Top 500 Madeline Miller Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “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

402. “Come, make us into magic.”

— Madeline Miller

403. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

405. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

407. “The ship’s boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy.”

— Madeline Miller

408. “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. However often I had used an herb before, each cutting had its own character. One rose would give up its secrets if it were ground, another must be pressed, a third steeped. Each spell was a montain to be climbed anew. All I could carry with me from last time was the knowedge that it could be done.”

— Madeline Miller

409. “But guilt and shame, remorse, ambivalence, those are foreign countries to our kind, which must be learned stone by stone.”

— Madeline Miller

410. “There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to know what he had not said.”

— Madeline Miller

411. “He had no chance, really. He was only flesh.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

413. “We gods eat as we sleep: because it is one of life’s great pleasures, not because we have to.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

415. “I can smell him. The oils that he uses on his feet, pomegranate and sandalwood; the salt of clean sweat; the hyacinths we had walked through, their scent crushed against our ankles. Beneath it all is his own smell, the one I go to sleep with, the one I wake up to. I cannot describe it. It is sweet, but not just. It is strong but not too strong. Something like almond, but that still is not right. Sometimes, after we have wrestled, my own skin smells like it.”

— Madeline Miller

416. “Good. I wanted him angry. He would make mistakes that way.”

— Madeline Miller

417. “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.”

— Madeline Miller

418. “I did not see the worst of him. Even at his best he was not an easy man. But he was a friend to me in a time when I needed one.”

— Madeline Miller

419. “They gave her to a mortal, trying to shackle the child’s power. Dilute him with humanity, diminish him.”

— Madeline Miller

420. “Among our bragging, ranting heroes, Peleus was the exception: a man of modesty.”

— Madeline Miller

421. “True is what men believe, and they believe this of you.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

424. “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

425. “I heard you were here.” A clear voice like ice-melted streams.”

— Madeline Miller

426. “That is – your friend?” “Philtatos,” Achilles says, sharply. Most beloved.“Best of men, and slaughtered by your son.”

— Madeline Miller

427. “It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.”

— Madeline Miller

428. “I would not be able to bear it, I thought. I would seize him, hold him to me. But I only embraced him a final time, pressing hard as if to set him into my skin. Then I watched him take his place among them, stand upon the prow, outlined against the sky. The light darted silver from the waves. I lifted my hand in blessing and gave my son to the world.”

— Madeline Miller

429. “But I would have the memory be worthy of the man.”

— Madeline Miller

430. “This, out of all of it, was perhaps the strangest: that he was their commander now. He would be expected to know them all, their names and armor and stories. He no longer belongs to me alone.”

— Madeline Miller

431. “I do not know this man, I think. He is no one I have ever seen before. My rage towards him is hot as blood. I will never forgive him. I imagine tearing down our tent, smashing the lyre, stabbing myself in the stomach and bleeding to death. I want to see his face broken with grief and regret. I want to shatter the cold mask of stone that has slipped down over the boy I knew.”

— Madeline Miller

432. “The grudges of gods are as deathless as their flesh.”

— Madeline Miller

433. “What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity?”

— Madeline Miller

434. “But I say this so that you understand what I was up against: that I was worth more to her sick than I was well.”

— Madeline Miller

435. “However I pretended I could conceal my thoughts as well as he, I knew it was not true. He would see down to my bones. He would gather my weaknesses up and set them with the rest of his collection, alongside Achilles’ and Ajax’s. He kept them on his person as other men keep their knives.”

— Madeline Miller

436. “Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun, and the moon paced her weary course.”

— Madeline Miller

437. “He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain.”

— Madeline Miller

438. “Everyone looked at me, because I was the most beautiful woman in the town. I don’t say this to boast, because there is nothing in it to boast of. It was nothing I did myself.”

— Madeline Miller

439. “I haunt their dreams. Do not leave, I beg them. Not until you have given me peace. But if anyone hears, they do not answer.”

— Madeline Miller

440. “He ran from me whenever I wanted him, but the moment I took up my work, he would drum at the floor with his heels, crying for my attention.”

— Madeline Miller

441. “No hay honor en traicionar a los amigos.”

— Madeline Miller

442. “Seit Hunderten von Generationen war ich nun schon auf der Erde – und war doch immer noch ein Kind.”

— Madeline Miller

443. “Achilles smiles as his face strikes the earth.”

— Madeline Miller

444. “Witches are not so delicate.”

— Madeline Miller

445. “It was true. Odysseus’ favorite task was the sort that only had to be performed once: raiding a town, defeating a monster, finding a way inside an impenetrable city.”

— Madeline Miller

446. “When Telegonus came, I saw him eyeing me, waiting for another outburst. But I was pleasant. He should not be so surprised, I thought. I could be pleasant.”

— Madeline Miller

447. “I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it –.”

— Madeline Miller

448. “Each man or woman who passed, she knew their history and would tell it to me, for she said that you must understand people if you would rule them.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

450. “It was as if we found the still heart of the universe. Nothing moved except for us.”

— Madeline Miller