Quotes from Madeline Miller

There was a sort of innocence to him, I thought. I do not mean this as the poets mean it: a virtue to be broken by the story's end, or else upheld at greatest cost. Nor do I mean that he was foolish or guileless. I mean that he was made only of himself, without the dregs that clog the rest of us.

All around me are men carrying fallen comrades, limping on makeshift crutches, or crawling through the sand, dragging broken limbs behind them. I know them—their torsos full of scars my ointments have packed and sealed. Their flash that my fingers have cleaned or iron and bronze and blood. Their faces that have joked, thanked, grimaced as I worked over them. Now these men are ruined again, pulpy with blood and split bone. Because of him. Because of me.

ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS.

Her mouth tightens. 'Have you no more memories?'

I want to shatter the cold mask of stone that has slipped down over the boy I knew.

Gli dei non permettono a nessuno di essere famoso e felice. [...] Ma voglio confidarti un segreto. [...] Io sarò il primo. [...] Giuralo." "Perché io?" "Perché sei tu la ragione.

It is true. But there is more, and worse that he has not said." The words came tonelessly, as a statue would speak them. "If you go to Troy, you will never return. You will die a young man there.

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

I hoped that you would come," he said. My stomach rolled, awash with nerves and relief at once. I drank him in, the bright hair, the soft curve of his lips upwards. My joy was so sharp I did not dare to breathe.

Mas, em uma vida solitária, há raros momentos em que outra alma mergulha perto da sua, como estrelas roçando a terra uma vez por ano. Ele foi pra min uma dessas constelações

Bir kayal???n tepesindeki bir ?ahin gibi harekete haz?r oldu?umu hissediyordum. Pençelerim hala kayay? tutuyordu ama zihnim havalanm??t?.

My body felt hollow in its relief, as if a storm had gone through.

coloro che erano morti avrebbero continuato a vivere almeno nel ricordo

Odysseus looks at the young man's implacable face. "I have done my best," he says. "Let it be remembered I tried." I remember.

i did not have the fear that i spoke too much. i did not have to worry that i was too slender or too slow.

I will go," he said. "I will go to Troy.

Is she unhappy? But he would have laughed at such a mewling question, and he would have been right to. My witchcraft, the island, my lion, all of them sprang from her transformation. There was no honesty in regretting what had given me my life.

There is no law that says the gods must be fair.

So do I," said Achilles. "I have heard that you taught Heracles and Jason, thick-fingered though they were. Is it true?

There are too many of them. It's simpler if they just remember me.

You are a fool," she said. "Get down. Your halfwit death will not save him.

Such were my years then. I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I'm afraid I might have floated on, believing those dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days.

Aquiles pulsó otra vez las cuerdas y de ellas brotó otra vez la música. En esta ocasión también cantó, pergeñando un acompañamiento con su clara y rica voz de tiple. Echó la cabeza ligeramente hacia atrás, dejando expuesta la fina piel del cuello, suave como la de un cervato. Una leve sonrisa le aupaba la comisura izquierda de la boca. Me incliné hacia delante casi sin pretenderlo.

his famed and well-worn loins.