“The Song of Achilles” is a novel by Madeline Miller that tells the story of the Trojan War from a different perspective. The book is full of powerful quotes about love and inspiration. In this blog post, we will share some of our favorite quotes from the book!
Contents
Best “The Song of Achilles” Quotes
- “Bring him back to me.” – Achilles
- “I am made of memories.” – Patroclus
- “Name one hero who was happy.” – Chiron
- “I hope that Hector kills you.” – Briseis
- “I was not invited. I interrupted.” – Ajax
- “I wish he had let you all die.” – Achilles
- “You are the one who made him go.” – Briseis
- “Do you think I do not hope the same?” – Achilles
- “Your honor could be darkened by it.” – Patroclus
- “He did not fear ridicule, he had never known it.”
- “I feel like I could eat the world raw.” – Achilles
- “He is half of my soul, as the poets say.” – Patroclus
- “Dear gods, I think, let him not hate me.” – Patroclus
- “I am air and thought and can do nothing.” – Patroclus
- “He smiled, and his face was like the sun.” – Patroclus
- “There is no honor in betraying your friends.” – Patroclus
- “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.” – Achilles
- “He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.” – Patroclus
- “He had light enough to make heroes of them all.” – Odysseus
- “For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?” – Patroclus
- “Achilles smiles as his face strikes the earth.” – Patroclus
- “The greater the monument, the greater the man.” – Patroclus
- “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.” – Achilles
- “For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?” – Patroclus
- “Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.” – Achilles
- “Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest”
- “Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.” – Achilles
- “He did not fear ridicule, he had never known it.” – Patroclus
- “Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.” – Patroclus
- “Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.” – Chiron
Song of Achilles Quotes
- “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.” – Chiron
- “‘Philtatos, best of men, and slaughtered by your son.” – Achilles
- “I should have known better than to call upon the gods.” – Patroclus
- “There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.” – Patroclus
- “Son of Laertes, I do not remember inviting you to speak.” – Menoetius
- “Ah. Well, why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me.” – Achilles
- “The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons.” – Patroclus
- “You have killed him and taken your vengeance. It is enough.” – Thetis
- “But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart.” – Patroclus
- “Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest.” – Patroclus
- “I almost did not come, because I did not want to believe it.” – Patroclus
- “There was nothing clever to say, so I said something foolish.” – Patroclus
- “We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.” – Patroclus
- “Nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.” – Patroclus
- “Her voice was low and lovely, carrying to every corner of the hall.” – Patroclus
- “‘I wish I had known,’ I said, the first day when he showed it to me.” – Patroclus
- “Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.” – Achilles
- “Our men liked conquest; they did not trust a man who was conquered himself.” – Patroclus
- “There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.” – Achilles
- “All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.” – Patroclus
- “The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone.” – Patroclus
- “When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.” – Patroclus
- “And her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale as if it drank light from the moon.” – Patroclus
- “Until this moment I had been a prince, expected and announced. Now I was negligible.” – Patroclus
- “Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.” – Patroclus
- “I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria.” – Patroclus
- “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.” – Chiron
Song of Achilles Quotes About Love
- “We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.”
- “But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?” – Achilles
- “Exile might satisfy the anger of the living, but it did not appease the dead.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.” – Patroclus
- “Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was worth 10 of you. Ten! And you sent him to his death.” – Briseis
- “He knew, but it was not enough. The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin.” – Patroclus
- “My mind is filled with cataclysm and apocalypse. I wish for earthquakes, eruptions, and floods.” – Patroclus
- “This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered—he will never be old.” – Patroclus
- “The presence of the other boys did not comfort me; our dead come for their vengeance regardless if witnesses.”
- “And when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost vicious.” – Patroclus
- “We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.” – Patroclus
- “We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.” – Odysseus
- “It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.” – Priam
- “At that moment she was worth all the prizes in the center of the hall, and more. She was worth our lives.” – Patroclus
- “This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream.” – Patroclus
- “Perhaps such things pass for virtue among the gods. But, how is there glory in taking life?” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “Later Achilles would play the lyre, as Chiron and I listened. My mother’s lyre. He had brought it with him.” – Patroclus
- “The presence of the other boys did not comfort me; our dead come for their vengeance regardless of witnesses.” – Patroclus
- ‘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.”
- “We reached for each other and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.” – Patroclus
- “We were like gods at the dawning of the world and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.” – Patroclus
- “As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.” – Patroclus
- “We had been silent. We were 14, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are 27, they still feel too hard.” – Patroclus
- “It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “Our goddess of the moon is gifted with magic, with power over the dead. She could banish the dreams, if she wished. She did not.”
- “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?” – Chiron
More Song of Achilles Quotes
- “An ugly man, with a face sharp like a weasel and a habit of running a flickering tongue over his lips before he speaks.” – Patroclus
- “He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.” – Iphigenia
- “A surety rose in me, lodged in my throat. I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.” – Patroclus
- “It was the same way he had looked at the boys in Phthia, blank and unseeing. He had never, not once, looked at me that way.” – Patroclus
- “Perhaps he simply assumed—a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.” – Patroclus
- “Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.” – Patroclus
- “A part of what makes myths live is their multiplicity, the way different voices retell them in every generation.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “Our goddess of the moon is gifted with magic, with power over the dead. She could banish the dreams if she wished. She did not.” – Patroclus
- “I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion’s tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not.” – Patroclus
- “Part of the tragedy of their characters is how much they have to offer and how little of that they get to realize.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “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”
- “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.”
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.” – Patroclus
- “My mother told you the rest of the prophecy. And you think that no one but me can kill Hector. And you think to steal time from the Fates?” – Achilles
- “Her skin, we suddenly remembered, was rumored to be gilded, her eyes dark and shining as the slick obsidian that we traded our olives for.” – Patroclus
- “He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now, each was a drop of heartsblood lost.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “Her mouth was a gash of red, like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloody and oracular. Behind it her teeth shone sharp and white as bone.” – Patroclus
- “The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.” – Patroclus
- “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.” – Odysseus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “He collects my ashes himself, though this is a woman’s duty. He puts them in a golden urn, the finest in our camp, and turns to the watching Greeks.” – Patroclus
- “Agamemnon posted guards to watch Troy every hour of every day. We were all waiting for something—an attack, or an embassy, or a demonstration of power.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “Something shifted in me then, like the frozen surface of the Apidanos in spring. I had seen the way he looked at Deidameia; or rather the way he did not.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.
- “He knew, but it was not enough. The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “Thetis spends the whole novel fighting the limitations placed on her, desperately trying to eke out the best she can from a bad situation. This makes her fierce and terrifying.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “It was all she said, but I felt the shiver go through the men around me. Even as a child I felt it, and I marveled at the power of this woman who, though veiled, could electrify a room.” – Patroclus
- “In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn’t trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don’t claim to speak for all straight people.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “He was watching me closely, reading my face over and over, like a priest searching the auguries for an answer. I could see the slight line in his forehead that meant utmost concentration.” – Patroclus
- “The flames surround me, and I feel myself slipping further from life, thinning to only the faintest shiver in the air. I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest.” – Patroclus
- “I began to surprise Achilles, calling out to these men as we walked through the camp. I was always gratified at how they would raise a hand in return, point to a scar that had healed over well.” – Patroclus
- “I conjured the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughed into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river.” – Patroclus
- “It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright was they dull.” – Patroclus
- “This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in the summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. So many moments of happiness, crowding forward.” – Patroclus
- “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?”
- “People are people, whatever age they’re living in. The circumstances may have changed—we go to war with planes instead of chariots, but experiences of grief, longing, rage, and love remain the same.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “Our mouths opened under each other, and the warmth of his sweetened throat poured into mine. I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movements of his lips. It was a miracle.” – Patroclus
- “This is how I think of us when I remember our nights at Troy—Achilles and I beside each other, Phoenix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter.” – Patroclus
- “Life for women in ancient Greece was hard—you had to fight for every inch of ground you got. Both Thetis and Briseis are strong, passionate women and in another time and place their lives would have been very different.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “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.” – Patroclus
- “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.”
- “The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.
- The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.”
- “Homer survives because his poetry was outstanding, yes, but also because he’s been passed down by so many by luminaries like Vergil and Ovid, Shakespeare, James Joyce, and Margaret Atwood, but also by countless others. I wanted to do my part for these tremendous stories.” – Madeline Miller, Author
- “Take Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, a brilliant, resourceful woman who ends up in a terrible situation—in her husband’s absence, she is being held hostage in her own home by men who claim to be courting her. She tries to make them leave, but because she’s a woman they refuse, blaming their bad behavior on her desirability.” – Madeline Miller, Author
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed these powerful Song of Achilles quotes.
Do you have a favorite quote from the novel? Let me know in the comments below!
If you’re interested in reading similar quotes, be sure to check out my list of recommended quotes at the end of this article. until next time, happy reading!
