Quotes from Madeline Miller

He holds me so tightly I can feel the faint beat of his chest, like the wings of a moth. An echo, the last bit of spirit still tethered to my body. A torment.

It is likely you are not a witch. But you are something else. Something you have not found yet. And that is why you go P.240

Men's faces are heavy with anger, but there are no more fights—it is too hot. They lie in the dark and hate each other.

You fools," I said. "I am the one who made that creature. I did it for pride and vain delusion. And you thank me? Twelve of your men are dead for it, and how many thousands more to come? That drug I gave her is the strongest I have. Do you understand, mortals?

She wears a cape, and it is this that undoes her—that allows her to be pulled, limbs light and poised as a cat, from her horse.

I will tell them nothing." The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. "It is not for them to say what I will do.

He smiled his easy smile, his honest one He smiled and his face was like the sun

Imagine such a happiness. Like drinking wine your whole life, instead of water.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the Earth. I would him in death, at the end of the world

What is that if not a bad life? Luring others to you, then turning from them?

A pleasure rose in me so old and sharp it felt like pain.

Therapon was the word he used. A brother-in-arms sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love. In war, these men were his honor guard; in peace, his closest advisers. It was a place of highest esteem, another reason the boys swarmed Peleus' son, showing off; they hoped to be chosen.

The world was made of mysteries, and I was only another riddle among the millions. I did not answer him, and though he pretended frustration, I began to see that it pleased him in some strange way. A door that did not open at his knock was a novelty in its own right, and a kind of relief as well. All the world confessed to him. He confessed to me.

Among our bragging, ranting heroes, Peleus was the exception: a man of modesty.

They moaned and squealed, and pressed their snouts to the earth. We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

Later, Achilles sleeps next to me. Odysseus' storm has come, and the coarse fabric of the tent wall trembles with its force. I hear the stinging slap, over and over, of waves reproaching the shore. He stirs and the air stirs with him, bearing the musk-sweet smell of his body. I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?

Not everything may be foreseen. Most gods and mortals have lives that are tied to nothing; they tangle and wend now here, now there, according to no set plan. But then there are those who wear their destinies like nooses, whose lives run straight as planks, however they try to twist. It is these that our prophets may see.

For I will seen you torn down, Father, before I will be jailed for your convenience any longer.' His rage was so hot the air bent and wavered around him. 'I can end you with a thought.' It was my oldest fear, that white annihilation. I felt it shiver through me. But enough. At last, enough.

I had not fooled myself with false hope. I was a goddess, and he was a mortal, and 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.

Brides, nymphs were called, but that is not really how the world saw us. We were an endless feast laid out upon a table, beautiful and renewing. And so very bad at getting away.

I had the impulse to look over my shoulder, to make sure he was not striding across the sky already, his gilded arrow pointed at my heart. But there was something in me that was sick of fear and awe, of gazing at the heavens and wondering what someone would allow me. 'Come in,' I said, and led him through my door.

Though the rooms were deserted, there was no speck of dust, and I would learn that none could cross the marble threshold. However I tracked upon it, the floor was always clean, the tables gleaming. The ashes vanished from the fireplace, the dishes washed themselves, and the firewood regrew overnight.

He had sat at my hearth showing no hint of anything but charm and smiles. What resolve that must have taken, what vigilant will. But no man is infinite.

I would know him in death and in the end of the world.