Quotes from book

The Song of Achilles

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

“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.”

“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?”

“Name one hero who was happy.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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?”

“There is no honour in betraying your friends.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons.”

“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.”