The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1)

by Rick Riordan

You live your entire life trapped in a sack of meat, unable to enjoy simple pleasures

I was one of you—just another meat sack.

You spend your whole lives knowing you will die. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, your puny existence will quickly be forgotten. How do you cope with it?

It warmed my heart that my children had the right priorities: their skills, their images, their views on YouTube.

I could only stare at the sky and wonder when a small impish demigod might appear with a bronze dragon and a plate of tacos.

You try to maintain good physical shape with push-ups, sit-ups, five-mile runs, obstacle courses, and other hard work that involves sweating. All the while, you know it is a losing battle. Eventually your weak, limited-use bodies will deteriorate and fail, giving you wrinkles, sagging parts, and old-person breath.

I simply don’t see the logic in your constant struggles. Exercise is nothing more than a depressing reminder that one is not a god.

why does college have to happen to perfectly good people?

Harley would have made an excellent god. He took the gifts, mumbled a few pleasantries, but told his worshippers nothing helpful.

her dark irises looked softer and warmer, like tiny plots of planting soil.

Hey, if you die in here, that’s cool.

Tantalus tried to poison the gods by feeding us his chopped-up son in a stew.

Could human brains explode from too many worrisome thoughts?

Mortals often talk about the whole world being against them, but that is ridiculous. Mortals aren’t that important.

Now, the Oscar Meyer Weiner song—that is poetry.

Defeating one ant had taken all my energy.

smartest and the most stable—in a sociopathic homicidal way.

Sometimes change takes centuries.”

The journey is greater than the destination,

They bloomed so cheerfully in the window, reminding me of the joy I had lost.

she had beautiful irises the color of new foliage.

That’s the nice thing about being human. We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it’s going to be.”