Top 500 Madeline Miller Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “She was a goddess of torment and understood the eloquence of violence.”

— Madeline Miller

352. “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

353. “This is what all mortals ask first, in disbelief, shock, fear. Is there no exception for me?”

— Madeline Miller

354. “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.”

— Madeline Miller

355. “There are too many of them,” he said. “It’s simpler if they just remember me.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

357. “That is my mother’s lyre,′ I almost said. The words were in my mouth, and behind them others crowded close. ‘That is my lyre.”

— Madeline Miller

358. “She wears a cape, and it is this that undoes her – that allows her to be pulled, limbs light and poised as a cat, from her horse.”

— Madeline Miller

359. “Frail she was, but crafty, with a mind like a spike-toothed.”

— Madeline Miller

360. “How long would I cling to that handful of minutes, trying to cover myself as if with some threadbare blanket?”

— Madeline Miller

361. “I had not thought him so bold. But of course he was. Artist, creator, inventor, the greatest the world had known.”

— Madeline Miller

362. “I do not think anyone can say what is in someone else.”

— Madeline Miller

363. “In grief, men must help each other, though they are enemies.”

— Madeline Miller

364. “So that is what I must hope for then? That one day I will see my father in the underworld and he will be sorry?” It is better than some of us get. But I held my peace. He had a right to his anger, and it was not my place to try to take it.”

— Madeline Miller

365. “Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”

— Madeline Miller

366. “Several things happened at once then. Achilles – for it was Achilles – dropped Deidameia’s hand and flung himself joyously at me, knocking me backwards with the force of his embrace.”

— Madeline Miller

367. “Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.”

— Madeline Miller

368. “Our mouths opened under each other, and the warmth of his sweetened throat poured into mine. I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movements of his lips. It was a miracle.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

370. “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.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

372. “You have been tame your whole life, and now you will be sorry. Yes Father, yes Father – see what it gets you.”

— Madeline Miller

373. “There are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth.”

— Madeline Miller

374. “A look passed across her face. I might have called it rage, if it were not pointed so inward.”

— Madeline Miller

375. “An oath by the River Styx would hold even Zeus himself.”

— Madeline Miller

376. “Perhaps she thought I hated her. She did not know that I almost asked him, a hundred times, to be a little kinder to her. You do not have to humiliate her so thoroughly, I thought. But it was not kindness he lacked; it was interest.”

— Madeline Miller

377. “You are a better man than I.”

— Madeline Miller

378. “At least, I told myself, it was not their brothers, who would have bragged and fought and hunted down my wolves. But of course that was never a real danger. Sons were not punished.”

— Madeline Miller

379. “I wish he had let you all die.”

— Madeline Miller

380. “Less than a month we had spent together, yet he seemed to know me better than anyone who had ever walked the world.”

— Madeline Miller

381. “She seemed to fit into the air like a jewel in its crown.”

— Madeline Miller

382. “Telemachus the Just,” I said. He smiled. “That’s what they call you if you’re so boring they can’t think of something better.”

— Madeline Miller

383. “His words were simple. They had no art to them, which of course was also art.”

— Madeline Miller

384. “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.”

— Madeline Miller

385. “It is not fair,” I said. “It cannot be.” “Those are two different things,” my grandmother said.”

— Madeline Miller

386. “He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill.”

— Madeline Miller

387. “All I knew was that I hated her. For I was like any dull ass who has ever loved someone who loved another. I thought: if only she were gone, it would change everything.”

— Madeline Miller

388. “I tracked my father’s burning chariot across the sky. Well? What do you have to say to me? You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you.”

— Madeline Miller

389. “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.”

— Madeline Miller

390. “I fixed my gaze on his. “Try,” I said. For a long moment he stared at me. Then he turned and twitched off through the brush. I tell you, for all my spells, that was the first time I truly felt myself a witch...”

— Madeline Miller

391. “I do not plan to tell her. Telegonus, these are gods. You must keep your tricks close or you will lose everything.”

— Madeline Miller

392. “The numbness now is merciful. A last few moments of it. Then, the fall.”

— Madeline Miller

393. “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 it means to be alive.”

— Madeline Miller

394. “Though the rooms were deserted, there was no speck of dust, and I would learn that none could cross the marble threshold. However I tracked upon it, the floor was always clean, the tables gleaming. The ashes vanished from the fireplace, the dishes washed themselves, and the firewood regrew overnight.”

— Madeline Miller

395. “At least, I thought in those early days, once I cast a spell, I would not have to learn it again. But even that was not true.”

— Madeline Miller

396. “He wanted to go. He had always wanted to go, from the moment he was born into my arms.”

— Madeline Miller

397. “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

398. “Come, make us into magic.”

— Madeline Miller

399. “For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?”

— Madeline Miller

400. “He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight.”

— Madeline Miller