character

Achilles Quotes

19 of the best book quotes from Achilles
01
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“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.”
Madeleine Miller
author
The Song of Achilles
book
Achilles
character
courage
madness
eyes
darkness
knowing
face
firelight
concepts
02
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“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.
03
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“We reached for each other and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.”
04
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“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.”
05
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“I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river.”
06
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“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.”
07
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Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs on her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off—all tears, fawning up at her, till she takes her in her arms… That’s how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.
Homer
author
Parents
person
Achilles
Patroclus
characters
08
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I say no wealth is worth my life!
Homer
author
Achilles
character
life
worth
money
concepts
09
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My life is more to me than all the wealth of Ilius
Homer
author
Achilles
character
life
concept
10
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Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
lies
concept
11
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Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
life
concept
12
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We men are wretched things.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
13
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Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so? Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
Homer
author
Achilles
Lycaon
characters
death
concept
14
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Death and the strong force of fate are waiting. There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon when a man will take my life in battle too -- flinging a spear perhaps or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
death
war
concepts
15
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And overpowered by memory both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely for man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself, now for his father, now for Patroclus once again and their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
sadness
grief
concepts
16
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Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
anger
concept
17
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The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us.
Homer
author
Achilles
character
18
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“The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death.”
Homer
author
Achilles
character
honor
concept
19
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“That was Dienekes’ job. That was why he wore the transverse-crested helmet of an officer. His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads.”

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