630 Quotes by Madeline Miller

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.

Surely there was some divine trick to make the hours go faster. To let them slip past unseen, to sleep for years, so that when I woke again the world would be new. I closed my eyes. Through the window I heard the bees singing in the garden. My lion’s tail beat against the stones. An eternity later, when I opened my eyes, the shadows had not even moved.

Such passive, pale words for what she was.

I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.

Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart? O.

The ship’s boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy.

I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it – in such a way did I learn to live beside the rushing torrent if his doom.

I had begun to know what fear was. What could make a god afraid? I knew that answer too. A power greater than their own.