Quotes from Madeline Miller

This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.

I would still be with you. But I could sleep outside, so it would not be so obvious. I do not need to attend your councils. I—' 'No. The Phthians will not care. And the others can talk all they like. I will still be Aristos Achaion.' Best of the Greeks. 'Your honor could be darkened by it." 'Then it is darkened.' His jaw shot forward, stubborn. 'They are fools if they let my glory rise or fall on this.

Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. "What has Hector ever done to me?

I am air and thought and can do nothing.

What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another. We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory… We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.

It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.

The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.

Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. ... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what is means to be alive.

He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.

As for the goddess's answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.

Witches are not so delicate.

He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?

I almost did not come, because I did not want to leave it." He smiled. "Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere." The sun sank below Pelion's ridges, and we were happy.

But of course I could not die. I would live on, through each scalding moment to the next. This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.

When he speaks at last, his voice is weary, and defeated. He doesn't know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won't light.

It was their favorite bitter joke: those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats.

Later, Achilles pressed close for a final, drowsy whisper. 'If you have to go, you know I will go with you.' We slept.

I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.

He liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it.

I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.

A surety rose in me, lodged in my throat. I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

When he was gone, would I be like Achilles, wailing over his lost lover Patroclus? I tried to picture myself running up and down the beaches, tearing at my hair, cradling some scrap of old tunic he had left behind. Crying out for the loss of half my soul. I could not see it. That knowledge brought its own sort of pain.

It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks?