630 Quotes by Madeline Miller

I can smell him. The oils that he uses on his feet, pomegranate and sandalwood; the salt of clean sweat; the hyacinths we had walked through, their scent crushed against our ankles. Beneath it all is his own smell, the one I go to sleep with, the one I wake up to. I cannot describe it. It is sweet, but not just. It is strong but not too strong. Something like almond, but that still is not right. Sometimes, after we have wrestled, my own skin smells like it.

I have long wondered something,” I said. ‘When we fought over Athena, how did you know to kneel to me? That it would shame me?’ “Ah, it was a guess. something Odysseus said about you once.” ‘Which was?’ “That the had never met a god who enjoyed their divinity less.

I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.

There is nothing I can teach you. You know all that Heracles knew, and more. You are the greatest warrior of your generation, and all the generations before.

You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.

My hands were cut almost to blood by jagged shards of rock. My feet left stains where they stepped. The pain was welcome, ordinary and clean. So easy to bear it was laughable.

I had the impulse to look over my shoulder, to make sure he was not striding across the sky already, his gilded arrow pointed at my heart. But there was something in me that was sick of fear and awe, of gazing at the heavens and wondering what someone would allow me. ‘Come in,’ I said, and led him through my door.

The scars themselves I offered to wipe away. He shook his head. “How would I know myself?

The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.