Above us, the constellations spun, and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.

— Madeline Miller

Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.

— Madeline Miller

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.

— Madeline Miller

And her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.

— Madeline Miller

And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

— Madeline Miller

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.

— Madeline Miller

But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart? 

— Madeline Miller

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from."" But what if he is your friend?" Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. "Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?"" You ask a question that philosophers argue over," Chiron had said. 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 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 Crisis. I cannot save them all. Furthermore, I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. Furthermore, I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.

— Madeline Miller

Exile might satisfy the anger of the living, but it did not appease the dead.

— Madeline Miller

For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?

— Madeline Miller