Aphrodite Love Quotes

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Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?" "Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?" "Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart.
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
Not knowing is half the fun," Aphrodite said, "Exquisitely painful isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you? Oh, you kids! It's so cute I'm going to cry!
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily. -Aphrodite
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons – Fear and Panic – were spawned from both war and love.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
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.
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her...long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break someone's heart. Piper had long ago decided to change that rule. Percy and Annabeth were a perfect example of why. You should have to make someone`s heart whole; that was a much better test.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus.
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Princess (Nobody's Princess, #1))
Love is powerful. It can bring the gods to their knees.
Rick Riordan
Love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest and bravest acts are done for love.
Rick Riordan
You will not find love where you wish or where you hope.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
...gracious your form and your eyes as honey : desire is poured upon your lovely face Aphrodite has honored you exceedingly...
Sappho
You may blame Aphrodite soft as she is she has almost killed me with love for that boy
Sappho
Oh, for crap's sake, I can barely look at it," Aphrodite said, turning her head from the archway and averting her eyes. "And I usually love sparkly things.
P.C. Cast (Burned (House of Night, #7))
Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her... long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break someone's heart. Piper had long ago decided to change that rule. Percy and Annabeth were a perfect example of why. You should have to make someone's heart whole. That was a much better test. When Percy pulled away, Annabeth looked like a fish gasping for air. 'The Rivalry end here,' Percy said. 'I love you, Wise Girl.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
Piper was maybe the most impressive. She fenced with the giantess Periboia, sword against sword. Despite the fact that her opponent was five times larger, Piper seemed to be holding her own. The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess's eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. 'Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again!
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
G.I. Joe boxers!’ Apollo screamed. ‘OH—oh, I can’t even... HAHAHAHAHA!’ ‘Aphrodite,’ Athena giggled. ‘You look simply lovely.’ The gods couldn't stop laughing. Soon they were rolling on the floor, wiping tears from their eyes, taking photos with their phones to post on Tumblr.
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson's Greek Gods)
As Aristocleia raised her cup to toast Xanthippus, her gown slipped from her shoulders, exquisite as Aphrodite’s, and flowed like the water that slid over her naked breasts when she allowed him to watch her bathe. It was wonderful to possess a gem of a woman. It made a man feel beautiful and godlike himself, briefly.
Yvonne Korshak (Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece)
I have not had one word from her Frankly I wish I were dead When she left, she wept a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly." I said, "Go, and be happy but remember (you know well) whom you leave shackled by love "If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared "all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck "myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them "while no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...
Sappho
love has little to do with blood relations and more to do with who you choose to bleed for
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
Persephone, grant me the foresight to know when I must let go my old life to start anew. Artemis, grant me the strength of your spine when you helped deliver Apollo, your own twin. Athena, grant me the solidarity in your sinews for which you were born in all of your armour. Aphrodite, grant me the kind of heart that always follows my passions true. Andromeda grant me the wish to never fall out of love with the night sky or the glisten of it’s stars. And Hera, grant me your fury, so I can remind my enemies I am not the weakness they perceive, I am the oncoming storm, I am war.
Nikita Gill
The urge to fall [in love] was utterly new and made her [Athena] dizzy. He [Odysseus] could catch her and hold her up. She knew he could. If this is how Aphrodite feels every day, it's no wonder she's such an idiot.
Kendare Blake (Antigoddess (Goddess War, #1))
Wonderful, Annabeth thought. Her own mother, the most levelheaded Olympian, was reduced to a raving, vicious scatterbrain in a subway station. And, of all the gods who might help them, the only ones not affected by the Greek-Roman schism seemed to be Aphrodite, Nemesis and Dionysus. Love, revenge, wine. Very helpful.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
Regardless of whether you desire it, love is what sits at the core of the world. It is stronger than greed and hate and jealousy and pain. What brings us together will always be more powerful than what keeps us apart.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess’s eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. ‘Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again!
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and loves you? -Aphrodite
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
It is simple. You believe in the triumphs of love despite growing up in full view of its defeat because you are brave.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
When I held her, I held her gently so that she always knew she could fly away and I would never harm her or clip her wings.
Nikita Gill (Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters)
You can borrow my two-carat diamond stud earrings," Aphrodite said. I stopped and looked back at her. "Huh?" She shrugged. "That's as close to a declaration of love as you're gonna get from me.
P.C. Cast (Destined (House of Night, #9))
What if all I'd ever known was how it had been for the past three years - me being an unwanted outsider in my own family? I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might still be letting my parents control me because I was hoping desperately that I would be good enough, make them proud, so that some day they would really love me.
P.C. Cast
"The love that you receive is equal to the love you give... And for those rare souls who give with no thought of receipt... only they are worthy of the eternal love; the force that breaks bonds of brotherhood, that transcends the vagaries of pride and ego, a binding of souls that endures across the Ages" - Tyrphosa, Priestess of Aphrodite
Aria Cunningham (The Princess of Sparta (Heroes of the Trojan War, #1))
I'm afraid of never loving someone as much as I loved the last person who broke my heart.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
She says, “I thought you weren’t looking for love.” I say, “That doesn’t mean I’m not hoping it will find me.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
You must all swear to me that you will protect my sister and her child. If Helen and her line of daughters die, there will be nothing on Earth for me to love,” she said, her eyes falling apologetically on her son, Aeneas, for a moment before they hardened against him. He dropped his head with a wounded look, and Aphrodite turned to Hector. “As long as my sister and her line of daughters lasts, there will be love in the world. I swear it on the River Styx. But if you let my sister die, Hector of Troy, son of Apollo, I will leave this world and take love itself away with me.
Josephine Angelini (Goddess (Starcrossed, #3))
I believe in Aphrodite, I believe in insane thinkers, I believe in roaring free-spirits, I believe in full-throated poetry, I believe in feverish sex and moony love with all its facets.
Laura Gentile (Seraphic Addiction)
Did you know food is infinitely more scrumptious when you're in love?" -Aphrodite
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
I felt her story in every line: her struggle as the neglected child of a famous movie star; her mixed feelings about discovering she was a daughter of Aphrodite; most hurtful of all, her realization that the supposed love of her life, Jason Grace, was not someone she wanted to be with romantically.
Rick Riordan (The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo, #3))
when i love, it happens almost all at once. it is inconsiderate, unrefined - a child screeching in a supermarket it's a thunderclap. it is a small village blackout. it is aphrodite rising from the sea foam, fully formed.
Salma Deera (Letters From Medea)
Oh, dear Hazel.” Aphrodite folded her fan. “Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
I sometimes suspect they don't take Dr. Aphrodite very seriously. Which is sad, really. Because what's more serious than love?
Jody Gehrman (Babe in Boyland)
Aphrodite is about love and beauty. Being loving. Spreading beauty. Good friends. Good times. Good deeds.
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
You see, there are two kinds: the surface and the deep water. Now, Aphrodite emerged from foam, remember? Foam love is a nice feeling, but just as superficial. When it’s gone, it’s gone, nothing remains. Always aim for the kind of love that comes from the deep.
Elif Shafak (The Island of Missing Trees)
Paradoxically, we achieve true wholeness only by embracing our fragility and sometimes, our brokenness. Wholeness is a natural radiance of Love, and Love demands that we allow the destruction of our old self for the sake of the new.
Jalaja Bonheim
Her heart raced with joy to sleep with War
Homer (The Odyssey by Homer)
Aphrodite tells me that love is like wine. If your cup is already full and you try to add more, it ill just spill onto the carpet. Some people try and try and just stain everything. Their fingers are purple with want
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
I like to keep a little bit of nervousness simmering. It keeps mortals alert at crucial moments. Sensitive to every detail. It imprints lasting memories. These moments belong to forever" -Aphrodite
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
I treat my greatest loves like seeds. I put them down and I seldom look back at what has grown behind me.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?" "Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?" "Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
Your abuser's past does not absolve them of their abuse. Their depression does not absolve them of their abuse. Your relationship with them does not absolve them of their abuse. How long you've known them does not absolve them of their abuse. Your love for them does not absolve them of their abuse.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. “Wow," Thalia muttered. “Ever had a flying burrito hit you?" Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. “In a way, it's nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. “God alert!" Blackjack yelled.
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
Some say an army of horsemen, some of footsoldiers, some of ships, is the fairest thing on the black earth, but I say it is what one loves. It's very easy to make this clear to everyone, for Helen, by far surpassing mortals in beauty, left the best of all husbands and sailed to Troy, mindful of neither her child nor her dear parents, but with one glimpse she was seduced by Aphrodite. For easily bent... and nimbly...[missing text]... has reminded me now of Anactoria who is not here; I would much prefer to see the lovely way she walks and the radiant glance of her face than the war-chariots of the Lydians or their footsoldiers in arms.
Sappho
I still wasn’t sure that I loved him. Love—the kind that was holy to Aphrodite—was not something I had ever allowed myself to think about much. If you desired someone, if he comforted you, if you thought he might leech the poison out of your heart, was that love? Or only desperation?
Rosamund Hodge (Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe, #1))
Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne, Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said: 'Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power, Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all, And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart Of the great god to whom the last lot fell When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove, Subdues the ocean's deities and him, Even him, who rules the ocean's deities. Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too Extend your mother's empire and your own....? Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened His quiver of all his thousand arrows Selected one, the sharpest and the surest, The arrow most obedient to the bow, And bent the pliant horn against his knee And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto's heart.
Ovid (Metamorphoses)
Fear can't be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They're like love. They're almost identical emotions. That's why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons - Fear and Panic - were spawned from both war and love.' 'But I don't...this doesn't make sense.' 'No,' Piper agreed. 'Stop thinking about it. Just feel.' 'I hate that.' 'I know. You can't plan for feelings. Like with Percy, and your future - you can't control every contingency. You have to accept that. Let it scare you. Trust that it'll be okay anyway.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
And nobody knows your weak spots better than sisters. Those prissy little virgins, Artemis and Athena, always looking down their smug, goody-goody noses at her.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
When people say you cannot love others until you love yourself, they fundamentally misunderstand love. Nothing thrives in isolation.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
William Shakespeare: My muse, as always, is Aphrodite. Philip Henslowe: Aphrodite Baggett, who does it behind the Dog and Crumpet?
Marc Norman (Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay)
If I couldn't knit these two together by the end of a second dance, Zeus might as well make Poseidon the god love, and I'd go look after the fishes.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
Hail, Piper McLean,” Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at her funeral. “Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love.
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
We say a building is made of brick, but it's the mortar, filling in the cracks, that holds it all together. That provides the strength." -Aphrodite
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
There are few things more mysterious than endings. I mean, for example, when did the Greek gods end, exactly? Was there a day when Zeus waved magisterially down from Olympus and Aphrodite and her lover Ares, and her crippled husband Hephaestus ) I always felt sorry for him), and all the rest got rolled up like a worn-out carpet?
Salley Vickers
The force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed.
Empedocles
Even if I was pretty, it wasn’t going to be enough to bring me the life I wanted: one where I was free to make choices that mattered, one where people listened to what I had to say. Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus. I’d never get my hands on a thunderbolt, so if I wanted to be free, I’d better find a way to get my hands on the next best thing: a sword.
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Princess (Nobody's Princess, #1))
Aphrodite put off her famous belt, in which all the charms of love are woven, potency, desire, lovely whispers, and the force of seduction, which takes away foresight and judgment even from the most reasonable people.
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
I loved Aphrodite from the first and steeped myself in her legends. My mother told me that in ancient times her rituals were bloody and cruel, but I only half believed it.
Erica Jong (Sappho's Leap)
She loves him," Aphrodite blurted. "Aphrodite!" I yelled. "Well, someone had to clue the dorks in to your pathetic infatuation with him," Aphrodite said.
P.C. Cast
And of all the gods who might help them, the only ones not affected by the Greek–Roman schism seemed to be Aphrodite, Nemesis, and Dionysus. Love, revenge, wine. Very helpful.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
Hephaestus: "I envy your mortals." Aphrodite: "As Ares says, they die you know." Hephaestus: "They do. But the lucky ones live first [...] The luckiest ones spend time with you.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
It's no use Mother dear, I can't finish my weaving You may blame Aphrodite soft as she is she has almost killed me with love for that girl
Sappho (Sappho)
Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you.
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
They wanted you to believe that love is weak, that you cannot curse and kiss with the same mouth. They wanted you to believe that the root of love is romance, soft and wide-eyed. See what they did to my stories? My Temples? My statues? Regardless o whether you desire it, love is what sits at the core of the world. It is stronger than greed and hate and jealousy and pain. What brings us together will always be more powerful than what keeps us apart.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
I realized then the truth about all love: that it is an absolute which takes all or forfeits all. The other feelings, compassion, tenderness and so on, exist only on the periphery and belong on the constructions of society and habit. But she herself- austere and merciless Aphrodite-is a pagan. it is not our brains or instincts which she picks-but our very bones.
Lawrence Durrell (The Alexandria Quartet (The Alexandria Quartet, #1-4))
A priestess is a woman who lives in two worlds at once, who perceives life on earth against the backdrop of a vast, timeless reality. Whether or not she is mated to a human partner, she is a woman in love, wedded to being, to life, to love it self. Having offered herself, body and soul, in service of spirit, she mediates between matter and spirit, between human and divine realms. She may or may not be sexually active, but she will always honor sexual energy as a link to the source of life itself.
Jalaja Bonheim (Aphrodite's Daughters: Women's Sexual Stories and the Journey of the Soul)
They stared at her together for a moment. Sun beams played over marble, making the pink alabaster glow as if rosy blood danced just under the surface of Aphrodite's skin.
Eloisa James (Duchess in Love (Duchess Quartet, #1))
I have this dream where I only write you love poems and none of them have to say, “I’m so glad we’re alive.
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
The others want to coerce her. I want her to want me... so he prayed to Aphrodite, goddess of love.
Bernard Evslin (Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths)
her dream was dipped in honey; of a girl with hair like fire and eyes like the night sky
Sumaiya Ahmed (Lost and Found)
Then in anger divine Aphrodite addressed her: “Do not provoke me, wicked girl, lest I drop you in anger, and hate you as much as I now terribly love you, and devise painful hostilities, and you are caught in the middle of both, Trojans and Danaans, and are destroyed by an evil fate.” So she spoke; and Helen born of Zeus was frightened; and
Homer (The Iliad)
You are a dream of ecstasy, the ultimate embodiment of true romance, Aphrodite, and your refusal to believe this is the only reason you‘ll keep struggling to encounter that rapturous kind of love that your soul and body are craving.
Lebo Grand
Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer — or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.
Aphrodite Matsakis (Loving Someone with PTSD: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Connecting with Your Partner after Trauma (The New Harbinger Loving Someone Series))
THANK GOD," sighs Ares. Aphrodite says: "You're welcome.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
Hephaestus: "I envy your mortals." Aphrodite: "As Area says, they die you know." Hephaestus: "They do. But the lucky ones live first [...] The luckiest ones spend time with you.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
Hey, I am serious. And I want you to understand a fundamental rule about love. You see, there are two kinds: the surface and the deep water. Now, Aphrodite emerged from foam, remember? Foam love is a nice feeling, but just as superficial. When it's gone, it's gone, nothing remains. Always aim for the kind of love that comes from the deep.
Elif Shafak (The Island of Missing Trees)
love that doesn’t last is still important / not everyone is meant to stay forever / love teaches lessons / love is more than the lessons it teaches / it does not have to be heavy / it does not have to be requited to be worthwhile / no one owes you their time or their affection / cherish your friends and the family you find with them / love has little to do with blood relations / and more to do with who you choose to bleed for / it’s okay to walk away from things that don’t feel right
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
The power of the bleeding love of God is stronger than the power of Caesar, of the law, of Mars, Mammon, Aphrodite and the rest. This is the point that Paul grasped. And that is the reason for the Colossians' gratitude. The battle has been won.
N.T. Wright
At present, however, with his aching head and queasy stomach, Sebastian was feeling exceedingly resistible. Or if not that, then resistant. Aphrodite herself could descend from the ceiling, floating on a bloody clamshell, naked but for a few well-placed flowers, and he‘d likely puke at her feet. No, no, she ought to be completely naked. If he was going to prove the existence of a goddess, right here in this room, she was damned well going to be naked. He‘d still puke on her feet, though.
Julia Quinn (Ten Things I Love About You (Bevelstoke, #3))
abridged list of things to let go if you want to be happy: old versions of yourself / ideas about who and what you were supposed to be / other people’s expectations of you / societal expectations of you / gender norms / heteronormativity / internalized ideas about what your life is supposed to look like / the idea that romantic love makes you whole / relationships that cause you more grief than they’re worth / people who cross your boundaries / family that makes you feel unsafe or unwelcome / the need to make your happiness look like everyone else’s
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
Touching the copper of the ankh reminded me of another necklace, a necklace long since lost under the dust of time. That necklace had been simpler: only a string of beads etched with tiny ankhs. But my husband had brought it to me the morning of our wedding, sneaking up to our house just after dawn in a gesture uncharacteristically bold for him. I had chastised him for the indiscretion. "What are you doing? You're going to see me this afternoon... and then every day after that!" "I had to give you these before the wedding." He held up the string of beads. "They were my mother's. I want you to have them, to wear them today.” He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn't exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and . . . well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn't quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable. "There," he'd said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. "Perfect.” He said nothing else after that. He didn't need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes' too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn't think before speaking. (Shape-shifting would eventually take care of one of those problems but not the other.) But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests. I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren't close enough. Not nearly enough. Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere. "Letha? Where are you at?” My sister's voice carried over the wind; she wasn't nearby but was close enough to be here soon. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze. "Have you ever been with anyone before?" he asked wonderingly. I shook my head. "How did you ... I never imagined you doing that...” "I learn fast.” He grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. "Tonight," he breathed. "Tonight we ...” "Tonight," I agreed. He backed away then, eyes still smoldering. "I love you. You are my life.” "I love you too." I smiled and watched him go.
Richelle Mead (Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1))
When I say I’m not looking for love, what I mean is: I don’t like losing the part of myself that disappears when I date other people / I don’t know how to let another person touch me anymore / I’m okay with my body when I’m the only one looking at it / I don’t know enough about healing / I had to step back for a while to get to know myself again but now I don’t know how to step forward / I worry it’s safer to sleep alone / how can I possibly love someone right when I was raised with the worst examples?
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
So this is where the rivalry started," Percy said. "Yeah." Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her...long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break someone's heart. Piper had long ago decided to change that rule. Percy and Annabeth were a perfect example of why. You should have to make someone's heart whole. That was a much better test. When Percy pulled away, Annabeth looked like a fish gasping for air. "The rivalry ends here," Percy said. "I love you, Wise Girl." Annabeth made a little sigh, like something in her rib cage had melted. Percy glanced at Piper. "Sorry, I had to do that.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
Reality, at first glance, is a simple thing: the television speaking to you now is real. Your body sunk into that chair in the approach to midnight, a clock ticking at the threshold of awareness. All the endless detail of a solid and material world surrounding you. These things exist. They can be measured with a yardstick, a voltammeter, a weighing scale. These things are real. Then there’s the mind, half-focused on the TV, the settee, the clock. This ghostly knot of memory, idea and feeling that we call ourself also exists, though not within the measurable world our science may describe. Consciousness is unquantifiable, a ghost in the machine, barely considered real at all, though in a sense this flickering mosaic of awareness is the only true reality that we can ever know. The Here-and-Now demands attention, is more present to us. We dismiss the inner world of our ideas as less important, although most of our immediate physical reality originated only in the mind. The TV, sofa, clock and room, the whole civilisation that contains them once were nothing save ideas. Material existence is entirely founded on a phantom realm of mind, whose nature and geography are unexplored. Before the Age of Reason was announced, humanity had polished strategies for interacting with the world of the imaginary and invisible: complicated magic-systems; sprawling pantheons of gods and spirits, images and names with which we labelled powerful inner forces so that we might better understand them. Intellect, Emotion and Unconscious Thought were made divinities or demons so that we, like Faust, might better know them; deal with them; become them. Ancient cultures did not worship idols. Their god-statues represented ideal states which, when meditated constantly upon, one might aspire to. Science proves there never was a mermaid, blue-skinned Krishna or a virgin birth in physical reality. Yet thought is real, and the domain of thought is the one place where gods inarguably ezdst, wielding tremendous power. If Aphrodite were a myth and Love only a concept, then would that negate the crimes and kindnesses and songs done in Love’s name? If Christ were only ever fiction, a divine Idea, would this invalidate the social change inspired by that idea, make holy wars less terrible, or human betterment less real, less sacred? The world of ideas is in certain senses deeper, truer than reality; this solid television less significant than the Idea of television. Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is.
Alan Moore
I have seen the Virgin in an appletree at Chartres And Saint Joan burn at the Bella Union. I have seen giraffes in junglejims their necks like love wound around the iron circumstances of the world. I have seen the Venus Aphrodite armless in her drafty corridor. I have heard a siren sing at One Fifth Avenue. I have seen the White Goddess dancing in the Rue des Beaux Arts on the Fourteenth of July and the Beautiful Dame Without Mercy picking her nose in Chumley's.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (A Coney Island of the Mind)
Behind this lies not just impact or drama, but a typically Japanese tendency. The story of Pygmalion, the Greek myth — in which Pygmalion falls in love with the statue of a young woman that he creates and which is hen transformed into a human by Aphrodite who imbues it with life — represents a Western approach in which the statue represents the human body. In Japan, however, there is a unique predilection for dolls ... This can be interpreted as a decadent, necrophiliac erotic story but it can also be interpreted as a propensity for Japanese men to fall in love with figures. These men's desires are directed at the figure for the very reason that it is a doll. The overwhelming passivity of the doll is a reflection of the behavior of a certain type of Japanese man whose immaturity makes it very difficult for him to establish an equal relationship with a mature woman.
Izima Kaoru (Izima Kaoru: Landscapes With a Corpse)
of the problem was that Chaos got a little creation-happy. It thought to its misty, gloomy self: Hey, Earth and Sky. That was fun! I wonder what else I can make. Soon it created all sorts of other problems—and by that I mean gods. Water collected out of the mist of Chaos, pooled in the deepest parts of the earth, and formed the first seas, which naturally developed a consciousness—the god Pontus. Then Chaos really went nuts and thought: I know! How about a dome like the sky, but at the bottom of the earth! That would be awesome! So another dome came into being beneath the earth, but it was dark and murky and generally not very nice, since it was always hidden from the light of the sky. This was Tartarus, the Pit of Evil; and as you can guess from the name, when he developed a godly personality, he didn't win any popularity contests. The problem was, both Pontus and Tartarus liked Gaea, which put some pressure on her relationship with Ouranos. A bunch of other primordial gods popped up, but if I tried to name them all we’d be here for weeks. Chaos and Tartarus had a kid together (don’t ask how; I don’t know) called Nyx, who was the embodiment of night. Then Nyx, somehow all by herself, had a daughter named Hemera, who was Day. Those two never got along because they were as different as…well, you know. According to some stories, Chaos also created Eros, the god of procreation... in other words, mommy gods and daddy gods having lots of little baby gods. Other stories claim Eros was the son of Aphrodite. We’ll get to her later. I don’t know which version is true, but I do know Gaea and Ouranos started having kids—with very mixed results. First, they had a batch of twelve—six girls and six boys called the Titans. These kids looked human, but they were much taller and more powerful. You’d figure twelve kids would be enough for anybody, right? I mean, with a family that big, you’ve basically got your own reality TV show. Plus, once the Titans were born, things started to go sour with Ouranos and Gaea’s marriage. Ouranos spent a lot more time hanging out in the sky. He didn't visit. He didn't help with the kids. Gaea got resentful. The two of them started fighting. As the kids grew older, Ouranos would yell at them and basically act like a horrible dad. A few times, Gaea and Ouranos tried to patch things up. Gaea decided maybe if they had another set of kids, it would bring them closer…. I know, right? Bad idea. She gave birth to triplets. The problem: these new kids defined the word UGLY. They were as big and strong as Titans, except hulking and brutish and in desperate need of a body wax. Worst of all, each kid had a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Talk about a face only a mother could love. Well, Gaea loved these guys. She named them the Elder Cyclopes, and eventually they would spawn a whole race of other, lesser Cyclopes. But that was much later. When Ouranos saw the Cyclops triplets, he freaked. “These cannot be my kids! They don’t even look like me!” “They are your children, you deadbeat!” Gaea screamed back. “Don’t you dare leave me to raise them on my own!
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson's Greek Gods)
Even the beautiful must perish! That which overcomes gods and men Moves not the armored heart of the Stygian Zeus. Only once did love come to soften the Lord of the Shadows, And just at the threshold he sternly took back his gift. Neither can Aphrodite heal the wounds of the beautiful youth That the boar had savagely torn in his delicate body. Nor can the deathless mother rescue the divine hero When, at the Scaean gate now falling, he fulfills his fate. But she ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus, And she raises a plaint here for her glorious son. Behold! The gods weep, all the goddesses weep, That the beautiful perishes, that the most perfect passes away. But a lament on the lips of loved ones is glorious, For the ignoble goes down to Orcus in silence. Nänie
Friedrich Schiller
Bienvenu,” the king said. “Je suis Boreas le Roi. Et vous?” Khione the snow goddess was about to speak, but Piper stepped forward and curtsied. “Votre Majesté,” she said, “ je suis Piper McLean. Et c’est Jason, fils de Zeus.” The king smiled with pleasant surprise. “Vous parlez français? Très bien!” “Piper, you speak French?” Jason asked. Piper frowned. “No. Why?” “You just spoke French.” Piper blinked. “I did?” The king said something else, and Piper nodded. “Oui, Votre Majesté.” The king laughed and clapped his hands, obviously delighted. He said a few more sentences then swept his hand toward his daughter as if shooing her away. Khione looked miffed. “The king says—” “He says I’m a daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper interrupted, “so naturally I can speak French, which is the language of love. I had no idea. His Majesty says Khione won’t have to translate now.
Anonymous
The ascent of the soul through love, which Plato describes in the Phaedrus, is symbolized in the figure of Aphrodite Urania, and this was the Venus painted by Botticelli, who was incidentally an ardent Platonist, and member of the Platonist circle around Pico della Mirandola. Botticelli’s Venus is not erotic: she is a vision of heavenly beauty, a visitation from other and higher spheres, and a call to transcendence. Indeed, she is self-evidently both the ancestor and the descendant of the Virgins of Fra Filippo Lippi: the ancestor in her pre-Christian meaning, the descendant in absorbing all that had been achieved through the artistic representation of the Virgin Mary as the symbol of untainted flesh. The post-Renaissance rehabilitation of sexual desire laid the foundations for a genuinely erotic art, an art that would display the human being as both subject and object of desire, but also as a free individual whose desire is a favour consciously bestowed. But this rehabilitation of sex leads us to raise what has become one of the most important questions confronting art and the criticism of art in our time: that of the difference, if there is one, between erotic art and pornography. Art can be erotic and also beautiful, like a Titian Venus. But it cannot be beautiful and also pornographic—so we believe, at least. And it is important to see why. In distinguishing the erotic and the pornographic we are really distinguishing two kinds of interest: interest in the embodied person and interest in the body—and, in the sense that I intend, these interests are incompatible. (See the discussion in Chapter 2.) Normal desire is an inter-personal emotion. Its aim is a free and mutual surrender, which is also a uniting of two individuals, of you and me—through our bodies, certainly, but not merely as our bodies. Normal desire is a person to person response, one that seeks the selfhood that it gives. Objects can be substituted for each other, subjects not. Subjects, as Kant persuasively argued, are free individuals; their non-substitutability belongs to what they essentially are. Pornography, like slavery, is a denial of the human subject, a way of negating the moral demand that free beings must treat each other as ends in themselves.
Roger Scruton (Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
before he went back to helping the boy. Missing from the Warrior tent were Kalona and Aurox. For obvious reasons, Thanatos had decided the Tulsa community wasn’t ready to meet either of them. I agreed with her. I wasn’t ready for … I mentally shook myself. No, I wasn’t going to think about the Aurox/Heath situation now. Instead I turned my attention to the second of the big tents. Lenobia was there, keeping a sharp eye on the people who clustered like buzzing bees around Mujaji and the big Percheron mare, Bonnie. Travis was with her. Travis was always with her, which made my heart feel good. It was awesome to see Lenobia in love. The Horse Mistress was like a bright, shining beacon of joy, and with all the Darkness I’d seen lately, that was rain in my desert. “Oh, for shit’s sake, where did I put my wine? Has anyone seen my Queenies cup? As the bumpkin reminded me, my parents are here somewhere, and I’m going to need fortification by the time they circle around and find me.” Aphrodite was muttering and pawing through the boxes of unsold cookies, searching for the big purple plastic cup I’d seen her drinking from earlier. “You have wine in that Queenies to go cup?” Stevie Rae was shaking her head at Aphrodite. “And you’ve been drinkin’ it through a straw?” Shaunee joined Stevie Rae in a head shake. “Isn’t that nasty?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Aphrodite quipped. “There are too many nuns lurking around to drink openly without hearing a boring lecture.” Aphrodite cut her eyes to the right of us where Street Cats had set up a half-moon display of cages filled with adoptable cats and bins of catnip-filled toys for sale. The Street Cats had their own miniature version of the silver and white tents, and I could see Damien sitting inside busily handling the cash register, but except for him, running every aspect of the feline area were the habit-wearing Benedictine nuns who had made Street Cats their own. One of the nuns looked my way and I waved and grinned at the Abbess. Sister Mary Angela waved back before returning to the conversation she was having with a family who were obviously falling in love with a cute white cat that looked like a giant cottonball. “Aphrodite, the nuns are cool,” I reminded her. “And they look too busy to pay any attention to you,” Stevie Rae said. “Imagine that—you may not be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shaylin said with mock surprise. Stevie Rae covered her giggle with a cough. Before Aphrodite could say something hateful, Grandma limped up to us. Other than the limp and being pale, Grandma looked healthy and happy. It had only been a little over a week since Neferet had kidnapped and tried to kill her, but she’d recovered with amazing quickness. Thanatos had told us that was because she was in unusually good shape for a woman of her age. I knew it was because of something else—something we both shared—a special bond with a goddess who believed in giving her children free choice, along with gifting them with special abilities. Grandma was beloved of the Great Mother,
P.C. Cast (Revealed (House of Night #11))
Homer's Hymn to Venus Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862; dated 1818. Verses 1-55, with some omissions. Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite, Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things That fleet along the air, or whom the sea, Or earth, with her maternal ministry, Nourish innumerable, thy delight All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite! Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:— Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame. Diana ... golden-shafted queen, Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green Of the wild woods, the bow, the... And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit Of beasts among waste mountains,—such delight Is hers, and men who know and do the right. Nor Saturn's first-born daughter, Vesta chaste, Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last, Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove; But sternly she refused the ills of Love, And by her mighty Father's head she swore An oath not unperformed, that evermore A virgin she would live mid deities Divine: her father, for such gentle ties Renounced, gave glorious gifts—thus in his hall She sits and feeds luxuriously. O'er all In every fane, her honours first arise From men—the eldest of Divinities. These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives, But none beside escape, so well she weaves Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods Who live secure in their unseen abodes. She won the soul of him whose fierce delight Is thunder—first in glory and in might. And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving, With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving, Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair, Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare. but in return, In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken, That by her own enchantments overtaken, She might, no more from human union free, Burn for a nursling of mortality. For once amid the assembled Deities, The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile, And boasting said, that she, secure the while, Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods The mortal tenants of earth's dark abodes, And mortal offspring from a deathless stem She could produce in scorn and spite of them. Therefore he poured desire into her breast Of young Anchises, Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains Of the wide Ida's many-folded mountains,— Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung Like wasting fire her senses wild among.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley)
and drew her strength directly from our magickal Oklahoma earth. “U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, it seems I need help at the lavender booth. I simply cannot believe how busy we are.” Grandma had barely spoken when a nun hurried up. “Zoey, Sister Mary Angela could use your help filling out cat adoption forms.” “I’ll help you, Grandma Redbird,” Shaylin said. “I love the smell of lavender.” “Oh, honey, that would be so sweet of you. First, could you run to my car and get into the trunk. There is another box of lavender soaps and sachets tucked back there. Looks like I’m going to sell out completely,” Grandma said happily. “Sure thing.” Shaylin caught the keys Grandma tossed to her and hurried toward the main exit of the school grounds which led to the parking lot, as well as the tree-lined road that joined Utica Street. “And I’ll call my momma. She said just let her know if we get too busy over here. She and the PTA moms will be back here in a sec,” said Stevie Rae. “Grandma, do you mind if I give Street Cats a hand? I’ve been dying to check out their new litter of kittens.” “Go on, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. I think Sister Mary Angela has been missing your company.” “Thanks, Grandma.” I smiled at her. Then I turned to Stevie Rae. “Okay, if your mom’s group is coming back, I’m gonna go help the nuns.” “Yeah, no problem.” Stevie Rae, shielding her eyes and peering through the crowd, added, “I see her now, and she’s got Mrs. Rowland and Mrs. Wilson with her.” “Don’t worry. We can handle this,” Shaunee said. “’Kay,” I said, grinning at both of them. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I left the cookie booth and noticed Aphrodite, clutching her big purple Queenies cup, was right on my heels. “I thought you didn’t want a lecture from the nuns.” “Better than a lecture from PTA moms.” She shuddered. “Plus, I like cats more than people.” I shrugged. “Okay, whatever.” We’d only gotten partway to the Street Cats tent when Aphrodite slowed way down. “Seriously. Effing. Pathetic.” She was muttering around her straw, narrowing her eyes, and glaring. I followed her gaze and joined her frown. “Yeah, no matter how many times I see them together, I still don’t get it.” Aphrodite and I had stopped to watch Shaunee’s ex-Twin BFF, Erin, hang all over Dallas. “I really thought she was better than that.” “Apparently not,” Aphrodite said. “Eeew,” I said, looking away from their way too public display of locked lips. “I’m telling you, there’s not enough booze in Tulsa to make watching those two suck face okay.” She made a gagging sound, which changed to a snort and a laugh. “Check out the wimple, twelve o’clock.” Sure enough, there was a nun I vaguely recognized as Sister Emily (one of the more uptight of the nuns) descending on the too-busy-with-their-tongues-to-notice couple. “She looks serious,” I said. “You know, a nun may very well be the direct opposite of an aphrodisiac. This should be entertaining. Let’s watch.” “Zoey! Over here!” I looked from the train wreck about to happen to see Sister Mary Angela waving me over to her.
P.C. Cast (Revealed (House of Night #11))
Come on,” I hooked my arm through Aphrodite’s and started to pull her to the Street Cats tent. “You haven’t been good enough to watch.” Before Aphrodite could argue, we were at the Street Cats booth, facing a beaming Sister Mary Angela. “Oh, good, Zoey and Aphrodite. I need the both of you.” The nun made a gracious gesture to the young family standing beside one of the kitten cages. “This is the Cronley family. They have decided to adopt both of the calico kittens. It’s so lovely that the two of them have found their forever homes together—they are unusually close, even for littermates.” “That’s great,” I said. “I’ll start on their paperwork.” “I’ll help you. Two cats—two sets of paperwork,” Aphrodite said. “We came with a note from our veterinarian,” the mom said. “I just knew we’d find our kitten tonight.” “Even though we didn’t expect to find two of them,” her husband added. He squeezed his wife’s shoulder and smiled down at her with obvious affection. “Well, we didn’t expect the twins, either,” his wife said, glancing over at the two girls who were still looking in the kitten cage and giggling at the fluffy calicos that would be joining their family. “That surprise turned out great, which is why I think the two kittens will be perfect as well,” said the dad. Like seeing Lenobia and Travis together—this family made my heart feel good. I had started to move to the makeshift desk with Aphrodite when one of the little girls asked, “Hey mommy, what are those black things?” Something in the child’s voice had me pausing, changing direction, and heading to the kitten cage. When I got there I instantly knew why. Within the cage the two calico kittens were hissing and batting at several large, black spiders. “Oh, yuck!” the mom said. “Looks like your school might have a spider problem.” “I know a good exterminator if you need a recommendation,” the dad said. “We’re gonna need a shit ton more than a good exterminator,” Aphrodite whispered as we stared into the kitten cage. “Yeah, uh, well, we don’t usually have bug issues here,” I babbled as disgust shivered up my back. “Eesh, Daddy! There are lots more of them.” The little blond girl was pointing at the back of the cage. It was so completely covered with spiders that it seemed to be alive with their seething movements. “Oh, my goodness!” Sister Mary Angela looked pale as she stared at the spiders that appeared to be multiplying. “Those things weren’t there moments ago.” “Sister, why don’t you take this nice family into the tent and get their paperwork started,” I said quickly, meeting the nun’s sharp gaze with my own steady one. “And send Damien out here to me. I can use his help to take care of this silly spider problem.” “Yes, yes, of course.” The nun didn’t hesitate. “Get Shaunee, Shaylin, and Stevie Rae,” I told Aphrodite, keeping my voice low. “You’re going to cast a circle in front of all of these
P.C. Cast (Revealed (House of Night #11))