Mythomagic Percy Quotes

Science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists. ~ Percy Williams Bridgman

When the thing did not explode, Polybotes bent down cautiously and picked it up.
He roared in outrage. "A Ding Dong? You dare insult me with a Ding Dong? ~ Rick Riordan

I stared at her. Maybe I wasn't the brightest guy in the world when it came to girls, but I was pretty sure Rachel had just dumped me, which was lame considering we'd never even been together. ~ Rick Riordan

What Descartes did not know: no such isolated individual as he described can be conscious. ~ Walker Percy

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thought Experiment: Imagine that you are Johnny Carson and find yourself caught in an intolerable one-on-one conversation at a cocktail party from which there is no escape. Which of the two following events would you prefer to take place: (1) That the other person become more and more witty and charming, the music more beautiful, the scene transformed to a villa at Capri on the loveliest night of the year, while you find yourself more and more at a loss; or (2) that you are still in Beverly Hills and the chandeliers begin to rattle, a 7.5 Richter earthquake takes place, and presently you find yourself and the other person alive and well, and talking under a mound of rubble.
If your choice is (2), explain why it is possible for a true conversation to take place under the conditions of (2) but not (1). ~ Walker Percy

Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can blast the flower, Even when in most unwary hour It blooms in Fancy's bower. Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can rend the shrine In which its vermeil splendours shine. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die. ~ Rick Riordan

The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within ... could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the result; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline; and the most glorious poetry that has been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck
people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too, when the truth was that our reality had been purchased only by Lyell's death. In another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways. ~ Walker Percy

Our Catholic church here split into three pieces: (1) the American Catholic Church whose new Rome is Cicero, Illinois; (2) the Dutch schismatics who believe in relevance but not God; (3) the Roman Catholic remnant, a tiny scattered flock with no place to go. The American Catholic Church, which emphasizes property rights and the integrity of neighborhoods, retained the Latin mass and plays The Star-Spangled Banner at the elevation. ~ Walker Percy

Whoa," said Nico as he climbed off the bus. "Is that a climbing wall?"
"Yeah," I (Percy) said.
"Why is there lava pouring down it?"
"Little extra challenge ... " - Percy ~ Rick Riordan

Annabeth came up to me. She was dressed in black camouflage with her Celestial bronze knife strapped to her arm and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder - ready for stabbing or surfing the Internet, whichever came first. ~ Rick Riordan

It belongs to a philosophical critic to distinguish rather than confound ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence Of Poetry

Percy had taken his girlfriend on some romantic walks before. This wasn't one of them. ~ Rick Riordan

Percy, keep your mind on what matters most. ~ Rick Riordan

Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse
a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,
but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

Percy stormed over to the magical cooler. No one tried to stop him. He knocked open the lid and rummaged throught the ice. There had to be one. Please. He was rewarded with s silver-and-red can of soda. He brandished it at the dolphin warriors as if spraying them with bug repellent. "Behold!" Percy shouted. "The god's chosen beverage. Tremble before the horror of Diet Coke! ~ Rick Riordan

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

New lesson class ... most monsters will vaporize when sliced with a celestial bronze sword.this change is perfectly normal, and will happen to you RIGHT NOW if you don't BACK OFF! ... CLASS DISMISSED! ~ Rick Riordan

Yay!' he said. 'Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM! ~ Rick Riordan

The earth-self observing the Cosmos and trying to understand the Cosmos by scientific principles from which its self is excluded is, beyond doubt, the strangest phenomenon in all of the Cosmos, far stranger than the Ring Nebula in Lyra.
It, the self, is in fact the only alien in the entire Cosmos. ~ Walker Percy

Look, Miss Victory ... " Percy tried for a smile. "We don't want to interrupt your crazy time. Maybe you can just finish this conversation with yourself and we'll come back later, with, um, some bigger weapons, and possibly some sedatives. ~ Rick Riordan

True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,
it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

And I was holding someone who was destined to be my best friend, or possibly my worst enemy. ~ Rick Riordan

Anybody have any money?"
Frank checked his pockets. "Three denarii from Camp Jupiter. Five dollars Canadian."
Hedge patted his gym shorts and pulled out what he found. "Three quarters, two dimes, a rubber band and - score! A piece of celery."
He started munching on the celery, eyeing the change and the rubber band like they might be next. ~ Rick Riordan

Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about a stealthy as water buffalos. ~ Rick Riordan

I tried to imagine how things could get much worse. The gods were in the Midwest fighting a huge monster that had almost defeated them once before. Poseidon was under siege and losing a war against the sea Titan Oceanus.
Kronos was still out there somewhere. Olympus was virtually undefended. The demigods of Camp Half-Blood were on our own with a spy in our midst.
Oh, and according to the ancient prophecy, I was going to die when I turned sixteen - which happened to be in five days, the exact same time Typhon was supposed to hit New York. Almost forgot that. ~ Rick Riordan

I stood up. Can a man stand alone, naked, and at his ease, wrist flexed at his side like Michelangelo's David, without assistance, without diversion, without drink, without friends, without a woman, in silence? Yes. It was possible to stand. Nothing happened. I listened. There was no sound: no boats on the river, no trucks on the road, not even cicadas. What if I didn't listen to the news? I didn't. Nothing happened. I realized I had been afraid of silence. ~ Walker Percy

How strange to think that you cannot pass along the discovery. ~ Walker Percy

It is better that we gain what we demand by a process of negotiation which would occupy twenty years, than that by communicating a sudden shock to the interests of those who are the depositaries and dependents of power we should incur the calamity which their revenge might inflict upon us by giving the signal of ... war. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

He who gives while he lives, get to know where it goes. ~ Percy Ross

At this moment the President is beginning to speak in New Orleans and the Vice-President is mounting the platform at NASA a few miles away. Both are making a plea for unity. The President, who is an integrationist Mormon married to a liberated Catholic, will appeal to Leftists to respect law and order. The Vice-President, a Southern Baptist Knothead married to a conservative Unitarian, is asking Knotheads for tolerance and understanding, etcetera. The poor U.S.A.! Even ~ Walker Percy

Otrera stayed dead the second time," Kinzie said, batting her eyes. "We have to thank you for that. If you ever need a new girlfriend ... well, I think you'd look great in an iron collar and an orange jumpsuit."
Percy couldn't tell if she was kidding or not. He politely thanked her and changed seats. ~ Rick Riordan

It was one of those and so they died/the end stories, that made us demigods feels all warm and fuzzy inside.-Percy ~ Rick Riordan

You don't approach a case with the philosophy of applying abstract justice-you go in to win ~ Percy Foreman

When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the daybeam is gone,
Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,
She will smile through the tears of revival on thine. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Well," he said, trying to sound as though he found the whole thing a joke, "if you want to
er
what is it?" (He checked Percy's letter.) "Oh yeah
'sever ties' with me, I swear I won't get violent."
"Give it back," said Ron, holding out his hand. He is
" Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half, "the world's"
he tore it into quarters
"biggest"
he tore it into eighths
"git." He threw the pieces into the fire. ~ J.K. Rowling

Whenever I feel bad, I go to the library and read controversial periodicals. Though I do not know whether I am a liberal or a conservative, I am nevertheless enlivened by the hatred which one bears the other. In fact, this hatred strikes me as one of the few signs of life remaining in the world. ~ Walker Percy

We're fresh out of flying boys. ~ Rick Riordan