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“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.
As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.
“Patroclus,�� he said. He was always better with words than I.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Achilles was looking at me. “Your hair never quite lies flat, here.�� He touched my head, just behind my ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.��

My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. “You haven’t,�� I said.

“I should have.�� His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. “What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?��

“No,�� I said.

“This surely then.�� His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. “Have I told you of this?��

“That you have told me.�� My breath caught a little as I spoke.

“And what of this?�� His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. “Have I spoken of it?��

“You have.��

“And this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.�� His cat’s smile. “Tell me I did not.��

“You did not.��

“There is this too.�� His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.��

I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,�� I said.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“That is �� your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I will go,�� he said. “I will go to Troy.��
The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green 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.
He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.
“Will you come with me?�� he asked.
The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. “Yes,�� I whispered. “Yes.��
Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us.
Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Bring him back to me,' he told them.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“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 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.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Achilles�� eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. “What has Hector ever done to me?”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“someone will remember us
I say
even in another time”
― Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”
― David Foster Wallace

“Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Moonlight making crosses
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“And the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“I’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube?”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
just couldn’t say it out loud.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way. I gave shape to my fears and made excuses. I varied my velocities, watched myselves sleep. Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it-- living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling.
The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes