Rd16 Quotes

“It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, “You will miss so much by being so guarded.”
― Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals

“I think we all wear armor. I think those who don’t are fools, risking the pain of being wounded by the sharp edges of the world, over and over again. But if I’ve learned anything from those fools, it is that to be vulnerable is a strength most of us fear. It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are.”
― Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals

“In the meantime, I hope you will find your place, wherever you are. Even in the silence, I hope you will find the words you need to share.”
― Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals

“I’m sorry. This is not what I intended to say. What I meant to say is this: You’ll write more poems. They are not lost. You are the poetry.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam

“And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“My dearest, darling Sidney,' There was nothing else. Only dead white paper, blank and meaningless. A comma, followed by nothing. Death summed up by grammar.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam

“Will had kissed Nico for the first time in a moment of impulsiveness, something Nico didn’t know Will had in him. The kiss had been just like this one, short and sweet.
Then Will had pulled away, worry on his face, an apology tumbling from his lips.
Nico had stopped him. Then kissed him back.
In a moment so full of grief and rage and sadness, Will had given him …
Light.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“There cannot be light without darkness, nor darkness without light. You must have the contrast for both to exist.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found happiness briefly, only for it not to be the end of the story.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam

“Three words.
A promise of hope.
The words tingled in Will’s ear.
They ignited his heart.
‘I love you.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“But with Nico … It’s hard, Persephone. I want the best for him, and he seems to disappear into his darkness, like he’s hiding in a place where he doesn’t want my light.’

‘Then why not offer him your darkness?”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Call me Sidney,” said Ellwood.
“Sidney,” said Gaunt, so quickly, as if he had been waiting years to say it ... He pressed their foreheads together. “This means I’m keeping you,” he added, his voice fierce with warning.
As if it wasn’t exactly what Ellwood wanted to hear.
“You can have me,” he told Gaunt, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam

“There’s something strangely intimate about calling someone in the dark. It’s like listening to your favorite song in the middle of a crowded subway; the world narrows down to just you and this voice in your ear, while everyone else around you goes about their lives, completely oblivious. It feels sacred. Like a secret.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“You are the ghost king, a voice said.

I am, Nico thought.

This is where you belong.

But then Nico raised his head. Looked at the other two passengers. Will, whose face was strained as he reached down with a shaking hand to grab at him.

Nico took it, gripped his boyfriend’s hand tight, and thought, No. This is where I belong.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Maybe I’ll always be scared. Maybe the fear of getting hurt, of being left alone,
will never truly go away. But even if it’s my default setting, I can fight it. So many beautiful things lie on the other side of fear.
Like love.
Like this.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“Pain is a part of all lives, mortal and immortal,’ said the nymph. ‘It is inescapable. We all must navigate this river to get where we want to be.’
‘Shouldn’t we aim to avoid pain?’ Will asked. ‘Or at least mitigate it?’
Nico shook his head. ‘You know it’s not that simple.’
‘Pain helps us learn,’ said Gorgyra. ‘It is unfortunate, but we rarely forget the lessons taught to us in moments of pain.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“It's like staring into a dark and treacherous expanse, unsure of what awaits you but finding comfort in the fact that you won't have to face it alone.
It was a son of Apollo falling for a son of Hades.
It was this.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Because there aren’t thousands of books and poems and movies out there to describe exactly what I’m feeling, or lyrically beautiful songs for me to cry to and sing along with in the car. There’s no guidebook on how to survive this kind of fallout, no prescribed remedy to soothe this particular kind of pain. Romantic breakups are romanticized
constantly, talked about everywhere by everyone, but platonic breakups are
swept to the side, suffered in secret, as if they’re somehow less important.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“It was a constant pattern for Nico: find some sort of solace and comfort, only to have it ripped away.
Now here was Solace in his lap, sleeping like a baby. What would come and tear him away?”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Hey, don’t do that.’ Will touched Nico’s face, stared into his dark eyes.
‘You survived. You continue to survive. You’ve been through more in your fifteen years than most people will endure in an entire lifetime.’
Nico looked away, but Will knew this grumpy ball of darkness – his grumpy ball of darkness – and he refused to let Nico off the hook.
‘I don’t always understand you, Nico,’ he said, ‘but I do know that you’re resilient. And in that sense you are just like this garden.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Well, that’s what this quest is all about, isn’t it?’ said Nico, facing forward. ‘We have to fix what’s been broken.’
‘I love that about you, Nico di Angelo.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“What would make Nico realize they were simply, irreconcilably too different. ‘Yes?’
Nico didn’t seem able to talk at first. Then: ‘You are a legitimate demigod Care Bear.’
Will’s top lip trembled. He fell to his knees. Then he bent over in loud, raucous laughter until tears poured from his eyes.
‘You’re so weird.’ Nico crawled over, pulled Will to him and silenced his laughter with a tender kiss. ‘Please keep being my own personal Care Bear, though.’
‘Always,’ said Will.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“I got you,’ he breathed into Will’s ear. ‘I got you.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“Where’s the rest of it?” said Ellwood, his voice rising unpredictably.
“My,” just the word “my” would have been enough to live on, if Gaunt had ever called him that to his face.
“He never called me Sidney. Not once, in five years.” He looked up at Hayes. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Hayes. He sat stiff and upright on the bed.
“Why didn’t he finish it?”
“I don’t know,” said Hayes.
“He knew he was going to die.”
“He thought you both would.”
“But he never called me Sidney.”
He never called him any of it. My, dearest, darling. Sidney. Ellwood leant back against the window, his throat stretching long as he looked up.
“If Gaunt had been a girl, I should have married him in an instant,” he said.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam

“They were just nightmares – Epiales playing on his worst fears, just as they were now doing to Nico.
And Will wasn’t going to lie there and let anyone hurt his boyfriend.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“He sobbed, overwhelmed by how far he was from home. The thought made him cry harder because he wasn't even sure where home was.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and The Star

“You show new ways through the dark,’ Clack-Jones added.
‘You see the trogs,’ said Screech-Bling. ‘You see Bob the Titan.’
Will smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘Nyx hates what you represent – change.’
Howl-Smith nodded wisely. ‘Or at least the potential for it.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“And no light was brighter than Noco di Angelo.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“I’m the demon of nightmares, silly,’ said Epiales. ‘And the dead can dream just like everyone else.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

“But if there is any future in which you survive – in which you and your little demigod friends aren’t destroyed – then we will continue this conversation, Nico di Angelo …’ She rose and spread her smoky wings to their full span. ‘I will make you choose your true nature. You won’t be able to escape it.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure