630 Quotes by Madeline Miller

He admired the world like a jewel, turning its facets to catch the light.

You are a better man than I.

Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child. I listen to his breath, warm upon the night air, and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean it does not hurt. He does not mean we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

The flowers, when they saw me, seemed to press forward like eager puppies, leaping and clamouring for my touch. I felt almost shy of them, but day by day I grew bolder, and at last I knelt in the damp earth before a clump of hellebore.

I come to say that you may go, and I will help you. But there must be conditions.” Did he know how much those words cost me? I do not think he could. It is youth’s gift not to feel its debts.

I feel like I could eat the world raw.

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.

When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.

At least, I thought in those early days, once I cast a spell, I would not have to learn it again. But even that was not true.