Rick Riordan · 404 pages
Rating: (15.9K votes)
“No one should know his entire fate. It's too dangerous and too depressing. Just keep going, do your best, and hope it's good enough. That's all any of us can do.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“You’re probably wondering: why were Medusa’s kids a golden warrior and a winged horse? And how had they been stuck in Medusa’s body all those years?Heck, I dunno. I’m just telling you how it was. You want stuff to make sense, you’re in the wrong universe”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Acrisius tried not to choke on his own tongue. The word Perseus meant avenger or destroyer, depending on how you interpreted it. The king did not want the kid growing up to hang out with Iron Man and the Hulk...”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“They had a wonderful romantic night together. In fact it was so wonderful that at one point Zeus excused himself, took his phone into the bathroom and texted Helios, the sun god: Bro, take a few days off. I need this night to last!”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“She decided to make his life as terrible, tragic and complicated as possible, so that some day Percy Jackson would have a really hard time writing about it.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Some legends say that Hera's breast milk sprayed across the sky and created the Milky Way. I don't know. That seems like a whole lot of solar systems from just one squirt”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Just keep going, do your best, and hope it's good enough. That's all any of us can do.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“You get angry, you punch someone in the face. Simple. Direct. Bloody. Fun!”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Otrera led her warriors on tons of successful campaigns across Asia Minor and into Greece. They founded two famous cities on the western coast of Turkey – Smyrna and Ephesus. Why they picked those names, I don’t know. I would’ve gone with Buttkickville and Smackdown City, but that’s just me.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“We don't know much about Otrera from the old stories. Those Ancient Greek dudes didn't care where Otrera came form or what made her tick. Why would that be?
1) She was a woman.
2) She was a scary woman.
3) She was a scary woman who killed Ancient Greek dudes.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Me, I like the theory that Amazon comes from the Persian term ha-mazan, which means warriors. I like that theory because Annabeth likes that theory, and if I don’t like what she likes she gets all ha-mazan on me.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“To all the women she saved and trained for battle, Otrera was definitely a hero. She gave them hope. She gave them control over their own lives.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“(Annabeth says most of that salt water is in my head. Very funny, Wise Girl.) Anyway,”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Time for the last stupid deed! Are you excited? Hercules was. He was ready to be done with this nonsense. So was the poor schmuck who was writing it all down. Oh, wait…that’s me.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Why is it inscribed Made in Bangladesh?”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“No Tyson, the guy in the story did not attract the attention of a moose. Tyson is sad now.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“O Great Teller of the Future and Inhaler of Volcanic Gas!’ said the king. ‘Can I get a boy child over here, or what?”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“I like that theory because Annabeth likes that theory, and if I don’t like what she likes, she gets all ha-mazan on me.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“The king's worst fear about the prophecy was coming true -- which was kind of stupid, because if he hadn't been such a butt-brain and locked up his daughter, it never would've happened. But that's the way prophecies work. You try to avoid the trap, and in doing so you end up building the trap yourself and stepping right into it.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“LOOK, I’M ONLY IN THIS FOR THE PIZZA. The publisher was like, “Oh, you did such a great job writing about the Greek gods last year! We want you to write another book about the Ancient Greek heroes! It’ll be so cool!” And I was like, “Guys, I’m dyslexic. It’s hard enough for me to read books.” Then they promised me a year’s supply of free pepperoni pizza, plus all the blue jelly beans I could eat. I sold out. I guess it’s cool. If you’re looking to fight monsters yourself, these stories might help you avoid some common mistakes—like staring Medusa in the face, or buying a used mattress from any dude named Crusty. But the best reason to read about the old Greek heroes is to make yourself feel better. No matter how much you think your life sucks, these guys and gals had it worse. They totally got the short end of the Celestial stick. By the way, if you don’t know me, my name is Percy Jackson. I’m a modern-day demigod—the son of Poseidon. I’ve had some bad experiences in my time, but the heroes I’m going to tell you about were the original old-school hard-luck cases. They boldly screwed up where no one had screwed up before. Let’s pick twelve of them. That should be plenty. By the time you finish reading about how miserable their lives were—what with the poisonings, the betrayals, the mutilations, the murders, the psychopathic family members, and the flesh-eating barnyard animals—if that doesn’t make you feel better about your own existence, then I don’t know what will. So get your flaming spear. Put on your lion-skin cape. Polish your shield, and make sure you’ve got arrows in your quiver. We’re going back about four thousand years to decapitate monsters, save some kingdoms, shoot a few gods in the butt, raid the Underworld, and steal loot from evil people. Then, for dessert, we’ll die painful tragic deaths. Ready? Sweet. Let’s do this.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“For the second time, humans had raided her home”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Even the gods were impressed. They descended from Olympus and loaded Hercules down with so much swag, it got embarrassing. Hermes”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“If your mom seems overprotective, it’s possible she knows you better than you think.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Oops. Sorry, everybody. This book is not officially endorsed by the proper Muse. If it explodes in your hand, my bad.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“FEAR NOT, said a voice from the glitter. I AM ZEUS, LORD OF THE SKY. YOU LOOK FINE, GIRL. DO YOU WANT TO HANG OUT?”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Theseus put his club aside. He approached the Pine Bender and sized up the situation. He wasn’t as strong as Sinis. He didn’t have the ability to root himself to the earth. He didn’t even have a plan. But he glanced over at the girl Perigune, and his distractible brain started racing. A girl in the trees. A girl. A tree. Trees have spirits. I’m hungry. Wow, Sinis smells bad. A dryad. I bet the dryads in these trees are really tired of getting bent. Hey, there’s a chipmunk.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“Instead of collapsing, Theseus swung it and smacked Periphetes upside the head, killing him instantly. ‘Yep!’ Theseus said. ‘That’s bronze over wood, all right! Thanks, man. I think I’ll keep this.’ Periphetes didn’t argue, since he was dead. Theseus”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“But like I told you guys years ago: this demigod gig is dangerous. Don't say I didn't warn you.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“We don't know much about Otrera from the old stories. Those Ancient Greek dudes didn't care where Otrera came from or what made her tick. Why would that be?
1) She was a woman.
2) She was a scary woman.
3) She was a scary woman who killed Ancient Greek dudes.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
“The scale of Monument Avenue also amplified the weirdness of the whole enterprise. After all, Davis and Lee and Jackson and Stuart weren't national heroes. In the view of many Americans, they were precisely the opposite; leaders of a rebellion against the nation - separatists at best, traitors at worst. None of those honored were native Richmonders. And their mission failed. They didn't call it the Lost Cause for nothing. I couldn't think of another city in the world that lined its streets with stone leviathans honoring failed rebels against the state.”
― Tony Horwitz, quote from Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
“There were two kinds of students who liked the library: those who devoured one book after another and those who savored the same book repeatedly. Now she understood those rereaders differently ... she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader-- because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl
“The water's not even blue, jackass.”
― Leah Clifford, quote from A Touch Mortal
“Sometimes I am asked if I know the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude HAS a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, responsibility is the key word,
The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Where, Bredon asked himself, did the money come from that was to be spent so variously and so lavishly? If this hell’s-dance of spending and saving were to stop for a moment, what would happen? If all the advertising in the world were to shut down tomorrow, would people still go on buying more soap, eating more apples, giving their children more vitamins, roughage, milk, olive oil, scooters and laxatives, learning more languages by gramophone, hearing more virtuosos by radio, re-decorating their houses, refreshing themselves with more non-alcoholic thirst-quenchers, cooking more new, appetizing dishes, affording themselves that little extra touch which means so much? Or would the whole desperate whirligig slow down, and the exhausted public relapse upon plain grub and elbow-grease? He did not know. Like all rich men, he had never before paid any attention to advertisements. He had never realized the enormous commercial importance of the comparatively poor. Not on the wealthy, who buy only what they want when they want it, was the vast superstructure of industry founded and built up, but on those who, aching for a luxury beyond their reach and for a leisure for ever denied them, could be bullied or wheedled into spending their few hardly won shillings on whatever might give them, if only for a moment, a leisured and luxurious illusion. Phantasmagoria”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, quote from Murder Must Advertise
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.