Madeline Miller Quotes

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

Perhaps it is the greatest grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. “Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.

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.

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?

People are people, whatever age they're living in. The circumstances may have changed - we go to war with planes instead of chariots - but experiences of grief, longing, rage and love remain the same.

He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.

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.

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

I feel like I could eat the world raw.

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.

My mind is filled with cataclysm and apocalypse. I wish for earthquakes, eruptions, flood.

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.

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.

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

I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

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.

Life for women in ancient Greece was hard - you had to fight for every inch of ground you got. Both Thetis and Briseis are strong, passionate women and in another time and place their lives would have been very different. Part of the tragedy of their characters is how much they have to offer - and how little of that they get to realize. Thetis spends the whole novel fighting the limitations placed on her, desperately trying to eke out the best she can from a bad situation. This makes her fierce and terrifying.

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

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

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

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.

In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place