CIRCE

quotes from circe by madeline miller

[artofaiaia]

But there was something in me that was sick of fear and awe, of gazing at the heavens and wondering what someone would allow me.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“You dare threaten me?” These gods, I thought, they always say the same thing.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“Yet you would dare to stay?” “I dare anything,” he said. And that is how we came to be lovers.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

She was gone. But I said it anyway, to that great empty room and my son’s dreaming ears: “You do not know what I can do.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“You dare threaten me?” These gods, I thought, they always say the same thing.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

Too late, I thought. Too late for all the things I should have known. I had made so many mistakes that I could not find my way back through their tangle to the first one.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“Let me tell you a truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

I found a new thought in myself… The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

It is youth's gift not to feel its debts.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

Every moment of my peace was a lie, for it came only at the gods’ pleasure. No matter what I did, how long I lived, at a whim they would be able to reach down and do with me what they wished.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

Everything was united by the steady rise and fall of nature’s breath. Everything except for me.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“I told them,” he said to me. “I told them and told them. When there is rot in the walls, there is only one remedy.” Tear down, I thought. Tear down and build again.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

I had let Penelope stay on the island so she would not lose her son. I would lose mine instead.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

“My wife, though,” he said. “She is constant. Constant in all things. Even wise men go astray sometimes, but never her. She is a fixed star, a true-made bow.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung. Even after all that, it can fail, as gods do not.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[artofaiaia]

The truth is, men make terrible pigs.

Madeline Miller, Circe