“
Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
Would that be dangerous, to not look while being looked at?
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
How oft the warmth of the sun above
Makes a pretty young girl dream of love.
”
”
Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary)
“
Two hungry people should never make friends. If they do, they eat each other up. It is the same with one person who is hungry and another who is full: they cannot be real, real friends because the hungry one will eat the full one. You understand?
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
We were both getting what we needed, though I could have done without him. It turned out he could not do without me. He likened his relationship with me to Icarus. He was Icarus and I was the sun. Lines like these, which I wholly believed and still do, made me sick to my stomach. What kind of a girl wants to be a sun over a country she doesn’t even want to visit.
”
”
Lisa Taddeo (Animal)
“
We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn't drag you down a dark path.You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus. I love you as he loved the sun. Too close. Too hard. Too fast.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
She had a new bracelet on, stacked with emeralds brighter than her eyes. I hate rich people.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
Didn’t she know that knowing why doesn’t make things any less scary?
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
But Jess was sliding breathlessly down into the waiting sky, so she couldn't find the words to tell TillyTilly that sisters was something about being held without hands, and the skin-flinch of seeing and simultaneously being seen.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
I am on warp-speed headed directly for the sun; I am Icarus." (opening line of 'Girl on a Bar Stool', new / CreateSpace version)
”
”
Tim Roux (Girl on a Bar Stool)
“
Being a naked girl is convenient for the cash, but passing for a boy makes the walk home easier.
”
”
Elizabeth Victoria Aldrich (Daughters of Icarus)
“
She never let her intelligence get in the way of a good time.
”
”
Christopher Paul Meyer (Icarus Falling: The True Story of a Nightclub Bouncer Who Wanted to Be a Fucking Movie Star But Settled for Being a Fucking Man)
“
What’s the matter, Jess? Why are you sad?’ And she’d have to explain that she wasn’t sad, just tired, though how she could be so tired in the middle of the day with the sun shining and everything, she didn’t know. It made her feel ashamed.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
Finally, he smiled, and although his smile was bumpy because some of his teeth were jagged and broken, it was a warming, infectious smile that was reflected in his eyes. It made her smile widely in return. She felt as if the room had been lit up. He held out his arms, and she went across the room to him, almost running. She buried her face in his shirt, her nose wrinkling up as the scent of his cologne mixed with the nutty, sourish smell of camphor that filled the room. He put his arms around her, but gently, so that there was space between his forearms and her back, holding her as if she was to fragile to hug properly. Awkwardly, he patted her light, bushy aureole of dark brown hair, repeating: "Good girl. Fine daughter.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
Once you let people know anything about what you think, that’s it, you’re dead. Then they’ll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
Waiting for Icarus "
He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry
I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets,
a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the
Worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.
”
”
Muriel Rukeyser (The Collected Poems)
“
He would keep what he would always believe had to be a false memory of her falling like a booted Icarus out of a lighted sky in which there was somehow falling snow and her mouth open in a lovely O that had started to shape a word, and her long legs against the electric light, shooting out of the blue plastic square that rose like a kite lifting on a whirlwind and one of her boots flying what seemed the length of the block
”
”
Robert Stone (Death of the Black-Haired Girl)
“
Logan felt like Icarus. He had never felt so free and blissfully alive as he did whenever he was with her. The closer he got to her the higher and happier he felt. Even at the mention of her name his heart would pound incessantly and all the giddy feelings he didn’t quite understand would suddenly reemerge. Every glance upon her blinding beauty cast a shadow upon every other girl for him. Everyone else paled in comparison to her. With every passing moment he had somehow discovered something new and exciting about her. With her by his side he could feel the light breeze flapping against his sides and the warmth of sunshine beating down on his handsome face. This is what it meant to be truly awake. This is what it meant to be in love.
But just like Icarus he had gotten too close and had crashed and burned. As he lay crippled in the aftermath of his own destruction he wondered what hurt more the aching pangs of physical pain his body had been subjected to or the raw burning sensation he felt in his heart. He had gladly given her his heart and in return she threw it back in pieces claiming it wasn’t enough. That he wasn’t enough.
”
”
Ali Harper (Breaking Bedlam (Beautiful Bedlam #2))
“
Why Roses are Red...... (a poem on a little artist girl, who lived with her mother on a remote Hill) A little girl painted... with the brush of imagination... and with the colours borrowed from Spring... on the paper of time a picture a picture of a tiny glittering star and gave it the name... innocence next hour with the brush of imagination with artificial colours she painted... a picture a picture of sharp edged knife and gave it the name... experience she picked both the pictures and hung them on a rope in the middle of her rose garden And left the garden to attend her ailing mother As the wind of fate blew and the element of chance entered from the door of cruelty the knife attacked the tiny star and the innocent star bled, bled, and bled the drops of blood fell on...fell on...and fell on... the roses beneath And.................... the roses turned red when little girl came back she looked ,looked and looked... at both... the tiny star and the red roses Benumbed and shocked she dressed the little, the beautiful star and threw it high in the sky and it got fixed there and it gave direction to humanity and we call it pole star with anger she threw the picture of knife down the hill... and there was... strife, conspiracy violence murders and revolts in the plains Today when I look at red roses in someone's hands they remind me of the.... Two ideas of a single artist which gave the world direction and destruction The
”
”
Pradeep Chaswal (Icarus and Other Poems)
“
AJ knew he should stop the fight. Still, the sight of a little girl - no younger than himself, though smaller - pounding on the commander’s bully of a son made him pause. He watched in open-mouthed admiration as her fists rained down on Holden’s face. This fleshy boy transforming into a snotty-nosed, crying lump of flesh was the same one who’d bloodied AJ’s nose a week ago. She’s taking him, AJ realized.
”
”
Danika Stone
“
I am the middling type, for whom flirtation is neither a demeaning jape nor an Icarus-like tilt at the sun. Flirting with a middling girl is a dangerous business, because we might - indeed, we probably will - take it seriously. And before the poor chap knows it, there'll be a bun in the oven and a hastily arranged rendezvous at the Registry Office.
”
”
Graeme Macrae Burnet (Case Study)
“
There's a beep.
And, in that fraction of a second, I see it all
→ . .
Me in bed, covered in lipstick and talcum powder; falling down the coach aisle; smashing into a hat-stall; climbing under a table; thirty hands in the air; spinning under a spotlight; jumping in the snow; a ponytail, cut off; sitting on a catwalk; standing on a doorstep; my first kiss, on a television set.
I see a Japanese fish market and an octopus; a sumo stage; a glass box and a hundred dolls; a shining lake; a zebra crossing; a brand-new sister.
I see New York and a governess; a fairground ride; a planetarium; a party; Brooklyn Bridge. Toilet paper and Icarus; dinosaur biscuits; posters; Marrakesh and a monkey; parties of stars. Picnics and coffee; an advertising agency; a doppelganger; an Indian elephant and firework clouds of paint; a cafe, filled with pink. I see Sydney and diving and a fashion show that glittered with gold.
In short: I see a whole world, opening behind me.
And a new world, opening in front.
A world that I fit into perfectly.
”
”
Holly Smale (Forever Geek (Geek Girl, #6))
“
Everyone wants a rock bottom. Some Icarus shit.
But the truth is some holes keep going, yawning, heady, one mistake becomes three:
there's always a dark darker than the dark you know.
”
”
Hala Alyan (You're Not a Girl in a Movie)
“
We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn’t drag you down a dark path. You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
Every girl has that one guy they know they shouldn’t be with, but something about the way our bodies sing to one another when we’re naked fogs over our logical brains.
”
”
Lucy Smoke (Fall With Me (Gods of Hazelwood: Icarus, #2))
“
Nothing is more symptomatic of the enervation, of the decompression of the Western imagination, than our incapacity to respond to the landings on the Moon. Not a single great poem, picture, metaphor has come of this breathtaking act, of Prometheus’ rescue of Icarus or of Phaeton in flight towards the stars.” —George Steiner,
”
”
Jack McDonald Burnett (Girl on the Moon)
“
He likened his relationship with me to Icarus. He was Icarus and I was the sun. Lines like these, which I wholly believed and still do, made me sick to my stomach. What kind of a girl wants to be a sun over a country she doesn’t even want to visit.
”
”
Lisa Taddeo (Animal)