Madeline Miller

“There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that.”

“If you have to go, you know I will go with you." We slept.”

“But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another...We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?...Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.'”

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

“Circe, he says, it will be all right.”

“I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S.”

“That is — your friend?"”

“Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”