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

402. “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

403. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

405. “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. But he surprised me by continuing.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

407. “Even here, behind the darkness of my eyelids, I cannot name the thing I hope for.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

410. “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

411. “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

412. “Why should he be peaceful? I never was, nor his father either, when I knew him. The difference was that he was not afraid to be burnt.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

418. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

421. “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

422. “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

423. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

426. “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

427. “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

428. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

430. “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

431. “I did not think-″ He could not say it, could not put all his hopes into the proper words. I did not think you could love me. I did not think I could be enough for you to stay. You are the earth, the sky, the sun and the stars and I cannot fathom all that you are, all that you mean to me.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

433. “Witches are not so delicate.”

— Madeline Miller

434. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

436. “Not a sound, but a sort of silence, a faint hum like the space between note and note in a song.”

— Madeline Miller

437. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

439. “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

440. “No one would remember his glory, or his honesty, or his beauty; all his gold would be turned to ashes and ruin.”

— Madeline Miller

441. “Her calmness enraged me.”

— Madeline Miller

442. “I knew how pleasure looked on him.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

444. “Indeed, he seemed utterly unaware of his effect on the boys around him.”

— Madeline Miller

445. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

447. “If I were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to live alone.”

— Madeline Miller

448. “Into such miseries, your son came. Bright as a sunrise, sweet as ripe fruit.”

— Madeline Miller

449. “There was a sort of innocence to him, I thought. I do not mean this as the poets mean it: a virtue to be broken by the story’s end, or else upheld at greatest cost. Nor do I mean that he was foolish or guileless. I mean that he was made only of himself, without the dregs that clog the rest of us.”

— Madeline Miller

450. “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