Icarus Love Quotes

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake. Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La. They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.

Love gives you wings. Icarus and the Challenger both had wings, and so did my first love letter, after I folded it up and flung it at my crush.


Icarus should have waited for nightfall, the moon would have never let him go.

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.

Failing and Flying" Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last. Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist. Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

And, Mr. Knightley, forget my theory about Icarus. If you don't sail high, with the risk of crashing and burning, do you really live? Can you love? I doubt it. I'm ready to fly. Love, Sam

Laments of an Icarus The paramours of courtesans Are well and satisfied, content. But as for me my limbs are rent Because I clasped the clouds as mine. I owe it to the peerless stars Which flame in the remotest sky That I see only with spent eyes Remembered suns I knew before. In vain I had at heart to find The center and the end of space. Beneath some burning, unknown gaze I feel my very wings unpinned And, burned because I beauty loved, I shall not know the highest bliss, And give my name to the abyss Which waits to claim me as its own.

How oft the warmth of the sun above Makes a pretty young girl dream of love.

Do I, then, belong to the heavens? Why, if not so, should the heavens Fix me thus with their ceaseless blue stare, Luring me on, and my mind, higher Ever higher, up into the sky, Drawing me ceaselessly up To heights far, far above the human? Why, when balance has been strictly studied And flight calculated with the best of reason Till no aberrant element should, by rights, remain- Why, still, should the lust for ascension Seem, in itself, so close to madness? Nothing is that can satify me; Earthly novelty is too soon dulled; I am drawn higher and higher, more unstable, Closer and closer to the sun's effulgence. Why do these rays of reason destroy me? Villages below and meandering streams Grow tolerable as our distance grows. Why do they plead, approve, lure me With promise that I may love the human If only it is seen, thus, from afar- Although the goal could never have been love, Nor, had it been, could I ever have Belonged to the heavens? I have not envied the bird its freedom Nor have I longed for the ease of Nature, Driven by naught save this strange yearning For the higher, and the closer, to plunge myself Into the deep sky's blue, so contrary To all organic joys, so far From pleasures of superiority But higher, and higher, Dazzled, perhaps, by the dizzy incandescence Of waxen wings. Or do I then Belong, after all, to the earth? Why, if not so, should the earth Show such swiftness to encompass my fall? Granting no space to think or feel, Why did the soft, indolent earth thus Greet me with the shock of steel plate? Did the soft earth thus turn to steel Only to show me my own softness? That Nature might bring home to me That to fall, not to fly, is in the order of things, More natural by far than that improbable passion? Is the blue of the sky then a dream? Was it devised by the earth, to which I belonged, On account of the fleeting, white-hot intoxication Achieved for a moment by waxen wings? And did the heavens abet the plan to punish me? To punish me for not believing in myself Or for believing too much; Too earger to know where lay my allegiance Or vainly assuming that already I knew all; For wanting to fly off To the unknown Or the known: Both of them a single, blue speck of an idea?

Love is not weakness, father: it is strength. Love is what taught my skin to feel and my eyes to see. Love is not a weapon: it is light.

Love is weakness, Icarus, the man had said, grim, 'It is Man’s deadliest weapon, greater than the sword and mightier than the axe—because it can destroy you with a single breath.

Love is never a sin, and the rules of men who don’t understand that don’t matter.

She was somehow this damaged creature I had fortuitously encountered along my path and now cared about as a result. Granted, I didn't cause her harm, as I did with Icarus, but I somehow began to feel responsible for her welfare.

There was something beautiful about his scars, something lovely about his fallibility.

Helios stopped talking and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I’ve always been a disappointment.’ Icarus couldn’t say that Helios wasn’t, he couldn’t say it was going to be okay because he didn’t know if it would be, he didn’t have a paragraph of loving words that he’d rehearsed the way Helios did. He only had the truth. ‘I want you anyway.’ Then, softer, ‘I’ll want you still, all the same.

Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La. They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to Middle Earth..

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.

She was in love with him, quietly, I think.’ Icarus continued. ‘Because there is no art of your mother in my house, but there are a thousand paintings of mine.

I thought of his eyes when he had spoken of Icarus, that pure, shining love. To my sister, it was no more than a tool, a sword to hang over his head and make him her slave.

I think I finally understand the saying like a moth to a flame. I’m the moth. My heart flutters like the paper thin wings. And he is the flame, incendiary, scorching my soul. He inhales so heavily, like he’s been holding his breath under water. He presses his lips against mine and tugs at my hair gently. My head falls back and my mouth falls open. His tongue, slick as silver, dances with mine. I’m wrong. I’m not a moth. I’m Icarus and I’ve flown too close to the sun.

Perhaps that, too, is why they love her. She flies like Icarus, and they are waiting for her to fall.

Daedalus took comfort in the baby Icarus, and I loved to see him walking about with the infant dandled in his arms, showing the oblivious child the flowers and the birds and the many wonders of the palace.

What's the one sure cure for love?" asks Grote. "Marriage is, is what." A moth careers into a candle flame; it drops to the table, flapping. "Poor Icarus." Ouwehand crushes it with his tankard. "Won't you ever learn?

Some would say that the winged boy loved the sun, loved him with his very own soul and every fibre in his body. His father had warned him: Don’t fly too close to the sun, boy, you know better. But who was he to listen?

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.

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.

There are galaxies within the human mind, and madness wants to risk everything for the daring flight, reckless and beautiful and crazed. Everyone knows Icarus fell. But I love him for the fact that he dared to fly. Mania unfurls the invitation to fly too high, too near the sun, which will melt the wax of the mind, and the fall will be terrible.

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.

Most often, couples who get together after months or years of online infatuation enact a twenty-first-century version of Icarus flying too close to the sun with his waxen wings: the real-life exposure quickly melts the fiber-optic cable that was holding the couple aloft, and they plummet into the sea, where they tend to flail about for a while, trying to rescue their former magic.

This emotion called love. It is wrapped up in time, measured by years. The more I see of humans the more complicated love becomes. It is not an exchange of goods. It has no price. it is not a simple connection to other beings. Love is much deeper, its tendrils reach into the bad and the good in humans. I don't believe we should give up on this project. I cannot return until I learn how to love.

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

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.

Light is the in-utterable name of God; the YHWH form. It is the emotional life of a bee and the distance to Icarus, the farthest visible star. It is the finding of compassion amidst tyranny, the networked communication between trees, and the whale song. Light is woven through the gauze of grief and is “the limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns” (John Lennon). It is what Catholic theologians called “the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable, the thing we cannot conceive” (John Chrysostom) . “Tell me, if you have understanding. What is the way to the place where the light is distributed?” (Job 38:4) And unable to answer, in dumb obliviousness, instead, we point at the Sun

When instinct tells you to pay attention and choose tenderness, do it. Community is humanity's greatest strength and community at its core is just love: work motivated by that love, comforts created out of love, bonds fed by love or at least for the desire of it. Being young is so frightening because it feels like you don't have the power to enact dynamic change. In cases like this, in stories like this, where what is happening is so inexplicable and out of control that all you can do is try to give the strong person in your life the pleasure of your time or the snack from your lunch tray or a hug in the morning or the warmth and privacy of your car during their lunch hour… If it is all you can give, it is enough. It has meaning. It is helping. I love you for trying and please, please, please, don't let time steal this part of you.

what if when icarus fell apollo caught him before he hit the sea, arms as warm as the sun, but safer. what if when ariadne cast the rope across a broken branch aphrodite stepped in with a reminder that this, this is not the kind of love you die for. what if when achilles was ready for war ares appeared with a smile and said “you win well when you win, but what are you unwilling to lose if you lose?” and achilles knew the answer. if you could retell the tale wouldn’t you want to tell it kinder? wouldn’t you want to give them peace, even love, where you could?

He unfolded his lanky frame and stood up on his bed, pulling the basement window open, followed by the screen. Two long legs in faded jeans were crouched down beside the faded flowerbed, knees pressed into the damp dirt. He shivered as the chill autumn air filled the bedroom. With the window open, the sound of late-night insects chirping in the distance joined the noises of the house. “Tess?” he asked, craning his neck to peer upward. “Everything alright?” She was backlit by the streetlight, her hair a halo of gold-framed blue. She gave an angry shake of her head. “Can I come in, Kyle?

Love and Friendship, when you have them or lose them they are much like the Greek story of Icarus... You can make you feel like you're soaring above the clouds with happiness when you have them or feel like you are plummeting to the depths of hell with despair when you lose them.

The Bridges of Marin County harbor views back east never so panoramic but here driving the folds of mt tamalpais the whole picture smooth blue of the bay set like a table for dinner guests who seat themselves in berkeley oakland and san jose pass around delicate dishes of angel island ferry boats and alcatraz i'll save a spot for you in san francisco spread with your favorite dishes don't leave me hanging in marin dinner at eight and everyone else on time you said you'd bring the wine we waited as long as we could the food went cold witnesses said that you stood nearly an hour i imagine you crossing back and forth leaning tower to tower finally choosing the southern your wish to rest nearer the city than the driveway how long had you been letting your two selves push each other over the edge stuffing your pockets with secrets and shame weighing yourself down with cement shoes a gangster assuring your own silence i pay the toll daily wondering as the dark shroud of the bay smoothed over you that night who did you think your quiet splash was saving were you keeping yourself from the pleasures you found in the city boys in dark bars handsome men who loved you did they love you too did you wrestle with vertigo lose your sense of balance imagine yourself icarus dizzied by your own precarious perch glorious ride on flawed wings was it so impossible to live and love on both sides of the bay did you think i couldn't feel your love when it was there for me your distraction when desires divided history like the water smoothes over with half-truth story of good job and grieving widow but each time i cross this span i wonder about the men with whom i share the loss of you invisibly i sit unseen in a castro cafe wondering which men gave you what kinds of comfort delight satisfaction these men of leather metal tattoos did you know them how did you get their attention how did they get yours did you walk hand-in-hand with a man who looked like you the marlboro man double exposed did you bury a love of bondage dominance submission in the bay did you find friendship too would you and i have found the same men handsome where are you in this cafe crowd i want to love what you wouldn't show me dance with more than a slice of truth hold your halves together in my arms and rock the till i have mourned and honored the whole of you was it so impossible to cross that divide to live and love on both sides of the bay hey isn't that what bridges are for

Ancient Ways The Greek Isles are divided into several major chains lying in the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Ionian seas. The Cyclades chain alone includes more than two hundred islands clustered in the southern Aegean. In the southeastern Aegean, between Crete and Asia Minor, there are 163 islands known as the Dodecanese chain. Only 26 of these are inhabited; the largest of them is Rhodes, where the world-famous Colossus once stood. The Ionian chain of western Greece (named for the eponymous sea) includes the large island of Corfu. Cyprus lies in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey. Today, Cyprus stands politically divided, with Turkish rule in the north, and a government in the south that remains independent from Greece. However, the island has always been linked culturally and linguistically to Greece, and it shares traditions and ways of life with the smaller islands scattered to its south and west. In the Greek Isles, history blends myth and fact. Historians glean information about the early days of the Greek Isles from the countless ancient stories and legends set there. According to Homer, battleships sailed from the harbors of Kos and Rhodes during the Trojan War. A well-known legend holds that the Argonauts sought refuge from a storm on the island of Anafi in the southeastern Cyclades. The lovely island of Lésvos is mentioned throughout the Homeric epics and in many ancient Greek tales. Tradition has it that the god Helios witnessed the island of Rhodes rising mystically from the sea, and chose it for his home. The ill-fated Daedalus and his son, Icarus, attempted to soar through the skies over the magical island of Crete, where the great god Zeus was born in a mountaintop cave. Villagers still recount how Aphrodite emerged from the sea on a breathtaking stretch of beach near the village of Paphos on Cyprus. Visitors must actually lay eyes on a Greek island to gain a full appreciation for these ancient stories. Just setting foot on one of these islands makes you feel as if you’ve stepped into one of the timeless tales from ancient Greek mythology.

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we wake. Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La. They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle Earth.

In the culture of The Icarus Project some years ago we developed a rough prototype of a document we call a Wellness Map (or affectionately a “Mad Map”). It’s a very practical document to be written in good health and shared with friends and loved ones and it starts with the simple (yet not always easy to answer) question: How are you when you’re well? What does wellness look like to you? This question is followed by: What are the signs that you’re not so well? and eventually: What are the steps that you and your community need to take to get you back to wellness?

Dream I have woven a dream With the fabric of imagination and delicacy of inspiration I have woven a dream   in my dream there are happy children, chirping birds, shining stars, soothing moon light, beauty, prosperity, love, compassion and a ship full of gifts   and I have hidden this dream under the mattress (their are many dream thieves in the street)   and  I wish to present it to all those whose stomachs are empty whose lives are unhappy who think they have lost everything   but I will do it tomorrow and not today.         Morning

I love in the same way Icarus must’ve yearned for the sun. So desperate to be close, to climb in someone else’s skin. To be fully seen and understood and accepted. It wasn’t that he wanted to escape—or maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to be engulfed by that feeling and forget reality. To leave behind the earth entirely. If the sun loved me, I wouldn’t hesitate to strap on wings and fly all the way across the universe. I’d open my arms and welcome the burn. It’s better than the alternative: cold, alone, empty. To the sun: Burn me up. Love me. Swallow me whole.

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. — Jack Gilbert, Falling and Flying

you are the only Icarus who is not undone by sunlight. I am the sea, your only danger. stay among the gulls, my love. stay where the light lives.

Drew was focused on a hundred details at once: like the fact that her hand had dropped to his, and that her body was pressed up against his side; that her fingers were warm in the cool night air, and that her skin looked silver in the moonlight. Drew’s gaze flickered up. The bruise on Tess’s jaw was gone, her blue eyes dark and entrancing. “So are you going to do it?” she asked. Drew frowned. “Do what?” “Jesus, Drew,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You gonna kiss me or not?” His hands slid around her waist, pulling her against him. Tess’s eyes widened, lips parting. “Yeah,” Drew whispered. “I am...

smells. “I loved the Icarus part, most.

Don’t fight the fall. Don’t try to claw your way out of open space. Fall like Alice, like Icarus, like my grades in high school. Fall to catch yourself again. Pull the chute whenever you can. Be your own best friend. Then you can help the world in your own way, in your own time.