Madeline Miller Quotes

This was a man who moved like the gods were watching: every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector

You are a better man than I.

I could not make him a god," she says. Her jagged voice, rich with grief.
/But you made him./

When he talked, he was lawyer and bard and crossroads charlatan at once, arguing his case, entertaining, pulling back the veil to show you the secrets of the world. It was not just his words, though they were clever enough. It was everything together: his face, his gestures, the sliding tones of his voice. I would say it was like a spell he cast, but there was no spell I knew that could equal it. The gift was his alone.

I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This, and this, and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender, or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.

That's the stone," I said, "like I told you. It can't get warm without sun. Haven't you ever touched a statue?

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.

If he is dead, I will not be far behind.

I would look at him and feel a love so sharp it seemed my flesh lay open. I made a list of all the things I would do for him. Scald off my skin. Tear out my eyes. Walk my feet to bones, if only he would be happy and well.

I will not sentence myself to such a living death.

I was giddy feeling his first kicks and I spoke to him every moment, as I crushed my herbs, as I cut clothes for his body, wove his cradle out of rushes. I imagined him walking beside me, the child and boy and man that he would be.

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

Exile might satisfy the anger of the living, but it did not appease the dead.

I have aged. When I look in my polished bronze mirror, there are lines upon my face. I am thickened too and my skin has begun growing loose. I cut myself with my herbs and the scars stay. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I am vain and dissatisfied. But I do not wish myself back. Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.

It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

What's amazing to me is how many of the issues facing women in the ancient world still linger today. Take Odysseus' wife, Penelope, a brilliant, resourceful woman who ends up in a terrible situation: in her husband's absence, she is being held hostage in her own home by men who claim to be courting her. She tries to make them leave, but because she's a woman they refuse, blaming their bad behavior on her desirability.

But I liked it, as if his words were a secret. A thing that looked like a stone, but inside was a seed.
[…]
I was nothing, a stone.

Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.

I could feel his power reaching for my secrets. In the old days, I would have rushed forth with a brimming cup of answers, to give him all he wanted. But I was not the same as I had been. I owed him nothing. He would have of me only what I wanted to give.

Still? I have never understood why helping mortals made Zeus so angry."
"Tell me," he said, "who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one?"
"A happy one, of course."
"Wrong," he said. "A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy you a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred."
"But surely," I said, "you have to reward him eventually. Otherwise, he will stop offering."
"Oh, you would be surprised how long he will go on. But yes, in the end, it's best to give him something. Then he will be happy again. And you can start over."
"So this is how Olympians spend their days. Thinking of ways to make men miserable.

I had stood beside my father's light. I had held Aeëtes in my arms, and my bed was heaped with thick-wooled blankets woven by immortal hands. But it was not until that moment that I think I had ever been warm.

How many of us would be granted pardon if our true hearts were known?

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.
All my life, I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal's voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.

He smiled at me, and I saw the lines where other smiles had been.

You dare to threaten me?"
These gods, I thought. They always say the same thing.
"I do.

It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

Achilles' eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. I wish he had let you all die.

I felt the currents move. The grains of sand whispered against each other. His wings were lifting. The darkness around us shimmered with clouds of his gilded blood. Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.

Then, child, make another.

The scars themselves I offered to wipe away. He shook his head. "How would I know myself?

There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.

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 he was to me.

Timidity creates nothing.

I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me.

Achilles makes a sound like choking. "There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw." His spearpoint flies in a dark whirlwind, bright as the evening-star, to catch the hollow at Hector's throat.

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.

Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.

I have walked in the blackest deeps. You cannot guess what spells I have cast, what poisons I have gathered to protect myself against you, how your power may rebound upon your head. Who knows what is in me? Will you find out?

What has Hector ever done to me?

Hermes was watching me, his head cocked like a curious bird. He was waiting for my reaction. Would I be skimmed milk for crying, or a harpy with a heart of stone? There was nothing between. Anything else did not fit cleanly in the laughing tale he wanted to spin of it.
Pg 86

When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.

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, for it would end, and bring me my child. My son. For whether by witchcraft or prophetic blood, that is what I knew he was. He grew, and his fragility grew with him. I had never been so glad of my immortal flesh, layered like armor around him. I was giddy feeling his first kicks and I spoke to him every moment, as I crushed my herbs, as I cut clothes for his body, wove his cradle out of rushes. I imagined him walking beside me, the child and boy and man that he would be. I would show him all the wonders I had gathered for him, this island and its sky, the fruits and sheep, the waves and lions. The perfect solitude that would never be loneliness again. I touched my hand to my belly. Your father said once that he wanted more children, but that is not why you live. You are for me.

I wish he had let you all die

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.

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

I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.

Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?

I wished Odysseus were there so I could ask him: but how did the king get that man to help him, the one who had struck him so deep?

The answer that came to me was from a different tale. Long ago, in my wide bed, I had asked Odysseus: "What did you do? When you could not make Achilles and Agamemnon listen?"

He'd smiled in the firelight. "That is easy. You make a plan in which they do not.

Even here, behind the darkness of my eyelids, I cannot name the thing I hope for.

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.

Do not try to take my regret from me.

As it turned out, I did kill pigs that night after all.

And her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.

Bold action and bold manner are not the same.

I stepped into those woods and my life began.

I waited beside my son, but he scarcely knew it. His eyes had found the horizon, that seam of waves and sky.

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.

Children of gods always came to their strength faster than mortals. He 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.

Swear it.
Why me?
Because you're the reason.

I had walked the earth for a hundred generations, yet I was still a child to myself.

And perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don't fucking kill myself of boredom.

Perhaps such things pass for virtue among the gods. But how is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. Would you make him another Pyrrhus? Let the stories of him be something more.

The very dull truth is that writing love scenes is the same as writing other scenes - your job is to be fully engaged in the character's experience. What does this mean to them? How are they changed by it, or not? I remember being a little nervous, as I am when writing any high-stakes, intense scene (death, sex, grief, joy).

He was another knife I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.

It was a trick of his, to set a sentence out like a plate on a table and see what you would put on it.

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.

They gave her to a mortal, trying to shackle the child's power. Dilute him with humanity, diminish him.

Who was he if not destined for fame?

A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy you a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred.

Once when I was young I asked what mortals looked like. My father said, "You may say they are shaped like us, but only as the worm is shaped like the whale.

The greater the monument, the greater the man. The stone the Greeks quarry for his grave is huge and white, stretching up to the sky. A C H I L L E S, it reads. It will stand for him, and speak to all who pass: he lived and died, and lives again in memory.

When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.

Name one hero who was happy.

His eyes were discs of ignited gold, but I did not look away. 'If I do this thing,' he said, 'it is the last I will ever do for you. Do not come begging again.'

'Father,' I said, 'I never will. I leave this place tomorrow.'

He would not ask where, he would not even wonder. So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.

'You have always been the worst of my children,' he said. 'Be sure you do not dishonour me.'
'I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.'

His body was rigid with wrath. He looked as though he had swallowed a stone, and it choked him.
'Give mother my greetings,' I said.
His jaw bit down and he was gone.

It was our weakness that drew the war out, not her strength.

When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

Name one hero who was happy."
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it

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.

And when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost vicious

It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.

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.

Other men fought bravely, but they flinched from war's true nature. Only I had the stomach to see what must be done... You promise mercy to spies so they will spill their story, then you kill them after. You beat men who mutiny. You coax heroes from their sulks. You keep spirits high at any cost. When the great hero Philoctetes was crippled with a festering wound, the men lost their courage over it. So I left him behind on an island and claimed he had asked to be left. Ajax and Agamemnon would have battered at Troy's locked gates until they died, but it was I who thought of the trick of the giant horse, and I spun the story that convinced the Trojans to pull it inside. I crouched in the wooden belly with my picked men, and if any shook with terror and strain, I put my knife to his throat. When the Trojans finally slept, we tore through them like foxes among soft-feathered chicks.

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.

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.

Achilles was looking at me. "Your hair never quite lies flat, here." He touched my head, just behind my ear. "I don't think I've ever told you how I like it."
My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. "You haven't," I said.
"I should have." His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. "What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?"
"No," I said.
"This surely then." His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. "Have I told you of this?"
"That you have told me." My breath caught a little as I spoke.
"And what of this?" His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. "Have I spoken of it?"
"You have."
"And this? Surely I would not have forgotten this." His cat's smile. "Tell me I did not."
"You did not."
"There is this too." His hand was ceaseless now. "I know I have told you of this."
I closed my eyes. "Tell me again," I said.

Father, are we late enough to kill astronomers?

The truce between the gods held only because Titans and Olympians each kept to their sphere.

I failed him, yet he is a sweet wonder of this world.

I pressed as close as he would let me, like a lizard to noonday rocks.

He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes.

He is lost in Agamemnon and Odysseus' wily double meanings, their lies and games of power. They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.

Why should he be peaceful? I never was, nor his father either, when I knew him. The difference was that he was not afraid to be burnt.

Do not let what you have gained this day be so easily lost.

I wanted to roll on the grass like a dog.

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.

You cannot guess what spells I have cast, what poisons I have gathered to protect myself against you, how your power may rebound upon your head. Who knows that is in me? Will you find out?

Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.

You do not command me. The silence went on and on, painful and breathless, like a singer overreaching to finish a phrase. Then,

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.

Nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.