"She glared at me like she was about to punch me, but then she did sokmethign that surprised me even more. She kissed me.
"Be careful seaweed brain." She said putting on her invisiable cap and disappearing.
I probably would have sat there all day, trying to remember my name, but then the sea demons came."
— Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth)

"Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well."
— Aristotle

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
— Albert Camus

"Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die."
— Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth)

"Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus."
— Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Princess)

"Sameron adion aso
'I shall sing a sweeter song tomorrow'"
— Theocritus

"In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos."
— Edgar Allan Poe (Ligeia)

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
— Simonides

"Επιθυμίες
Σαν σώματα ωραία νεκρών που δεν εγέρασαν
και τάκλεισαν, με δάκρυα, σε μαυσωλείο λαμπρό,
με ρόδα στο κεφάλι και στα πόδια γιασεμιά --
έτσ' η επιθυμίες μοιάζουν που επέρασαν
χωρίς να εκπληρωθούν· χωρίς ν' αξιωθεί καμιά
της ηδονής μια νύχτα, ή ένα πρωϊ της φεγγερό."

Desires
"Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old
and they shut them, with tears, in a brilliant mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet --
this is what desires resemble that have passed
without fulfillment; without any of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a morning of brightness."
— Constantine P. Cavafy (Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy)

"Of a sudden he felt that fraternity life was the only way to exist at college. How could he have doubted? (126)"
— Ferrol Sams (The Whisper of the River)

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."
— Aeschylus

"In those days you could identify a person's nationality by smell. Lying on her back with eyes closed, Desdemona could detect the telltale oniony aroma of a Hungarian woman on her right, and the raw-meat smell of an Armenian on her left. (And they, in turn, could peg Desdemona as a Hellene by her aroma of garlic and yogurt.)"
— Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)

"Lefty, who'd been observing all the ways Greece had been handed down to America, arrived now at where the transmission stopped. In other words: the future. He stepped off to meet it. Desdemona, having no alternative, followed. "
— Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)

"The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
In golden glory, like some strange new sun..."
— Aeschylus; Translator E.D.A. Morshead

"Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word..."
— Cicero

". . . when a woman has a husband
And you've got none,
Why should she take advice from you?
Even if you can quote Balzac and Shakespeare
And all them other highfalutin' Greeks. "
— Meredith Willson

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we wold appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them."
— Socrates

"When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied."
— Herophilus

"Call no man happy until he is dead."
— Solon

"Rumours voiced by women come to nothing."
— Aeschylus (Agamemnon)

"I gave them hope, and so turned away their eyes from death"
— Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound)

"Liste, if you think stubbornness deprived of intelligence is a worth-while possession, you are out of your mind."
— Sophocles Oedipus The King

"Even older and just as rich, the ritual of Kappa Alpha Order thrilled his soul and permeated his mind. By the end of the ceremony he was so awed, so filled with idealism, so saturated with nebulous aspirations, that he gazed with love on all his brothers…He floated down the stairs of the old Administration Building that night new born and shining, warm and secure in the midst of a group that no outside force could penetrate nor unsuspected evil ever tarnish. Porter was a Knight of Kappa Alpha Order (193)"
— Ferrol Sams (The Whisper of the River)

"Time, which sees all things, has found you out."
— Sophocles Oedipus The King

"Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn’t see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.

At least the ancient Greeks were being honest."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"The unexamined life is not worth living."
— Platonic Socrates

"The best of all things for earthly men is not to be born and not to see the beams of the bright sun; but if born, than as quickly as possible to pass the gates of Hades, and to lie deep buried. "
— Theognis of Megara