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Quotes About Loss

I wish he had let you all die
~ Madeline Miller
All those years I had spent with them were like a stone tossed in a pool. Already, the ripples were gone.
~ Madeline Miller
Some walked hand in hand with those they had loved in life; some waited, secure that one day their beloved would come. And for those who had not loved, whose lives had been filled with pain and horror, there was the black river Lethe, where one might drink and forget. Some consolation.
~ Madeline Miller
Achilles weeps. He craddles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name. I see his face as if through water, as a fish sees the sun. His tears fall, but I cannot wipe them away. This is my element now, the half-life of the unburied spirit.
~ Madeline Miller
He weeps as he lifts me into our bed. My corpse sags; it's warm in the tent, and the smell will come soon. He does not seem to care. He holds me all night long, pressing my cold hands to his mouth.
~ Madeline Miller
Se inclinó hacia mí, envuelto en bronce, oliendo a sudor, cuero y metal. Cerré los ojos al sentir sobre mis labios los suyos, la única parte aún suave de Aquiles. Después de marcho.
~ Madeline Miller
The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him.
~ Madeline Miller
When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
~ Madeline Miller
We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?
~ Madeline Miller
Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. His ashes settle among mine, and I feel nothing.
~ Madeline Miller
The never ending ache of love and sorrow
~ Madeline Miller
whatever tears might have been in me for that lost dream had been parched away.
~ Madeline Miller
I was a gray space filled up with nothing. What could I say? One of us must grieve. I would not let it be him.
~ Madeline Miller
Will I feel his ashes as they fall against mine?
~ Madeline Miller
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.
~ Madeline Miller
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.
~ Madeline Miller
Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.
~ Madeline Miller
The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward of a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream. Every day, without him.
~ Madeline Miller
And perhaps, it is the greatest grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone Do you think? Perhaps, Achilles admitted
~ Madeline Miller
would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.
~ Madeline Miller
The voices of the dead were said to have the power to make the living mad.
~ Madeline Miller
Daedalus did not long outlive his son. His limbs turned gray and nerveless, and all his strength was transmuted into smoke. I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.
~ Madeline Miller
I lay on the dirt, weeping. Those flowers had made him his true being, which was blue, and finned, and not mine. I thought I would die of such pain, which was not like the sinking numbness Aeëtes had left behind, but sharp and fierce as a blade through my chest. 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.
~ Madeline Miller
The yearning for him is like hunger, hollowing me. Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. His ashes settle among mine, and I feel nothing.
~ Madeline Miller