Circe Quotes

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Percy tried to remember. He really did. For some reason, Annabeth and he had visited a spa and decided to destroy it. He couldn't imagine why. Maybe they hadn't like the deep-tissue massage? Maybe they'd gotten bad manicures?”
― Rick Riordan, The Son of Neptune

“But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“He liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“ "I gave up a world for you."
He glared at me, not giving me anything.
I kept right on going. "I thought, perhaps, when I learned I had powers, I might be able to use them to go home," his eyes flashed but that was all I got so I kept on going, "but not for good. My father isn't dead." Another flash. "He's alive and at home and living maybe with a fake Circe. He'll know the difference, though, I KNOW it. He's out of his mind with worry, I know that too. He's wondering where I am and if I'm okay and how to get me back. I also know that. I know that and I know that my life was good. I loved my life. I loved my home. I loved my job. I had a lot of people who loved me that loved me back." I sucked in a breath and then whispered, "But as much as your world scared me, as much as our practices repulsed me, I still chose you."
His torso jerked, it was almost imperceptible, but I caught it.
I kept at him. "I gave up my world for you, Lahn. I sat at your side through things people in my world would find loathsome and I did it with my head held high. I even felt 'pride' that I could endure, that I could be a good queen to you.......Everything I did in this fucking place, even before I fell in love with you, was for...fucking...YOU." ”
― Kristen Ashley, The Golden Dynasty

“-’Tell me’, he said, ‘who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one’?

-’A happy one, of course.’

-’Wrong. A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy yo a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred’.

-’But surely, I said, you have to reward him eventually. Otherwise he will stop offering’.

-’Oh, you would be surprised how long he will go on. But yes, in the end, it’s best to give him something. Then he will be happy again. And you can start over.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Then I whispered, “I love you, my Lahn,” and heard the swift hiss of his intake of breath. Then he buried his face in my neck and whispered back, “Loot kay hansahnalay na, my Circe.” And I love you, my Circe.”
― Kristen Ashley, The Golden Dynasty

“I did not pretend to be a mortal. I showed my lambent, yellow eyes at every turn. None of it made a difference. I was alone and a woman, that was all that mattered.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeleine Miller

“Odysseus, son of Laertes, the great traveller, prince of wiles and tricks and a thousand ways. He showed me his scars, and in return let me pretend that I had none.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.
I stepped into those woods and my life began.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I was not like them. Are you not? The voice was my uncle's, resonant and deep. Then you must think, Circe. What would they not do?”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different colour, a different foam-capped height, but always the same restless intensity pulling towards the horizon.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“But Athena had no babe, and she never would. Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as reason.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I had kept away from him for so many reasons: his mother and my son, his father and Athena. Because I was a god, and he a man. But it struck me then that at the root of all those reasons was a sort of fear. And I had never been a coward.
I reached across that breathing air between us and found him.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“…the feeling that flickered in me now was much older. There he was, his flesh laid open before me. This is something torn that I can mend.”
― Madeline Miller

“It was work, day after day of it.
Witchcraft is the same. I have laboured for centuries and still I have
not mastered it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I'm afraid I might have floated on, believing the dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I had stood beside my father's light, I had held Aeetes in my arms, and my bed was heaped with thick-woolled blankets woven by immortal hands. But it was not until that moment that I think I had ever been warm.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“His eyes narrowed, and I could see the reflexive No in them. I would come to know this type of man, jealous of his little power, to whom I was only a woman.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I had not fooled myself with false hope. I was a goddess, and he a mortal, and both of us were imprisoned. But I pressed his face into my mind, as seals are pressed in wax, so I could carry it with me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“The nymphs wafted around me. Their smothered laughter drifted down the halls. At least, I told myself, it was not their brothers, who would have bragged and fought and hunted down my wolves. But of course, that was never a real danger. Sons were not punished.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I know who you are, daughter of the sun. All that the sea touches comes to me at last in the depths. I have tasted you. I have tasted all your family. Your brother came once also seeking my power. He went away empty-handed, like all the rest. I am not such a one as you may fight.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it”
― Madeline Miller

“The only was to power for woman is sorcery. Medea, Calypso, now there were powerful woman! And me, of course. The greatest of all.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

“The only way to power for woman is sorcery. Medea, Calypso, now there were powerful woman! And me, of course. The greatest of all.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

“Brides, nymphs were called, but that is not really how the world saw us. We were an endless feast laid out upon a table, beautiful and renewing. And so very bad at getting away.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Nature is magic, Medea, and magic is nature. It is the rawest essence of our world, a power infused by the divine when they created it. It sings through Gaia’s veins, but only few can hear it, only those Hecate allows. Listen.”
― Rosie Hewlett, Medea

“It is possible to distinguish the eyes painted on the hulls of my father’s guardian ships on the horizon; a dull view, it is true, but I like to peer at the tiny figures on board, wishing them various misfortunes such as love and marriage.”
― Storm Constantine, Mythanima