Mathilde > Mathilde's Quotes

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

“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

“So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.

“You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure to not dishonor me.”

“I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.”
― 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

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

“Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect, and age. It was their fate, Prometheus had told me, the story they all shared. No matter how vivid they were in life, no matter how brilliant, no matter the wonders they made, they came to dust and smoke. Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the bright air until the stars went dark.”
― 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

“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

“Then when G-d asks [Cain], 'Where is your brother
Abel?' he arrogantly responds, 'I do not know. Am I
my brother's keeper?' In essence, the entire Bible is
written as an affirmative response to this question.”
― Joseph Telushkin