Quotes from Madeline Miller

Achilles' eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. "I wish he had let you all die.

That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.

The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.

Bring him back to me,' he told them.

I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This, and this, and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender, or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.

There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.

A golden cage is still a cage.

When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.

Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.

Patroclus,'' Achilles tilted his face up with a gentle finger under his chin. ''I would recognise you in total darkness, were you mute and I deaf. I would recognise you in another lifetime entirely, in different bodies, different times. And I would love you in all of this, until the very last star in the sky burnt out into oblivion''.

I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms. The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.

It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.

Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.

You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.

You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.

I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.

Name one hero who was happy." "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it

We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.

It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.