Top 500 Madeline Miller Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “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

402. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

404. “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

405. “The voices of the dead were said to have the power to make the living mad.”

— Madeline Miller

406. “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

407. “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

408. “Achilles’ miracle was his speed. His spear, as he began the first pass, moved faster than my eye could follow. It whirled, flashing forward, reversed, then flashed behind. The shaft seemed to flow in his hands, the dark gray point flickered like a snake’s tongue. His feet beat the ground like a dancer, never still.”

— Madeline Miller

409. “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

410. “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

411. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

414. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

416. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

418. “Come, make us into magic.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

420. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

422. “I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell, I would know him blind, by the way his breath came and his feet struck to earth.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

426. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

428. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

430. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

432. “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

433. “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

434. “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

435. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

438. “You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure you do not dishonor me.” “I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.” His body was rigid with wrath. He looked as though he had swallowed a stone, and it choked him. “Give Mother my greetings,” I said. His jaw bit down and he was gone.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller

442. “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

443. “The yearning for him is like hunger, hollowing me.”

— Madeline Miller

444. “I brought a withered flower back to life. I banished flies from my house. I made the cherries blossom out of season and turned the fire vivid green. If Aeetes had been there, he would have choked on his beard to see such kitchen tricks. Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.”

— Madeline Miller

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

— 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. “Great gods smell fear like sharks smell blood, and they will devour you for it just the same.”

— Madeline Miller

448. “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

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

— Madeline Miller

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

— Madeline Miller