Madeline Miller Quotes

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. ~ Madeline Miller

And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again. ~ Madeline Miller

Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ~ Madeline Miller

This and this and this. ~ Madeline Miller

What was I truly? In the end, I could not bear to know. ~ Madeline Miller

I fucked a sacred bull, all right? Now get the thread. ~ Madeline Miller

Our dead come for their vengeance regardless of witnesses ~ Madeline Miller

Let us consider," I said, "a boatload of sailors. Among them, some are undoubtedly worse than others. Some exult in rape and piracy, but others are newly come to it and scarcely have their beards. Some would never imagine robbery, except that their families are starving. Some feel shame after, some do it only because their captain commands it, and because they have the crowd of other men there, to hide among."

"And so," he said, "which do you change, and which do you let go?"

"I change them all," I said. "They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?"

He had smiled and lifted his cup to me. "Lady, you and I are in accord. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

...he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

Every day makes me old," she said. "I do not have your years to waste. As for that safety, I do not want it. It is only more chains. Let them come at me if they dare. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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

Odysseus had told me once that half of a duel is maneuvering around the sun, trying to get the light to stab at your enemy's eyes. But I was the blood of Helios, and no light could blind me. ~ Madeline Miller

I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ~ ― Madeline Miller, Circe

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

If I were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to live alone. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

There is no honour in betraying your friends. ~ Madeline Miller

This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. 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. ~ Madeline Miller

He wanted to go. He had always wanted to go, from the moment he was born into my arms. ~ Madeline Miller

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

Bold action and bold manner are not the same. ~ Madeline Miller

There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ~ Madeline Miller

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

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone. ~ Madeline Miller

Surely there was some divine trick to make the hours go faster. To let them slip past unseen, to sleep for years, so that when I woke again the world would be new. I closed my eyes. Through the window I heard the bees singing in the garden. My lion's tail beat against the stones. An eternity later, when I opened my eyes, the shadows had not even moved. ~ Madeline Miller

Peleus acknowledged this. "Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?"
"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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

Do you think Aristos Achaion fights in hopeless wars? ~ Madeline Miller

I asked her to protect you," he said. "After. ~ Madeline Miller

Father, are we late enough to kill astronomers? ~ Madeline Miller

My uncles rubbed their hands and smiled back. They went away, bent over their hopes, thinking what they could not wait to do when Titans ruled again.

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

Nothing is empty void, while air is what fills all else. It is breath and life and spirit, the words we speak. ~ Madeline Miller

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

And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

But I would have the memory be worthy of the man. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

I felt myself tremble, but I would not let him see it. Great gods smell fear like sharks smell blood, and they will devour you for it jus the same. ~ Madeline Miller

Go," She says. "He waits for you. ~ Madeline Miller

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

At first it is strange. I am used to keeping him from her, to hoarding him for myself. But the memories well up like spring-water, faster than I can hold them back. They do not come as words, but like dreams, rising as scent from the rain-wet earth. This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in the summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. ~ Madeline Miller

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? ~ Madeline Miller

Monsters are a boon to gods. Imagine all the prayers.
pg86 ~ Madeline Miller

Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you. ~ Madeline Miller

Name one hero who was happy. ~ Madeline Miller

The heat rose up my neck, wrapped fingers over my face. His hair fell around me, and I could smell nothing but him. The grain of his lips seemed to rest a hairsbreadth from mine. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

It turned out that she did know a little Greek. A few words that her father had picked up and taught her when he heard the army was coming. Mercy was one. Yes and please and what do you want? A father, teaching his daughter how to be a slave. ~ Madeline Miller

Day upon patient day, you must throw out your errors and begin again. So why did I not mind? [...] For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. ~ Madeline Miller

What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity? ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

Mother? Can you not be happy for me?"
No, I wanted to shout at him. No, I cannot. Why must I be happy? Is it not enough that I let you go? ~ Madeline Miller

Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest. I would give my life again to make it so ~ Madeline Miller

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 ~ Madeline Miller

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun. ~ Madeline Miller

I am air and thought and can do nothing. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter. ~ Madeline Miller

You will pardon me if I do not rejoice at being one in a long line of villains. ~ Madeline Miller

That is - your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved. ~ Madeline Miller

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

...all the grace I saw then was his own: simple, unadorned, glorious. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

It is funny,' she said, 'That even after all this time, you still believe you should be rewarded, just because you have been obedient. I thought you would have learned that lesson in your father's halls. None shrank and simpered as you did, and yet the great Helios stepped on you all the faster, because you were already crouched at his feet.' She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her. 'Let me tell you the truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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

A look passed across her face. I might have called it rage, if it were not pointed so inward. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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. ~ Madeline Miller

It was as if we found the still heart of the universe. Nothing moved except for us. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. Beside me, my husband's pulse beats at his throat; in their beds, my children's skin shows every faintest scratch. A breeze would blow them over, and the world is filled with more than breezes: diseases and disasters, monsters and pain in a thousand variations. I do not forget either my father and his kind hanging over us, bright and sharp as swords, aimed at our tearing flesh. If they do not fall on us in spite and malice, then they will fall by accident or whim. My breath fights in my throat. How can I live on beneath such a burden of doom? I rise then and go to my herbs. I create something, I transform something. My witchcraft is as strong as ever, stronger. This too is good fortune. How many have such power and leisure and defense as I do? Telemachus comes from our bed to find me. He sits with me in the greensmelling darkness, holding my hand. Our faces are both lined now, marked with our years. Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child. I have heard him say them to our daughters, when he rocked them back to sleep from a nightmare, when he dressed their small cuts, soothed whatever stung. His skin is familiar as my own beneath my fingers. I listen to his breath, warm upon the night air, and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean it does not hurt. He does not mean we are not frightened. Only that: we ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

His face was like a quiet pool that would hold everything safe in its depth. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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

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 ~ Madeline Miller

Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as wisdom. ~ Madeline Miller

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