Song Of Achilles Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Song Of Achilles. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He is half of my soul, as the poets say.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I am made of memories.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He smiled, and his face was like the sun.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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That is β€” your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Name one hero who was happy.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S. "Go," she says. "He waits for you." 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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I feel like I could eat the world raw.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. β€œPatroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. β€œI wish he had let you all die.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. β€œAnd perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Bring him back to me,' he told them.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Have you no more memories?" I am made of memories. "Speak, then.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Patroclus,'' Achilles tilted his face up with a gentle finger under his chin. ''I would recognise you in total darkness, were you mute and I deaf. I would recognise you in another lifetime entirely, in different bodies, different times. And I would love you in all of this, until the very last star in the sky burnt out into oblivion''.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Go," She says. "He waits for you.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Achilles was looking at me. β€œYour hair never quite lies flat, here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. β€œI don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.” My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. β€œYou haven’t,” I said. β€œI should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. β€œWhat about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?” β€œNo,” I said. β€œThis surely then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. β€œHave I told you of this?” β€œThat you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke. β€œAnd what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. β€œHave I spoken of it?” β€œYou have.” β€œAnd this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. β€œTell me I did not.” β€œYou did not.” β€œThere is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. β€œI know I have told you of this.” I closed my eyes. β€œTell me again,” I said.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. β€œWhat has Hector ever done to me?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I am air and thought and can do nothing.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another. We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory… We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This, and this, and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender, or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Name one hero who was happy." "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
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. β€œNo man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.” β€œBut what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. β€œOr your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?” β€œYou ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. β€œHe is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?” We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard. He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all. I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Later, Achilles pressed close for a final, drowsy whisper. 'If you have to go, you know I will go with you.' We slept.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I think: this is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: how long do we have?
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I would still be with you. But I could sleep outside, so it would not be so obvious. I do not need to attend your councils. Iβ€”' 'No. The Phthians will not care. And the others can talk all they like. I will still be Aristos Achaion.' Best of the Greeks. 'Your honor could be darkened by it." 'Then it is darkened.' His jaw shot forward, stubborn. 'They are fools if they let my glory rise or fall on this.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I will go,” he said. β€œI will go to Troy.” The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again. He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. β€œWill you come with me?” he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. β€œYes,” I whispered. β€œYes.” Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us. Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There is no honour in betraying your friends.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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The last thing I think is: Achilles.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He knew, but it was not enough. 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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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. . .nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I did not plan to live after he was gone.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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This and this and this.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Achilles makes a sound like choking. β€œThere are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.” His spearpoint flies in a dark whirlwind, bright as the evening-star, to catch the hollow at Hector’s throat.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Perhaps such things pass for virtue among the gods. But how is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. Would you make him another Pyrrhus? Let the stories of him be something more.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He did not fear ridicule, he had never known it.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. β€œI know I have told you of this.” I closed my eyes. β€œTell me again,” I said.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Priam's eyes find the other body, mine, lying on the bed. He hesitates a moment. 'That is --- your friend?' 'Philtatos,' Achilles says, sharply. Most beloved. 'Best of men, and slaughtered by your son.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I have done it,” she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS. β€œGo,” she says. β€œHe waits for you.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There was nothing clever to say, so I said something foolish.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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And as we swam, or played, or talked, a feeling would come. 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 where they were dull.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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And perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. β€œPatroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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Our mouths opened under each other, and the warmth of his sweetened throat poured into mine. I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movements of his lips. It was a miracle.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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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.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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You have killed him and taken your vengeance. It is enough.” β€œIt will never be enough,” he says. FOR THE FIRST TIME since my death, he falls into a fitful, trembling sleep. Achilles. I cannot bear to see you grieving. His limbs twitch and shudder. Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. "Will you come with me?" he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. β€œAnd perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?” β€œPerhaps,” Achilles admitted. I listened and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I began to suprise Achilles, calling out to these men as we walked through the camp. I was always gratified at how they would raise a hand in return, point to a scar that had healed over well. After they were gone, Achilles would shake his head. 'I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me.' I would laugh and point them out again. 'That's Sthenelus, Diomedes' charioteer. And that's Podarces, whose brother was the first to die, remember?' 'There are too many of them,' he said. 'It's simpler if they just remember me.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from." "But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?" "You ask a question that philosophers argue over. He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?" We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard. He is half my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all. I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)