“
Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,” his father said, “but he flew, do you see what I mean, Son? He was able to fly. It doesn’t matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds.
”
”
Agustina Bazterrica (Tender Is the Flesh)
“
Icarus flew too close to the sun, but at least he flew.
”
”
Jeremy Robert Johnson (Skullcrack City)
“
I am clumsy, drop glasses and get drunk on Monday afternoons. I read Seneca and can recite Shakespeare by heart, but I mess up the laundry, don’t answer my phone and blame the world when something goes wrong. I think I have a dream, but most of the days I’m still sleeping. The grass is cut. It smells like strawberries. Today I finished four books and cleaned my drawers.
Do you believe in a God? Can I tell you about Icarus? How he flew too close to the sun?
I want to make coming home your favourite part of the day. I want to leave tiny little words lingering in your mind, on nights when you’re far away and can’t sleep. I want to make everything around us beautiful; make small things mean a little more. Make you feel a little more. A little better, a little lighter. The coffee is warm, this cup is yours. I want to be someone you can’t live without.
I want to be someone you can’t live without.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson (He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss)
“
I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances)
“
There once was a hero who flew too close to the sun. His wings of wax fell apart and he plummeted to the earth.
”
”
Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1)
“
Their love has hung above me like the sun, a burning brightness I could survive only if I never looked straight at it, never flew too close.
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1))
“
He would be the sun Taran mac Delbaith flew too close to.
”
”
Kellen Graves (Lord of Silver Ashes (Rowan Blood, #2))
“
Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,’ his father said, ‘but he flew, do you see what I mean son? He was able to fly. It doesn't matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds
”
”
Agustina Bazterrica (Tender Is the Flesh)
“
Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,” his father said, “but he flew, do you see what I mean, Son? He was able to fly. It doesn’t matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds
”
”
Agustina Bazterrica (Tender Is the Flesh)
“
Icarus! It’s not as if I have forgotten all names. I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances)
“
He told me once I was flawless in his eyes, because my imperfections made me that way. Imperfections build character, but in the end he is close, but might as well as not exist. So, where is flawless now? He too saw me fall off the pedestal. He called me beautiful all of the time, even when I said I failed or I was a mess he still found me beautiful, but that isn't how he sees me anymore. I'm not beautiful or flawless. I'm just something like the sun, and he's the Icarus who flew too close. I don't think I'll ever see him again, and it is best that that is the case. It is best for me to marry, and forget, because I can't go back. And even if I could, it would not change the facts as they are. I loved him too much. I needed him too much. I craved the very sound of his voice. He was the world to me. He was the very breath I breathed. And it almost ruined me. And it almost ruined him. They don't tell you that about love. How it can ruin you by its mere existence. How it can be so deep that it devours you. And that...is most frightening.
”
”
Jennifer Megan Varnadore
“
He moved on from Anatole France to the eighteenth-century philosophers, though not to Rousseau. Perhaps this was because one side of him - the side easily moved by passion - was too close to Rousseau. Instead, he approached the author of 'Candide', who was closer to another side of him - the cool and richly intellectual side.
At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings.
Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun - as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun.
”
”
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
“
the horse's head whipped up and he reared straight into the air.
Colin ignored him and poured the oats. 'You look as if you're trying to fly,' he told the animal. 'I believe I'll name you after my former ship, the /Daedalus/. The ship was named after a Greek man who flew too close to the sun for comfort, but made it back to earth.
”
”
Eloisa James (With This Kiss: Part Three)
“
Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,” his father said, “but he flew, do you see what I mean, Son? He was able to fly. It doesn’t matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds.
”
”
Bazterrica Agustina
“
In Greek legend, Icarus flew too close to the Sun, and the heat melted his wings and he fell to his death. But "melting" is a phase change which is the function of temperature, a measure of internal energy, which is the integral of incident power flux over time. His wings didn't melt because he flew too close to the Sun, they melted because he spent too much time there.
Visit briefly, in little hops, and you can go anywhere.
”
”
Randall Munroe (What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions)
“
McCarthy’s drinking and his arrogance were finally his downfall—he flew too close to the sun. As chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he went after the State Department and the Voice of America. His tactics were always the same—bluster replaced reason.
”
”
Susan Cheever (Drinking in America: Our Secret History)
“
I’m just feeling a little like Icarus.” The nurse gave him a blank stare. “Of Greek myth. Flew too close to the sun? Manmade wings? It all went back to the Minotaur, plotwise. Doesn’t everything?
”
”
Ryan C. Thomas (Alien Aberrations)
“
she was very much a flame in my darkness. Incandescent and pure, with a kind of brilliance I thought you could only find when you flew too close to the sun.
”
”
Heather Long (Shamelessly Loyal (Bay Ridge Royals, #1))
“
Icarus is . . . I don’t know: aspiration and daring but also arrogance and hubris. It’s a cool story, the boy who flew too close to the sun so that the wax holding the feathers in his wings melted, but it’s also a great tragic metaphor for overreach, not knowing your limitations.
”
”
Andrew Hart (Lies that Bind Us)
“
She stared at the water until the sun’s reflection became too much, and then reached for her single bag of belongings. Digging around, she found the clay turtle. It was made of earth. It was tiny. She could use it for practice. Small, she thought as she cradled it with both hands. Precise. Silent. Small. She curled her lips in concentration. It was like crooking the tip of her pinky while wiggling her opposite ear. She needed a whole-body effort to keep her focus sufficiently narrow. There was another reason why she didn’t want to seek instruction from a famous bending master with a sterling reputation and wisdom to spare. Such a teacher would never let her kill Jianzhu in cold blood. Her hunger to learn all four elements had nothing to do with becoming a fully realized Avatar. Fire, Air, and Water were simply more weapons she could bring to bear on a single target. And she had to bring her earthbending up to speed too. Small. Precise. The turtle floated upward, trembling in the air. It wasn’t steady the way bent earth should be, more of a wobbling top on its last few spins. But she was bending it. The smallest piece of earth she’d ever managed to control. A minor victory. This was only the beginning of her path. She would need much more practice to see Jianzhu broken in pieces before her feet, to steal his world away from him the way he had stolen hers, to make him suffer as much as possible before she ended his miserable worthless life— There was a sharp crack. The turtle fractured along innumerable fault lines. The smallest parts, the blunt little tail and squat legs, crumbled first. The head fell off and bounced over the edge of the saddle. She tried to close her grip around the rest of it and caught only dust. The powdered clay slipped between her fingers and was taken by the breeze. Her only keepsake of Kelsang flew away on the wind.
”
”
F.C. Yee (Avatar: The Rise of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels, #1))