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Madeline Miller Quotes

Madeline Miller is an American novelist, whose debut novel was The Song of Achilles. Miller spent ten years writing the book while she worked as a Latin and Greek teacher. The novel, set in Greece, tells the story of the love between Achilles and Patroclus. The Song of Achilles won the Orange Prize for Fiction, making Miller the fourth debut novelist to win the prize.

✵ 24. July 1978  •  Other names مدلین میلر
Madeline Miller photo

Works

The Song of Achilles
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller: 55 quotes33 likes

Famous Madeline Miller Quotes

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. So many moments of happiness, crowding forward.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller Quotes about God

“There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“She wants you to be a god," I told him.
"I know." His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller: Trending quotes

“Name one hero who was happy.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller Quotes

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

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

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I am made of memories.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Bring him back to me,' he told them.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“You can use a spear for a walking stick, but it will not change its nature.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Variant: 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.
Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I am air and thought and can do nothing.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: 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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“… nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Go," She says. "He waits for you.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I almost did not come, because I did not want to leave it."
He smiled. "Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere."
The sun sank below Pelion's ridges, and we were happy.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Variant: I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Her mouth was a gash of red, like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloody and oracular. Behind it her teeth shone sharp and white as bone.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know is in dark or disguise, told myself. I would know it even in madness.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“There is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.”

I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,” I said.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“and when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost vicious”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“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 book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“The flames surround me, and I feel myself slipping further from life, thinning to only the faintest shiver in the air. I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

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

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Achilles makes a sound like choking. “There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.” His spearpoint flies in a dark whirlwind, bright as the evening-star, to catch the hollow at Hector’s throat.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“There is no honour in betraying your friends.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“That is — your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

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