Quotes from Madeline Miller

But I would have the memory be worthy of the man.

How is Paphos, my love?" "Fine," he said. Just that ugly, nothing word.

I wanted to roll on the grass like a dog.

How long would I cling to that handful of minutes, trying to cover myself as if with some threadbare blanket?

Each man or woman who passed, she knew their history and would tell it to me, for she said that you must understand people if you would rule them.

When he smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled like a leaf held to flame.

She seemed to fit into the air like a jewel in its crown.

Did he know, or only guess at Achilles' destiny? As he lay alone in his rose-colored cave, had some glimmer of prophecy come to him? Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.

I had no altar, but I did not need one: anywhere I was became my temple.

I wanted to wake him and see those eyes open. A thousand thousand times I had seen it, but I never tired of it.

the place I truly dwelt, a cold eternity of endless grief.

In our stories these divinities had to work by wheedling and flattery, by favors won from stronger gods. They could not do much themselves. Except live, forever.

I fled so she would not see my tears and wear them as another of her trophies.

Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this." After that, there was nothing more to say.

There is no one like you," I said, at last. He regarded me a moment, in silence. "So?" Something in the way he spoke it drained the last of my anger from me. I had minded, once. But who was I now, to begrudge such a thing? As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.

It was as if we had found the still heart of the universe. Nothing moved except for us.

She thought that she had power to drive a wedge between us, but she had nothing.

FOR THE FIRST TIME since my death, he falls into a fitful, trembling sleep. Achilles. I cannot bear to see you grieving. His limbs twitch and shudder. Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades. I will— But already he is waking. "Patroclus! Wait! I am here!" He shakes the body beside him. When I do not answer, he weeps again.

Your loss," Odysseus called after him. "Don't mind him. His wife's a hellhound bitch, and that would sour anyone's temper. Now, my wife-----" "I swear." Diomedes' voice carried back up the length of the ship. "If you finish that sentence, I will throw you over the side and you can swim to Troy.

At first it is strange. I am used to keeping him from her, to hoarding him for myself. But the memories well up like spring-water, faster than I can hold them back. They do not come as words, but like dreams, rising as scent from the rain-wet earth. This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in the summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this.

But a cracked heart was not enough, and I had grown wise enough to know it. I kissed him and left him there.

I was used to unhappiness, formless and opaque, stretching out to every horizon. But this had shores, depths, a purpose and a shape. There was hope in it.

Both of us were imprisoned. But I pressed his face into my mind, as seals are pressed in wax, so I could carry it with me.

Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.