Persephone Quotes

So I take it you and Gansey get along, then?" Maura's expression was annoyingly knowing.
"Mom."
"Orla told me about his muscle car," Maura continued. Her voice was still angry and artificially bright. The fact that Blue was well aware that she'd earned it made the sting of it even worse. "You aren't planning on kissing him, are you?"
"Mom, that will never happen," Blue assured her. "You did meet him, didn't you?"
"I wasn't sure if driving an old, loud Camaro was the male equivalent of shredding your T-shirts and gluing cardboard trees to your bedroom walls."
"Trust me," Blue said. "Gansey and I are nothing like each other. And they aren't cardboard. They're repurposed canvas."
"The environment breathes a sigh of relief." Maura attempted another sip of her drink; wrinkling her nose, she shot a glare at Persephone. Persephone looked martyred. After a pause, Maura noted, in a slightly softer voice, "I'm not entirely happy about you're getting in a car without air bags."
"Our car doesn't have air bags," Blue pointed out.
Maura picked a long strand of Persephone's hair from the rim of her glass. "Yes, but you always take your bike."
Blue stood up. She suspected that the green fuzz of the sofa was now adhered to the back of her leggings. "Can I go now? Am I in trouble?"
"You are in trouble. I told you to stay away from him and you didn't," Maura said. "I just haven't decided what to do about it yet. My feelings are hurt. I've consul ~ Maggie Stiefvater

How it was. How it was that the earth could open up under you and swallow you whole, close above you as if you never were. Like Persephone snatched by the god. The ground opened up and out he came, sweeping her into the black chariot. Then down they plunged, under the ground, into the darkness, and the earth closed over her head, and she was gone, as if she had never been. ~ Janet Fitch

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Reaching up, reaching out
but still we take you..."
~ Andrea Koehle Jones, My Persephone ~ Andrea Koehle Jones

Oh! Why haven't they untied you yet?"

"We thought she might be … dangerous?" Gansey answered lamely.

Persephone cocked her head at him. "And you thought tying her hands would change that? ~ Maggie Stiefvater

They've kept the truth
about Persephone a secret,
burying it deep below
Hercules's murdered wife
and all of Zeus's affairs.
It's dangerous, you see,
a spark threatening to
ignite a long dead flame.

Power.

She loved her power,
the Queen of the Dead,
to forever reign
in the fires of hell.
She wore her crown
like a beacon;
a beautiful queen,
plotting against her king.
They never wanted you
to know the hunger of Persephone,
how she starved for something
other than pomegranates.

Control.

The primal thirst
that burns all women's throats,
denied by eons of men.
Listen closely to the voice from hell, sweetheart.
"You are a queen;
don't wait for a king. ~ E. P.

Once Spencer was safely out of the shop, John yanked her around to face him and said, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
Before she had a chance to answer him, Alex showed up at his side, grabbed Emma similarly and hissed, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
Persephone looked at Dunford and smiled, waiting for her turn, but much to her disappointment, he just stood there and glared at all three women. ~ Julia Quinn

Well, do you still make that marvelous wine? The pale red one, with a hint of nuts? I've boasted about it all the way here."
"There was a vineyard once, up on the slope of the Horn Ridge," Persephone said. "But it was lost to drought decades ago."
Nyphron scowled. "Doesn't anything in this place last?"
"Hardship," Persephone replied. "We always have an abundance of that."
The god looked directly at her. Their eyes met and he smiled. With a nod, he replied, "Well ... at least you have that. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

People don't believe in gods because they can't wrap their minds around the idea of someone allowing all the terrible things in the world to happen. ~ Kaitlin Bevis

What the myth founds is a double existence between the upper world and the underworld: a dimension of death is introduced into life, and a dimension of life is introduced into death. ~ Walter Burkert

Reaching up, reaching out,
and still we take you.
A tree quote from the song 'My Persephone ~ Andrea Koehle Jones

A chasm opened in the earth and out of it coal-black horses sprang, drawing a chariot and driven by one who had a look of dark splendor, majestic and beautiful and terrible. He caught her to him and held her close. The next moment she was being borne away from the radiance of earth in springtime to the world of the dead by the king who rules it. ~ Edith Hamilton

Hummingbird
Flitting, darting
A restless quest
To fuel a fire
That burns your breast
Seeking sweetness
For selfish glee
Bringing gifts
So heedlessly
Your touch a trigger
You fire life
Igniting beauty
In vibrant strife
To equal you
In colors bright
They dazzle, dumbfound
And delight
But in tableau
Their beauty ends
Enlivened only
By the wind
Whilst you with
Generous energy
Prove a lovely
Vibrant Persephone
Their season ends
Those blooms of spring
And hummingbird
On fragile wing
Too soon I fear
You will expire
Sweetness smolders
Consumed in fire. ~ Michael Sullivan

You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."
Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother-"
"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building. ~ Rick Riordan

Sometimes I'm in love with Persephone," Larkin confessed. "And sometimes I'm not, but I want to be. And sometimes I'm relieved to feel nothing for her at all. ~ Kate Mascarenhas

Can you see your own death?" "Everyone sees it," Persephone said mildly. "Most people make themselves stop looking, though." "I don't see my own death," Adam said. But even as he said it, he felt the corner of knowledge bite into him. It was now, it was coming, it had already happened. Somewhere, someWHEN, he was dying. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

In a very real way, television is the new mythos. It defines the world, reinterprets it. The seasons do not change because Persephone goes underground. They change because new episodes air, because sweeps week demands conflagrations and ritual deaths. The television series rises slowly, arcs, descends into hiatus, and rises again with the bright, burning autumn. ~ Catherynne M Valente

It happened so quickly. One minute I was plucking the flower, and the next I was in his chariot immersed in darkness. I struggled to wrench myself free from his grasp and run away. I twisted as far as I could, hoping to see mother chasing after me. But ahead of me, behind me, on either side of me, everywhere I looked, all I could see was darkness. ~ Tamara Agha-Jaffar

The scar will always be there. It will always be a part of me, but it's not who I am. Wounds can heal with time, Persephone. And those scars are only a small part of who you can be. ~ Layla Harding

In that moment, the moon and the sun shared the sky. For all of eternity, the moon and sun have chased each other around the world. Long into the future, they will continue this chase, merging the days into months into years into centuries, until the day the sun cannot take the separation any longer and she shatters, engulfing the moon and everything else in a burst of light. Most will call it the day of final judgment. The end. To the sun and the moon, it will only be the beginning.
For the smallest of instants each day, they pause in this chase. They pause and look back at one another, smiling as if sharing a secret. Two lovers that can never exist as one, except in that single, brief instant. Lying there, Persephone smiled too. And as quickly as a smile parts two lips, the two sky wanderers parted ways. The chase was on again. Night gave way to day.
That is true love, she had always thought. No force but love can impel one to step willingly into the shadows so that the other may shine. ~ Kelseyleigh Reber

I asked him for it.
For the blood, for the rust,
for the sin.
I didn't want the pearls other girls talked about,
or the fine marble of palaces,
or even the roses in the mouth of servants.
I wanted pomegranates -
I wanted darkness,
I wanted him.
So I grabbed my king and ran away
to a land of death,
where I reigned and people whispered
that I'd been dragged.
I'll tell you I've changed. I'll tell you,
the red on my lips isn't wine.
I hope you've heard of horns,
but that isn't half of it. Out of an entire kingdom
he kneels only to me,
calls me Queen, calls me Mercy.
Mama, Mama, I hope you get this.
Know the bed is warm and our hearts are cold,
know never have I been better
than when I am here.
Do not send flowers,
we'll throw them in the river.
'Flowers are for the dead', 'least that's what
the mortals say.
I'll come back when he bores me,
but Mama,
not today. ~ Daniella Michalleni

You're going to kidnap me again?"
Adrian tried a smile. "No, I'll ask you if you *want* to be kidnapped again. ~ Molly Ringle

Enjoying your Christmas in the land of the dead? Fun and different, right? ~ Molly Ringle

She is a sick woman," Mama Rosa argued, standing firm to deny him passage. "In addition to her Horseman ramblings, she also strokes her shoe like a cat, and calls it Madame Persephone. Do you think that will be of help as well? ~ Stacey Rourke

He was me and I was him and we were whole together. Now . . . now I'm in pieces, but Persephone is whole and for her, I'll endure. Miane ~ Nalini Singh

Who are you?" she said, barely able to hear her own words as her heartbeat thrummed in her ears.
"This is your dream, remember? Tell me who I am," he said smiling, absently coiling a tendril of her long brown hair around a finger.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "If this is my dream, oneiroi, then answer my question. Who are you?"
He was hearing her true voice: that of a natural ruler. She watched him smile at her fearlessness, even as he loomed over her. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "I am your lord husband. ~ Rachel Alexander

The 1950s and 1960s: philosophy, psychology, myth

There was considerable critical interest in Woolf 's life and work in this period, fuelled by the publication of selected extracts from her diaries, in A Writer's Diary (1953), and in part by J. K. Johnstone's The Bloomsbury
Group (1954). The main critical impetus was to establish a sense of a unifying aesthetic mode in Woolf 's writing, and in her works as a whole, whether through philosophy, psychoanalysis, formal aesthetics, or mythopoeisis.
James Hafley identified a cosmic philosophy in his detailed analysis of her fiction, The Glass Roof: Virginia Woolf as Novelist (1954), and offered a complex account of her symbolism. Woolf featured in the influential The
English Novel: A Short Critical History (1954) by Walter Allen who, with antique chauvinism, describes the Woolfian 'moment' in terms of 'short, sharp female gasps of ecstasy, an impression intensified by Mrs Woolf 's use
of the semi-colon where the comma is ordinarily enough'. Psychological and Freudian interpretations were also emerging at this time, such as Joseph Blotner's 1956 study of mythic patterns in To the Lighthouse, an essay that draws on Freud, Jung and the myth of Persephone.4 And there were studies of Bergsonian writing that made much of Woolf, such as Shiv Kumar's Bergson and the Stream of Consciousness Novel (1962).
The most important work of this period was by the French critic Jean Guiguet. His Virginia Woolf and H ~ Jane Goldman

You're like me. We're not really like the others. [ ... ] We're really better in our own company, Persephone said. It makes it hard sometimes, for others, when they can't understand us. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

It had to unleash some invisible magic, he thought; Hades and Persephone, joining together again within these black and holy stone walls, for the first time in millennia. As they indulged in enjoying one another, how could they not be reactivating some power within the Earth itself? Surely they were at least bringing autumn storm clouds rolling and thundering over the Mediterranean.
But probably every boy felt that way when finally in bed caressing the girl he loved. ~ Molly Ringle

Persephone smiled. "Caleb and I play Super MArio Kart every day at one, and when he cancelled on me I knew something was up."
I looked at Caleb slowly. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Mother, he is a gentleman.
He is a builder with bricks of moonlight.
He knows the secret places of the earth.
He washes the sleep from the eyes of the souls.
He lets them look on beauty.
He lets them tell him they hate him.
In the mornings, I gather berries and apples.
I scrub his back with rind.
I weave spider-spit, eyelash.
He talks in his sleep: pudding, fire, discus,
the things he misses.
He breathes, Your body is my orchard.
I am undulating grass.
I am a field of wheat he parts with his fingers.
Poppies bloom in my veins.
When he kisses me, he tastes pomegranate.
The night crawls nearer.
The moans of the dead roll and swell.
Mother, we are well. ~ Tara Mae Mulroy

Spring is about to spring. Persephone is coming back and the ice is groaning, about to break with the exquisite and deafening roar. It's a time for madness; a time for our fangs to come down and our eyes to glaze over so that the beast in us can sing with unmitigated joy. Oh yes, ecstasy, I welcome thee! ~ J. Christopher Stevens

The gods are fickle. The universe is completely random in the way it functions. But you know what we can do to make sense of the randomness? Be kind to each other. Help each other. Bring each other peace. I spoke to Persephone last night, and even the dreaded queen of the Underworld agrees. ~ Nikita Gill

I never dreamed you would be this beautiful," he said quietly, trembling slightly, his baritone voice resonating low and intimate as he scanned the length of her body.
"What do you m-m-" she began, her voice swallowed by another kiss. This one was more insistent, and she felt her skin jump. Her hips rocked, her stomach tensed at the firmer press of his mouth against hers. It was only once she leaned into him that she felt something hard and hot pressed against her hip, eliciting a soft groan into her mouth and a shiver that moved like a wave along his entire body. She mewled a wordless question against his lips, wanting to ask who he was. His only response was to skim his tongue across her teeth until they opened, letting him taste her.
Kore heard him sigh as his hand traced up her ribs and settled firmly on her breast. Her nipple instantly tightened under his palm and she cried into his mouth at the unanticipated pleasure of it. He languorously stroked her tongue with his and tasted of ancient groves and deep, warm earth, and the cold, faint sweetness of a foreign flower she knew but couldn't quite place. With a gasp she broke off the kiss to look up at him again, her face and neck flushed, her lips tingling, her heart pounding. The cool night air moved over her hot skin.
He smiled down at her again. "You taste exquisite. ~ Rachel Alexander

We call them groundsharks."
Sanguine shook his head immediately. "That's a stupid name. Makes them sound like little shark fins slicing through the living room carpet."
"I wanted to call them razorworms," said Persephone.
"That's a damn sight better than groundsharks."
(Eyes of the Beholder) ~ Derek Landy

Being the Magician isn't about being powerful when you have things and useless when you don't," Persephone said.
"The Magician sees what is out there and finds connections. The Magician can make anything magical. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Hades

Where we go when he closes my eyes
and under what country;
some blue darkness, farther from hell;
a landscape of absense and root and stone.

There are no bodies here,
we dream shapeless dreams--
a constant, cloudless storm.

Mother, I'll never wake up from him.
I have already traveled too far.
My mouth is the color of his mouth
and his arms are no longer his arms;
they're mute as smoke, as my first white dress,
and the spear of his name, once ferocious,
dissolves on my tongue
like sugar, like birdsong, I whisper it:
Hades ~ Cecilia Woloch

Calliope grabbed the loose end of his fog-infused chains and whipped it across his face. I gasped and struggled against her, but she held on to me with inhuman strength.
A bright red pattern blossomed across Henry's cheek, and at last he shook his head and came to. He touched his face and winced, and I exhaled. He was in there after all.
Instead of looking at me, however, his gaze focused on something behind me, and his jaw went slack. "Persephone?"
I would have rather been sliced open by Cronus than experience the gut-wrenching pain that came with hearing her name before mine. ~ Aimee Carter

Creativity is closely associated with bipolar disorder. This condition is unique . Many famous historical figures and artists have had this. Yet they have led a full life and contributed so much to the society and world at large. See, you have a gift. People with bipolar disorder are very very sensitive. Much more than ordinary people. They are able to experience emotions in a very deep and intense way. It gives them a very different perspective of the world. It is not that they lose touch with reality. But the feelings of extreme intensity are manifested in creative things. They pour their emotions into either writing or whatever field they have chosen (pg 181) ~ Preeti Shenoy

...even the goddess Persephone is happy, if only for half each year. ~ C.F. Joyce

Why not?" I asked, letting my tears spill over. It was easy to cry. All I had to do was look at Alex's limp body, and the tears came effortlessly. "You were happy enough to do it to me."
There was a beat. Then John said cautiously, "What do you mean?"
"The consequences, John?" I let out a bitter laugh. "Persephone wasn't doomed to stay in the Underworld because she ate a pomegranate. She was doomed to stay there because she did with Hades what we did last night. That's what the pomegranate symbolizes, right?"
John stared, speechless. But I could tell I was right by the color that slowly started to suffuse his cheeks…and the fact that he didn't try to contradict me.
And of course the fact that the whole thing was spelled out right in front of me by the statue Hope was sitting on. I didn't get why the Rectors were so obsessed by the myth of Persephone that they'd put a statue of it in their mausoleum, but it was clear enough they were involved in an underworld of one kind or another.
"Don't worry," I said, lowering my voice because I didn't want Frank to overhear. "I don't blame you. You asked me if I was sure, despite the consequences. I said I was. But I thought by consequences you meant a baby, and I already knew that could never happen. I guess Mr. Smith must have told you last night that he found out the pomegranate symbolized something completely different than babies or death-"
"Pierce." John grasped my hand. His fingers were like ice, but h ~ Meg Cabot

My dream wasn't to be a princess in a castle. I wanted to be Persephone, claimed by the god of the underworld. Except that was the thing about getting captured; it wasn't up to me. I ~ Skye Warren

Persephone was dead. Gansey couldn't believe it, not because he could not believe in the nearness of death
he could not STOP believing in the nearness of death
but because he would not have expected PERSEPHONE to do something as mortal as dying. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Be calm, cool, and collected. Don't let that
handsome bastard have power over you. ~ M.M. Kin

Grace thinks of Persephone and the pomegranate seeds. She took something for herself when Jes offered her that first cigarette, and again with her photographs at Holy Communion. And look at her: she's ended up staying so much longer than she ever thought she'd be allowed to. ~ Zan Romanoff

Like just any woman across the world, Persephone knew of the importance of threads. It mattered not what it was made of – thick woolen yarn or leather cords to slender linen strings or thin, delicate strands of silk. One could even say that without these threads, civilization would not exist. ~ M.M. Kin

Wisconsin doesn't look kindly on the weeks that slip in between the death of cold and the birth of warmth; Persephone may have left her husband, but she isn't home yet, and this is one state that'll be damned before it lets anyone forget it. ~ Seanan McGuire

The stars are the one thing that I miss about the earth. They're so constant, steady, bright. I've always loved the stars. You reminded me of them, Persephone," she added quietly. ~ Sarah Diemer

It's the night sky. See the dots? They're stars. I remembered what you said about the stars moving. You said they were different when you met Persephone, and- this is how they are now. When you met me. ~ Aimee Carter

Because Persephone was only interested in important things, she hadn't considered her own age in a long time, but it struck her as she looked at him that he was quite new. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I mean, there Persephone was, minding her own business, picking flowers, when all of a sudden Hades bursts out of the ground in a flaming chariot and grabs her. I mean, you can't just go around grabbing people. That's not okay." I narrow my eyes, challenging him. "What kind of person does that?"
Haden glowers right back at me. "Maybe he didn't see any other options at the moment. ~ Bree Despain

His gaze hits mine with the force of a battering ram. He looks… appalled. "I-I won't do this. I can't… be with you. ~ Amanda Bouchet

Persephone barely told anybody anything even when it wasn't a secret. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Eriskigal, or as some say it, Erishkigal, is Morgan le Fay, Kali, Persephone, and Hel.'
'She's Hel all right,' Jarrah muttered. ~ Michael Grant

Unlike the classical Greeks, for whom the fruit symbolized the inescapable cycle of bitter death, with a remorseful Persephone returning to the underworld for her six months of required winter, Marjan liked to believe the old stories of Persian soothsayers, who held a different vision of the tart fruit's purpose in life. She liked to remember that above all else, above all the unfortunate connotations of death and winter, the pomegranate was, and always would be, the fruit of hope.
The flower of fertility, of new things and old seasons to be cradled. ~ Marsha Mehran

I may have something to help you along... Eros!"
The winged youth raised his bow, his arrow already nocked, took aim, and loosed. Aidon caught the golden arrow and winced, his hand clamped around its head, inches from his heart. He opened his fist. Parallel wounds from the razor sharp edges closed themselves. His blood quickened as he held the golden arrow in his shaking hands.
Heart racing, his head grew light, and he shifted his stance to steady his feet underneath him. Flashes of russet hair, a soft female voice, the twirling skirt of a green linen chiton, grass-stained knees, and delicate, flower-trimmed ankles invaded his thoughts. He looked at Zeus with a mixture of bewilderment and fury. "Was that necessary?"
Zeus laughed. "We shall see. ~ Rachel Alexander

The right thing to do would be for you to acknowledge that you feel something for me that's remotely close to what I feel for you. I've asked only for a single grain of sand from you, Persephone, while I'm the whole fucking beach at your feet... ~ Linda Robertson

The most lasting wound was invisible but persistent: The knowledge of Persephone's death hummed constantly through Adam like the pulse of the ley line. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Poor Persephone." He stared down his nose at the god. "That must be hard on her if that's what gets you off."
I wrinkled my nose.
"If her name drips from your forked tongue one more time, I will rip it out," Hades promised, voice deadly low.
Was his tongue really forked?
His lips curled up on one side. "What? You don't like me talking about your wife?" He looked over at the three of us. "Is abduction as a means of marriage still all the rage these days?"
Seth arched a brow.
"Uh ... no," I said, shaking my head. "It's really frowned upon. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Do not worry about your contradictions - Persephone is both floral maiden and queen of death. You, too, can be both. ~ Nichole McElhaney

Persephone is just a name for a spirit of beauty at a certain time in history. I'm sure we could argue a biblical place for her if it matters. Your wife has the name of that pagan goddess, but the fact remains that she's your mortal bride in the Year of Our Lord 1888- and she's Catholic, so pray for her, damn it, I don't care how confusing it is. And pray for us, to anyone. If the dead are about to flood Athens, divine goodwill couldn't hurt. Your prayers can be in Hindu, if you like. Now go home. ~ Leanna Renee Hieber

Okay," Maura said from the doorway, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. "There are a few things going on here, obviously. Someone just tried to kill you." This was to Gansey. "You two are telling me that your friend was killed by the man who just tried to kill him." This was to Ronan and Adam. "You three are telling me that Neeve had a phone call with the man who killed your friend and just now tried to kill Gansey." This was to Blue, Persephone, and Calla. "And you're telling me that you've had nothing to do with him since that phone call. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

It is true that I am a writer, and I was married to a composer, and I have lived in a small village in New England, but my children are not named Heracles and Persephone, and my daughter doesn't disappear underground every six months and emerge in the spring. ~ Jamaica Kincaid

Little gusts of sunshine blew, strangely bright, and lit up the celandines at the wood's edge, under the hazel-rods, they spangled out bright and yellow. And the wood was still, stiller, but yet gusty with crossing sun. The first windflowers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor. 'The world has grown pale with thy breath.' But it was the breath of Persephone, this time; she came out of hell on a cold morning. Cold breaths of wind came, and overhead there was an anger of entangled wind caught among the twigs. It, too, was caught and trying to tear itself free, the wind, like Absalom. How cold the anemones looked, bobbing their naked white shoulders over crinoline skirts of green. But they stood it. A few first bleached little primroses too, by the path, and yellow buds unfolding themselves. ~ D.H. Lawrence

...[M]ortals are strange when people die. The more we hated or loved someone, the more we want to remember them. .... When people die, especially in a shocking, violent, or unexpected way, they tend to forgive, or at least forget, what angered them. It's a blessing of Persephone. She doesn't like it when people talk ill of the dead, being Queen of the Underworld and everything. It is also why we bring flowers for the dead. ~ Mandy Oviatt

After the sorts of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. ~ George Orwell

Strange game, this stating the obvious," Suri said, shaking her head. She got up and joined Minna at the woodpile. "Pointless, but popular. Everyone plays it. You're eating our bread. That isn't your bed. You have a wolf. But as you can see, I'm getting the knack of it. Tura told me to blend in at villages, especially the dahls. She said people who live inside walls are crazy and can be dangerous. Touched animals are, too. Cursed by the gods, sort of like you, and even a tainted squirrel's bite can make you that way."
"I merely meant, well…" Persephone hesitated. "I didn't think you'd still be here."
Suri pointed at the treetops visible over the rear wall of the dahl where the gray spears had become a curtain of green. "Was waiting on the leaves."
Persephone laughed. "It's been two weeks."
The mystic twisted her face, thinking hard. "You have two ears." She smiled proudly. "I'm starting to see the fun of this. Using a part of what another person says makes it harder, doesn't it? Probably gets more challenging late in winter when you've been sealed up for months - I assume you can't repeat the same thing twice, right? ~ Michael J. Sullivan

I will love you and only you until the stars are shaken out of the sky. ~ Rachel Alexander

You will, once again, have to save me from myself. You have done that, you know." "Saved you?" "My Persephone," he whispered in her ear. "Do you know I would have come for you no matter how far you'd gone?" "Hades always came for Persephone," she echoed his earlier explanation. He lightly kissed her again. "And she always returned home." "Always," Persephone repeated. "Always. ~ Sarah M. Eden

I wonder now about Demeter and Persephone. Maybe Persephone was glad to run off with the king of death to his underground realm, maybe it was the only way she could break away from her mother, maybe Demeter was a bad parent the way Lear was a bad parent, denying nature, including the nature of children to leave their parents. Maybe Persephone thought Hades was the infinitely cool older man who held the knowledge she sought, maybe she loved the darkness, the six months of winter, the sharp taste of pomegranates, the freedom from her mother, maybe she knew that to be truly alive death had to be part of the picture just as winter must. It was as the queen of hell that she became an adult and came into power. Hades's realm is called the underworld, and so are the urban realms of everything outside the law. And as in Hopi creation myths, where humans and other beings emerge from underground, so it's from the underground that culture emerges in this civilization. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Imagine this:
Instead of waiting in her tower, Rapunzel slices off her long, golden hair with a carving knife, and then uses it to climb down to freedom.
Just as she's about to take the poison apple, Snow White sees the familiar wicked glow in the old lady's eyes, and slashes the evil queen's throat with a pair of sewing scissors.
Cinderella refuses everything but the glass slippers from her fairy godmother, crushes her stepmother's windpipe under her heel, and the Prince falls madly in love with the mysterious girl who dons rags and blood-stained slippers.

Imagine this:
Persephone goes adventuring with weapons hidden under her dress.
Persephone climbs into the gaping chasm.
Or, Persephone uses her hands to carve a hole down to hell.
In none of these versions is Persephone's body violated unless she asks Hades to hold her down with his horse-whips.
Not once does she hold out on eating the pomegranate, instead biting into it eagerly and relishing the juice running down her chin, staining it red.
In some of the stories, Hades never appears and Persephone rules the underworld with a crown of her own making.
In all of them, it is widely known that the name Persephone means Bringer of Destruction.

Imagine this:
Red Riding Hood marches from her grandmother's house with a bloody wolf pelt.
Medusa rights the wrongs that have been done to her.
Eurydice breaks every muscle in her arms climbi ~ Theappleppielifestyle

After she returned and the Gray Man had been encouraged to sit down on the worn couch, Maura said, "I'll warn you that if you try anything, Calla has Mace."
By way of demonstration, Calla handed him his drink and then removed a small black container of pepper spray from her small red purse.
Maura gestured toward the third member of their group. "And Persephone is Russian."
"Estonian," Persephone correctly softly.
"And" - Maura made an extremely convincing fist - "I know how to punch a man's nose into his brain."
"What a coincidence," the Gray Man said genially. "So do I. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Husband, we talked about this," Persephone chided. "You can't go around incinerating every hero. Besides, he's brave. I like that. ~ Rick Riordan

His eyes were a lot older than fifteen.
Persephone Hadley(,regarding Callum McGregor) ~ Malorie Blackman

I'm keeping my promise, I'm coming home. To her. ~ Sarah Diemer

I shortened my name to Cat for a reason – as in Cataclysm. ~ Amanda Bouchet

It seems to me that the gods are cruel to women who eat fruit, but that is a thought I keep to myself. ~ Jacqueline Carey

She nodded, or rocked, or both. "It's a stable number, three. Fives and sevens are good, too, but three is the best. Things are always growing to three or shrinking to three. Best to start there. Two is a terrible number. Two is for rivalry and fighting and murder."
"Or marriage," Adam said, thinking.
"Same thing," Persephone replied. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I'm Tekchin," he said, exchanging an empty gourd for a full one. "The handsomest and most skilled of the Galantians."
This brought an immediate and loud moan from the other Fhrey.
"That scar suggests otherwise," Moya replied. "On both counts."
More laughter, louder this time.
"Pretty and smart," Tekchin said to the others in Fhrey.
Persephone was thankful Moya couldn't understand their language. A comment like that would have been tantamount to putting torch to tinder.
"This?" Tekchin returned to Rhunic and touched his cheek. "Naw, this is a beauty mark given to me by a special friend. He's dead now, of course, but he was a gifted opponent and aiming for my throat. I can assure you it proves my skill. So what's your name, or shall I call you Doe-Eyes?"
"Doe-Eyes? Seriously?" Moya rolled her same-said eyes in disbelief. "I would have expected something less sappy from a god. My name is Moya. Call me anything else and you'll receive a second beauty mark."
Tekchin struggled but failed to resist smiling. Behind him, the rest of the Fhrey laughed once more.
"God, eh?" Tekchin said.
"Don't get too excited. Apparently it's only a rumor."
"I like you, Moya."
"Most people do," she replied. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Queer, how her own desperate need of light seemed to throw such brilliance over the affairs of the members of her family. She carried her need like a many-batteried pocket spotlight, illuminating emotional corners in other people, but she walked in darkness behind it. Her wrist wouldn't bend to turn it on herself. ~ Helen R. Hull

It doesn't matter," said Persephone. "He [Henry] wasn't supposed to do that. While I ruled with him, we only made a few exceptions, and even then there were so many caveats that no one ever really made it back to the surface. He violated everything he's stood for since the dawn of humanity to save your life. ~ Aimee Carter

look mother, look at me now, kingdoms blooming beneath my feet and a throne of shadows for me. ~ Arlen C.

I don't understand," Olivia said. "How did Penny sewing and unsewing make for the Trojan War?"
"Penelope was Odysseus's wife," Philippa explained. "He left her, and she sat at her loom, sewing all day, and unraveling all her work at night. For years."
"Why on earth would someone do that?" Olivia wrinkled her nose, selecting a sweet from a nearby tray. "Years? Really?"
"She was waiting for him to come home," Penelope said, meeting Michael's gaze. There was something meaningful there, and he thought she might be speaking of more than the Greek myth. Did she wait for him at night? She'd told him not to touch her... she'd pushed him away... but tonight, if he went to her, would she accept him? Would she follow the path of her namesake?
"I hope you have more exciting things to do when you are waiting for Michael to come home, Penny," Olivia teased.
Penelope smiled, but there was something in her gaze that he did not like, something akin to sadness. He blamed himself for it. Before him, she was happier. Before him, she smiled and laughed and played games with her sisters without reminder of her unfortunate fate.
He stood to meet her as she approached the settee. "I would never leave my Penelope for years." He said, "I would be too afraid that someone would snatch her away." His mother-in-law sighed audibly from across the room as his new sisters laughed. He lifted one of Penelope's hands in his and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "Penelope and Odys ~ Sarah MacLean

Lost in Hell,-Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Pomegranate

The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere. And have.
As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted. Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.
It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate! How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at t ~ Eavan Boland

And you, Persephone... You were foretold, too. I never wanted anything-" her mouth moved softly, gently over my skin "-until I wanted you. ~ Sarah Diemer

Persephone.
Henry's voice was barely louder than a whisper, but even in the buzz of the foyer, it cut through me. He stood in the hallway, his arms covered in blood and his clothing torn, but like he'd done in the cave, he stared past me and focused on Persephone instead. It was as if none of the past few weeks had happened. As if none of the past thousand years had happened. ~ Aimee Carter

Why are you here?" My voice sounded breathless.
As if it should've been obvious, Cole said, "I came here to offer you eternal life.Again."
I pushed him away from him. "I already made my choice."
"Yes,but it's obviously the wrong choice. Return with me. To the Everneath. And we'll live in the High Court. And you won't be a battery in the Tunnels. You could be a queen."
"The Everneath has a High Court?"
"Of course.It's where Osiris and Isis ruled.Hades and Persephone.Every realm in every dimension has people who give orders and people who take orders. And I'm tired of taking orders,Nick."
I grimaced. "That has nothing to do with me."
He paused and let out a little sigh. "Then I'm saying it wrong,beause it has everything to do with you. I want what Hades and Persephone had, and I can't do it without you.The only time the queen of the Everneath has been overthrown is when an Everliving has found his perfect match. I've spent my whole life-and it's a long one,trust me-looking for my perfect match,and it's you. I knew you were different from the first moment I met you.The first moment you placed your hands on mine.You remember?"
I nodded. It had been the night we first met.
"Your cheeks turned red,and I was gone for you." He shook his head,and his lips quirked up in a smile. "I know you felt it too.The connection between us. It started even before the Feed."
I looked away,because my cheeks were getting warm thinking about it, and I ~ Brodi Ashton

And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade. ~ C.F. Joyce

Gansey and Adam shared some sort of private conversation with their eyes. It was the sort of thing Blue was used to transpiring between her mother and Persephone or Calla, and she hadn't thought anyone else really capable of it. It also made her feel strangely jealous; she wanted something like that, a bond strong enough to transcend words. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Yeah," Thomas said, "if the dude almost beat my ass for helping you out of a corset, he will murder me on the spot when he sees our modern interpretation of the 'Rape of Persephone'. ~ Nicole Williams

She left the room, with her black-and-white kitty, Ruff, Elizabeth, Naiad and Persephone- a spotted gray-and-white shorthair- following on her heels in hopes of getting breakfast. As for her other two cats, she knew they must be out hunting rodents and birds rather than waiting to go down to the kitchens with everyone else.
Burr and old Henry, who had climbed with a stiff gait out of his basket, joined the furry entourage, tails wagging and tongues lolling as they descended the stairs. The Scotties were probably asleep in the nursery, happy to wait to see what tidbits the children would sneak them during their breakfast in another hour or two. ~ Tracy Anne Warren

He spiked the dirt, twisted out the deformed rose, tossed it aside. His palms sweated.
'Sorry,' Persephone suggested.
'Pardon?'
She murmured, 'You should say sorry when you kill something.'
It took him a moment to realize she meant the rose. 'It was dying anyway.'
'Dying and dead are different words.'
Shamed, Adam muttered an apology ... ~ Maggie Stiefvater