Quotes from book

The Song of Achilles

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

“Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“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?”

“It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.”

“Go," She says. "He waits for you.”

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

“We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.”

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

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

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