Mee > Mee's Quotes

“And if I'm alone in bed, I will go to the window, look up at the sky, and feel certain that loneliness is a lie, because the Universe is there to keep me company.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, 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, 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, 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

“Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Bring him back to me,' he told them.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

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

“I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.
The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Go," She says. "He waits for you.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

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

“This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.”
― Madeline Miller, 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, 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, The Song of Achilles

“I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, 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, 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, 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

“Later, Achilles pressed close for a final, drowsy whisper. 'If you have to go, you know I will go with you.' We slept.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He collects my ashes himself, though this is a women's duty. He puts them in a golden urn, the finest in our camp, and turns to the watching Greeks.
'When I am dead, I charged you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The greater the monument, the greater the man. The stone the Greeks quarry for his grave is huge and white, stretching up to the sky. A C H I L L E S, it reads. It will stand for him, and speak to all who pass: he lived and died, and lives again in memory.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.”
― Madeline Miller, 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, The Song of Achilles

“His fingers touched the strings and all my thoughts were displaced. The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons. It was like no music I had ever heard before. It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The problem with knowledge, is its inexhaustible craving. the more of it you have, the less you feel you know”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six

“The moral of this story is:

Beware the man who faces you unarmed.

If in his eyes you are not the target,

then you can be sure you are the weapon.”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six