Madeline Miller Quotes

Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller is an American novelist, author of The Song of Achilles and Circe. Miller spent ten years writing The Song of Achilles while she worked as a teacher of Latin and Greek. (Madeline Miller Quotes)

“A golden cage is still a cage.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“A surety rose in me, lodged in my throat. I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. “What has Hector ever done to me?”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Amusement flashed in his eyes. I had fed off that look once, when I had been starving and thought such crumbs a feast.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“Bold action and bold manner are not the same.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But of course I could not die. I would live on, through each scalding moment to the next. This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But there was no wound she could give me that I had not already given myself.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Children are not sacks of grain, to be substituted one for the other.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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
The Song of Achilles

“Death’s Brother is the name that poets give to sleep. For most men those dark hours are a reminder of the stillness that waits at the end of days.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“Do not listen to your enemy, Odysseus had once told me. Look at them. It will tell you everything.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Every moment of my peace was a lie, for it came only at the gods’ pleasure. No matter what I did, how long I lived, at a whim they would be able to reach down and do with me what they wished.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Fear of failure was the worst thing for any spell.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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 Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

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

“He liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He was another knife I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as wisdom.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“However gold he shines, do not forget his fire.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I am made of memories.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I come to say that you may go, and I will help you. But there must be conditions.” Did he know how much those words cost me? I do not think he could. It is youth’s gift not to feel its debts.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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
The Song of Achilles

“I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I had no right to claim him, I know it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I remembered what Odysseus had said about her once. That she never went astray, never made an error. I had been jealous then. Now I thought: what a burden. What an ugly weight upon your back.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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
The Song of Achilles

“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
Circe

“I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Imagine such a happiness. Like drinking wine your whole life, instead of water. Like having Achilles to run your errands.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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
The Song of Achilles

“Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“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
The Song of Achilles

“It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks?”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It was their favorite bitter joke: those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Odysseus had told me once that half of a duel is maneuvering around the sun, trying to get the light to stab at your enemy’s eyes. But I was the blood of Helios, and no light could blind me.” (Madeline Miller Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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
Circe

“Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“She moved like a wave herself, graceful, but with relentless, driving motion.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Sorcery cannot be taught. You find it yourself, or you do not.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The grudges of gods are as deathless as their flesh.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The truth is, men make terrible pigs.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The words slid into me, smooth as a polished knife.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The world is an ugly place. We must live in it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“There is no honour in betraying your friends.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“There was nothing clever to say, so I said something foolish.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to know what he had not said.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.” (Madeline Miller Quotes)
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“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
The Song of Achilles

“What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another. We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory… We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“When he speaks at last, his voice is weary, and defeated. He doesn’t know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won’t light.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“When there is rot in the walls, there is only one remedy.” The purple bruise at my throat was turning green at its edges. I pressed it, felt the splintered ache. Tear down, I thought. Tear down and build again.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles

“You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.”
Madeline Miller
Circe