Best Of Madeline Miller's "Circe"
Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Circe by Madeline Miller
Not everything may be foreseen. Most gods and mortals have lives that are tied to nothing; they tangle and wend now here, now there, according to no set plan. But then there are those who wear their destinies like nooses, whose lives run straight as planks, however they try to twist. It is these that our prophets may see.
[...] but she was not ruled by appetites; she ruled with them instead.
p.134
This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters.
p.135
Now that Medea had named my loneliness, it hung from everything, clinging like spiderwebs, unavoidable.
p.177
Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.
p.206
But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.
p.311
"Odysseus drew the world to him," she said. "Telegonus runs after, shaping as he goes, like a river carving a channel."
p.336
Faithful and true and prudent. Such passive, pale words for what she was.
p.337
Penelope said, "What makes a witch, then? If it is not divinity?" "I don't know for certain," I said. "I once thought it was passed through blood, but Telegonus has no spells in him. I have come to believe it is mostly will." She nodded. I did not have to explain. We knew what will was.
p.338
