Heroic Code Quotes

Achilles absent was Achilles still!

It's hard to write a war story without thinking about the 'Iliad.' Because the 'Iliad' knows everything about war.

Stripped of its plot, the 'Iliad' is a scattering of names and biographies of ordinary soldiers: men who trip over their shields, lose their courage or miss their wives. In addition to these, there is a cast of anonymous people: the farmers, walkers, mothers, neighbours who inhabit its similes.

A wicked Hero will turn his back to an innocent coward.

Iliad by Homer is one of the great stories in literature. And I thought its themes really resonated today, whether that was my projection or Homer's intentions. It didn't seem like we had come very far.

The Iliad is the private lives of people thrown into disorder by history.

The Odyssey is, indeed, one of the greatest of all stories, it is the original romance of the West; but the Iliad, though a magnificent poem, is not much of a story.

A very great Iliad... concerns the creation of a nation.