Circe

Book by Madeline Miller · 24 quotes · Circe, Greek Mythology, Odysseus

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Circe Quotes

“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.”

Love Stars Greek Mythology Constellations Circe Daedalus

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“-’Tell me’, he said, ‘who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one’? -’A happy one, of course.’ -’Wrong. A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy yo a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred’. -’But surely, I said, you have to reward him eventually. Otherwise he will stop offering’. -’Oh, you would be surprised how long he will go on. But yes, in the end, it’s best to give him something. Then he will be happy again. And you can start over.”

Suffering Myth Mythology Greek Mythology Gods Circe Miserable Life Deity

Book:Circe

Source: 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.”

Pain Mythology Immortality Greek Mythology Gods Deity

Book:Circe

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“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. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.”

Destruction Mythology Immortality Greek Mythology Deities Circe

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Source: Circe

“It was work, day after day of it. Witchcraft is the same. I have laboured for centuries and still I have not mastered it.”

Mythology Greek Mythology Circe

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“Children of gods always came to their strength faster than mortals. He would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations who only touch the earth for a season.”

Greek Mythology Gods Constellations Circe Greek Gods

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Source: Circe

“Sometimes you must be content with ignorance”

Inspirational Greek Greek Mythology Circe Greek Gods The Song Of Achilles Madeline Miller The Song Of Achilles Quotes

Book:Circe

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

Inspirational Feminist Greek Greek Mythology Circe Greek Gods The Song Of Achilles Feminist Literature Madeline Miller The Song Of Achilles Quotes

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“Such is the commander's lot. Such is the folly of humanity. Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?”

Humorous Sarcastic Greek Mythology Circe Human Tragedy

Book:Circe

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“I had no right to claim him, I knew it. 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 he was to me.”

Love Romance Greek Mythology Circe Constellation

Book:Circe

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“Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.”

Intuition Spells Greek Mythology Witches Witchcraft Circe

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

Wit Greek Mythology Circe Greek Gods Sharpness Hermes

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“I will not sentence myself to such a living death.”

Fantasy Greek Mythology Circe Madeline Miller

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“It is funny,’ she said, ‘That even after all this time, you still believe you should be rewarded, just because you have been obedient. I thought you would have learned that lesson in your father’s halls. None shrank and simpered as you did, and yet the great Helios stepped on you all the faster, because you were already crouched at his feet.’ She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her. ‘Let me tell you the 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.”

Fiction Womens Rights Greek Mythology Witchcraft Gender Equality Gender Roles Circe Spells And Witchcraft

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“I could not savor it. My head felt heavy, and my throat had begun to ache. I swayed. By now, Aeëtes was back on Colchis, drinking his milk and honey. My aunts would be laughing on their riverbanks, my cousins returned to their games. My father, of course, was overhead, shedding his light down on the world. All those years I had spent with them were like a stone tossed in a pool. Already, the ripples were gone.”

Greek Mythology

Book:Circe

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“I brought a withered flower back to life. I banished flies from my house. I made the cherries blossom out of season and turned the fire vivid green. If Aeetes had been there, he would have choked on his beard to see such kitchen tricks. Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.”

Magic Greek Mythology

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“I turned all my firewood to cedar so that its scent would fill my halls each night.”

Magic Greek Mythology

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“At least, I told myself, it was not their brothers who would have bragged and fought and hunted down my wolves, but of course, that was never a real danger. Sons were never punished.”

Feminism Greek Mythology Retelling Fiction Fantasy

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“A few of these, so few I can count them on my fingers, I let go. They did not see me as their dinner. They were pious men, honestly lost, and I would feed them and if there was a handsome one among them I might take him to my bed. It was not desire, not even its barest scrapings. It was a sort of rage, a knife I used upon myself. I did it to prove my skin was still my own.”

Feminism Trauma Greek Mythology Fantasy Fiction

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Source: Circe

“I did not tell him the prophecy. I watched him eat and fingered my rage as if it were a knife's point. I wanted to keep it sharp for as long as I could.”

Anger Greek Mythology Fantasy Fiction

Book:Circe

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“If they did not weep, I would not either.”

Fiction Greek Mythology

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. 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.”

Fantasy Greek Mythology

Book:Circe

Source: Circe

“The truce between the gods held only because Titans and Olympians each kept to their sphere.”

Greek Mythology Truce

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Source: Circe

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

Love Intimacy Vulnerability Greek Mythology Scars Circe Odysseus

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Source: Circe