Circe Quotes

The best quotes by the author we have brought to you

“A golden cage is still a cage.” (Circe Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Amusement flashed in his eyes. I had fed off that look once, when I had been starving and thought such crumbs a feast.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Bold action and bold manner are not the same.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But of course I could not die. I would live on, through each scalding moment to the next. This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

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

“But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“But there was no wound she could give me that I had not already given myself.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Children are not sacks of grain, to be substituted one for the other.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Death’s Brother is the name that poets give to sleep. For most men those dark hours are a reminder of the stillness that waits at the end of days.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Do not listen to your enemy, Odysseus had once told me. Look at them. It will tell you everything.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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.” (Circe Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Fear of failure was the worst thing for any spell.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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 it means to be alive.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“He was another knife I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as wisdom.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“However gold he shines, do not forget his fire.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I come to say that you may go, and I will help you. But there must be conditions.” Did he know how much those words cost me? I do not think he could. It is youth’s gift not to feel its debts.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I had no right to claim him, I know it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I remembered what Odysseus had said about her once. That she never went astray, never made an error. I had been jealous then. Now I thought: what a burden. What an ugly weight upon your back.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Imagine such a happiness. Like drinking wine your whole life, instead of water. Like having Achilles to run your errands.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.” (Circe Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks?”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“It was their favorite bitter joke: those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Odysseus had told me once that half of a duel is maneuvering around the sun, trying to get the light to stab at your enemy’s eyes. But I was the blood of Helios, and no light could blind me.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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 it means to be alive.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“She moved like a wave herself, graceful, but with relentless, driving motion.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Sorcery cannot be taught. You find it yourself, or you do not.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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

“The grudges of gods are as deathless as their flesh.” (Circe Quotes)
Madeline Miller
Circe

“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

“The truth is, men make terrible pigs.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The words slid into me, smooth as a polished knife.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“The world is an ugly place. We must live in it.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“When there is rot in the walls, there is only one remedy.” The purple bruise at my throat was turning green at its edges. I pressed it, felt the splintered ache. Tear down, I thought. Tear down and build again.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

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

“You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.”
Madeline Miller
Circe

“You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.”
Madeline Miller
Circe