Madeline Miller

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

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

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.

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.