630 Quotes by Madeline Miller

I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me.

I’m always this colour,’ I said. ‘Because I used to be made of stone'.

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.

Peleus acknowledged this. "Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?" "I will tell them nothing." The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. "It is not for them to say what I will do.

He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.

He smiled at me, and I saw the lines where other smiles had been.

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.

Lady,” he said, “I am sorry to trouble you.”“You have not been trouble yet,” I said.

Indeed, he seemed utterly unaware of his effect on the boys around him.