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. (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

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?

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

I feel like I could eat the world raw.

Madeline Miller

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.

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

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.

Madeline Miller

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

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)

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

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

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

Madeline Miller

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?

Madeline Miller

She wants you to be a god," I told him. "I know." His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.

Madeline Miller