christina ♥

“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. 'I almost did not come, because I did not want to believe it.'
He smiled. 'Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.”
― Madeline Miller

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.”
― Lao Tzu, Te-Tao Ching

“The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe