Quotes from Madeline Miller

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. All my life, I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal's voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.

My fears forgotten in the golden harbour of his arms.

It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you.

He was watching me closely, reading my face over and over, like a priest searching the auguries for an answer. I could see the slight line in his forehead that meant utmost concentration. Something shifted in me then, like the frozen surface of the Apidanos in spring. I had seen the way he looked at Deidameia; or rather the way he did not. It was the same way he had looked at the boys in Phtia, blank and unseeing. He had never, not once, looked at me that way.

Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.

No wonder I have been so slow, I thought. All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea. Yet now look where I sail.

When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.

He smiled at me, and I saw the lines where other smiles had been.

Often those men in most need hate most to be grateful, and will strike at you just to feel whole again.

Nothing she says has a single meaning, nor a single intention, yet she is steady. She knows herself.

Achilles weeps. He craddles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name. I see his face as if through water, as a fish sees the sun. His tears fall, but I cannot wipe them away. This is my element now, the half-life of the unburied spirit.

All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.

He weeps as he lifts me into our bed. My corpse sags; it's warm in the tent, and the smell will come soon. He does not seem to care. He holds me all night long, pressing my cold hands to his mouth.

If I were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to live alone.

We are men only, a brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please.

Everything was united by the steady rise and fall of nature's breath. Everything except for me.

Se inclinó hacia mí, envuelto en bronce, oliendo a sudor, cuero y metal. Cerré los ojos al sentir sobre mis labios los suyos, la única parte aún suave de Aquiles. Después de marcho.

This was a man who moved like the gods were watching: every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector

If every soldier killed only those who'd personally offended him Peleides, we'd have no wars at all.

The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him.

Whatever she tried, my spells would hold. Not even Odysseus could talk his way past witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.

No one would remember his glory, or his honesty, or his beauty; all his gold would be turned to ashes and ruin.

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

It was true. Odysseus' favorite task was the sort that only had to be performed once: raiding a town, defeating a monster, finding a way inside an impenetrable city.