeus's shield. Other gorgoneia (images of Medusa's head) were installed on temples and other places to benefit from her protection, even after death. Ironically, gorgoneia were placed on heroes' shields, armor, and chariots to protect the Greek warriors engaged in destroying all threats to the new social order, including her own.”

AthenaMedusaGorgonZues
Book:Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom
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“I’m nobody’s sidekick,” Annabeth growled. “And, Percy, his accent sounds familiar because he sounds like his mother. We killed her in New Jersey.” Percy frowned. “I’m pretty sure that accent isn’t New Jersey. Who’s his—? Oh.” It all fell into place. Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium—the lair of Medusa. She’d talked with that same accent, at least until Percy had cut off her head. “Medusa is your mom?” he asked. “Dude, that sucks for you.”

HumorFamilyAccentsPercy JacksonNew JerseyAnnabeth ChasePercy Jackson And The OlympiansMedusaThe Heroes Of OlympusThe Mark Of Athena
Book:The Mark of Athena
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“Freud was a hero. He descended to the "Underworld" and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa's head which turned these terrors to stone. We who follow Freud have the benefit of the knowledge he brought back with him and conveyed to us. He survived. We must see of we now can survive without using a theory that is in some measure an instrument of defence.”

TheoryHeroMetsBenefitsStonesInstrumentsTerrorSurvivedDefenceStarksUnderworldMedusa
Author:R. D. Laing
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“Biological death is only a mechanical problem, it can be solved and man can live millions of years! Do not believe in life after death! Seek for the life within the life! The medusa of Turritopsis nutricula is biologically immortal and this little creature is a big inspiration for us! He who thinks positively reaches his target!”

ThinkingMenLifeYearsBelieveLittlesProblemBigsInspirationMillionsCreaturesImmortalTargetPositivelyAfter DeathLife After DeathThink PositivelyMedusa
Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“Fame is a kind of death because it arrests life around the person in the public eye. If one is recognized everywhere, one begins to feel like Medusa. People stop their normal life and actions and freeze into staring manikins. "We can never catch people or life unawares," as I wrote to my mother, in an outburst of frustration. "It is always looking at us."”

PeopleIfsFeelsKindPersonsEyeActionMotherFameNormalStaringFrustrationFreezeNormal LifePublic EyeOutburstMedusa
Author:Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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“Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?”

KnowsWayArtMomentsSeemsRunningLyingTurnsStrangeBreathsSakePoetry IsAbyssBrief MomentsMedusa
Author:Paul Celan
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“The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight allows us a full grasp of the world, all things considered, just as a frigid melancholy grants us full possession of ourselves. We may hide from horror only in the heart of horror. (“The Medusa”)”

WorldHeartMayStatesConditionsTerribleHorrorEnlightenmentAll ThingsTerrorPossessionInsightGrantsMelancholyDeceivingViciousSinisterFrigidMedusa
Author:Thomas Ligotti
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“To be sane, he held, was either to be sedated by melancholy or activated by hysteria, two responses which were 'always and equally warranted for those of sound insight'. All others were irrational, merely symptoms of imaginations left idle, of memories out of work. And above these mundane responses, the only elevation allowable, the only valid transcendence, was a sardonic one: a bliss that annihilated the universe with jeers of dark joy, a mindful ecstasy. Anything else in the way of 'mysticism' was a sign of deviation or distraction, and a heresy to the obvious. (“The Medusa”)”

WayTwoJoyUniverseLeftSoundImaginationMemoriesDarkResponseObviousInsightBlissMysticismMelancholyEcstasyDistractionSaneIrrationalIdleSymptomsTranscendenceMundaneHeresyHysteriaElevationDeviationMedusaSardonic
Author:Thomas Ligotti
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