The Song Of Achilles Quotes & Sayings

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough. — Madeline Miller

It's just that I learned a while ago that the best way to get people to like you is not to like them too much. — John Green

This was a man who moved like the gods were watching: every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector — Madeline Miller

We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. — Madeline Miller

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again. — Madeline Miller

Later Achilles would play the lyre, as Chiron and I listened. My mother's lyre. He had brought it with him.
'I wish I had known,' I said, the first day when he showed it to me. 'I almost did not come, because I did not want to believe it.'
He smiled. 'Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere. — Madeline Miller

An ugly man, with a face sharp like a weasel and a habit of running a flickering tongue over his lips before he speaks. But most ugly of all are his eyes: blue, bright blue. When people see them, they flinch. Such things are freakish. He is lucky he was not killed at birth. — Madeline Miller

Wayne: You wanna know why I really came to find you?
Waxilliam: Why?
Wayne: I thought of you happy in a comfy bed, resting and relaxing, spending the rest of your life sipping tea and reading papers while people bring you food and maids rub your toes and stuff.
Waxilliam: And?
Wayne: And I just couldn't leave you to a fate like that ... I'm too good a friend to let a mate of mine die in such a terrible situation.
Waxilliam: Comfortable?
Wayne: No. Boring. — Brandon Sanderson

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence. — Madeline Miller

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This, and this, and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender, or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin. — Madeline Miller

You don't hear TV cops griping because they have to enforce some Draconian law that shouldn't be on the books in the first place, or lamenting vindictive excesses in sentencing. Hollywood, supposedly a frothing cauldron of liberalism, has always been conservative on crime. — Tom Shales

He did not fear ridicule, he had never known it. — Madeline Miller

This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter. — Madeline Miller

Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know is in dark or disguise, told myself. I would know it even in madness. — Madeline Miller

When he speaks at last, his voice is weary, and defeated. He doesn't know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won't light. — Madeline Miller

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. — Thomas Browne

On past records I usually did start with a story or an idea for a song and then write around it, but on Achilles' Heel I would just start writing and try to let the song and my sub-conscience determine the direction. which is a goofy way of saying I tried not to decide before hand what the song and or the characters would do and be like. — David Bazan

There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand. — Madeline Miller

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity. — Tom Peters