Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. ... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that 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 is means to be alive.
Tags: mortality, life, death

Other Quotes by "Madeline Miller"

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. β€œNo man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.” β€œBut what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. β€œOr your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?” β€œYou ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. β€œHe 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 Briseis. I cannot save them all. I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
Tags: wise-words, truth, philosophy, love, life, fair, choices
I am made of memories
Tags: romance, song of achiles, sad, love
And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
Tags: quotes
He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.
Tags: vulnerability, scars, odysseus, love, intimacy, greek-mythology, circe
When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
Tags: love, death-of-a-loved-one, death
View More by "Madeline Miller"