"I always love it when I hear back from kids who say they discovered Percy Jackson and now wear their learning difference as a badge of honour."

"He remembered Apollo, smiling and tanned and completely cool in his shades. Thalia had said, He's hot. He's the sun god, Percy replied. That's not what I meant. Why was Nico thinking about that now? The random memory irritated him, made him feel jittery."

"Always happens with men. They promise friendship. They promise to treat you as an equal. In the end, all they want is to possess you."

"Jason's fingers itched to draw his sword. He'd met plenty of scary demigods, but he was starting to realize that Nico di Angelo--as pale and gaunt as he looked--might be more than he could handle."

"I held out a lead figurine of Hades-the little Mythomagic statue Nico had abandoned when he fled camp last winter.Nico hesitated. "I don't play that game anymore. It's for kids.""It's got four thousand attack power," I coaxed."Five thousand," Nico corrected. "But only if your opponent attacks first."I smiled. "Maybe it's okay to still be a kid once in a while."

"You're pretty smug, Lord Ares, for a guy who runs from Cupid statues."

"Otis barreled towards them empty-handed, before apparently realizing that a) he was empty-handed and b) charging towards a large body of water to fight a son of Poseidon was maybe not a good idea."

"Go on with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all."

"Forget the chicken-nugget smoke screen. Percy wanted Leo to invent an anti-dream hat."

"They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with."...As I sailed into the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if."

"She wondered if it was her stupid mother, the goddess of love, messing with her thoughts. If Piper started getting urges to read fashion magazines, she was going to have to find Aphrodite and smack her."

"Fear can't be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They're like love. They're almost identical emotions."

"Butch hesitated. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem.""What Problem?" Piper asked."She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days," Butch said. "She's going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he'd be here.""Who?" Jason asked."Her boyfriend," Butch said, "A guy named Percy Jackson."

"She'd secretly had a crush on him since they were twelve years old. Last summer, she'd fallen for him hard."

"The ruins stretch from the river to the base of that mountain over there, about half a kilometre.' 'How far is that in regular measurements?' Percy asked. Frank rolled his eyes. 'That is a regular measurement in Canada and the rest of the world. Only you Americans "' 'About five or six football fields,' Hazel interceded, feeding Arion a big chunk of gold. Percy spread his hands. 'That's all you needed to say."

"Swords can't solve every problem."

"We heard the army before we saw it.The noise was like a cannon barrage combined with a football stadium crowd- like every Patriots fan in New England was charging us with bazookas."

"Now, leave." All three boys slumped forward. Percy fell face-first into his pizza. "Percy!" Annabeth grabbed him."

"The plan had three phases: dangerous, really dangerous and insanely dangerous."

"Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of sadness."

"It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality."

"Don't die on me," she ordered. "You are not dying on me.""Yes, ma'am." He felt light-headed, but she was about the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Her hair was smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut on her arm, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful."

"If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork."

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

"As a general rule, I preferred not to have my soul reaped."

"That wasn't my future I destroyed,' she assured herself. 'I make my own future."

"Jason rose from his deathbed so he could drown with the rest of the crew."

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously."I'm afraid not," I said."I'm afraid not, sir," he said."Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."

"That's it, cupcake. You're going down."

"It seemed weird calling a teenager 'sir' but I'd learned to be careful with immortals. They tended to get offended easily. Then, they blew stuff up."

"Sometimes you lie to deceive people. Sometimes you lie because you need the lie to become the truth."

"Victory must be real. It must be earned. That means it must be rare and difficult, against steep odds, and defeat must be the other."

"The the glow become brighter: a holographic golden sickle with a few sheaves of wheat, rotating just above Meg McCaffrey.A boy in the crowd gasped. 'She's a communist!'A girl who'd been sitting at Cabin Four's table gave him a disgusted sneer. 'No, Damien, that's my mom's symbol."

"The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance."I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening."Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed."Is that...is that blue birthday cake?"He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he'd ever even been invited to one.:Come inside for cake and ice cream," I said. "It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about."

"I turned and found Dionysus standing there, still in his black suit.Walk with me, he said.Where to? I asked suspiciously.Just to the campfire, he said. "I was beginning to feel better, so Ithought I would talk with you a bit. You always manage to annoy me.Uh, thanks."

"Festus just detected a large group of eagles behind us-long-range radar, still not in sight.Piper leaned over the console. "Are you sure they're Roman?Leo rolled his eyes. "No, Pipes. It could be a random group of giant eagles flying in perfect formation. Of course they're Roman!"

"I was trying to do you a favor, you silly woman. A few more hours in the fire, and your baby boy would have been immortal! He would've grown into a fine young god and brought you eternal honor. Now you've ruined the magic. He will simply be human-a great hero, yes, strong and tall, but doomed to a mortal life. He will only be Demophoon, when he could have been Fully Phoon! Phoon the Great!"

"Jason decided there was nothing in the world scarier than a gang of bat-wielding grannies."

"Maybe that's why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn't so much drowning in the earth or sea but the feeling that he was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head.Wow...when he started having thoughts like that, he knew he'd been spending too much time with Annabeth."

"Percy looked at Coach Hedge and Frank. "A trap?"Probably, Frank said. "She's not mortal, Hedge said, sniffing the air. "Probably some kind of goat-eating, demigod-destroying fiend from Tartarus."No doubt, Percy agreed. "Awesome. Hedge grinned. "Let's go."

"He hated being filled with terror. It was embarrassing."

"If my mom told one more story about how cute I looked in the bathtub when I was three years old I was going to burrow into the snow and freeze myself to death."

"My son will not allow any fires tonight," Gaea said from the depths of the warehouse. "He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech."Leo wanted to shout: "And I'm the dude that's all out of here!"

"It was beautiful in a harsh I'm-going-to-gut-you-like-a-fish kind of way."

"He understood how dangerous oaths could be. But Leo didn't care. "I'm coming back for you, Calypso," he said to the night wind. "I swear it on the River Styx."

"As soon as the rocky coast line of the island came into view, I ordered one of the ropes to wrap around Annabeth's waist, tying her to the foremast. "Don't untie me," she said, "no matter what happens or how much I plead. I'll want to go straight over the edge and drown myself." "Are you trying to tempt me?""Ha-ha."

"So, great. This is Camp, what do you call it? Camp Fish-Blood?Aphros frowned. "I hope that was a joke. This is Camp __________. He made a sound that was a series of sonar pings and hisses."

"A faint smile played on his lips. "Obedience does not come naturally to you, does it?""No...sir""I must take some blame for that, I suppose. The sea does not like to be restrained."

"It is a costly thing, looking on the true face of Love."

"He looked like those paintings of baby angels - what do you call them, hubbubs? No cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park."