Titanic Love Quotes

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.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

The cafe windows wrapped all the way around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeleton army that had come to kill us.

Things work out the way they're meant to

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!

Tyson thought Annabeth was just about the coolest thing since peanut butter, and he SERIOUSLY loved peanut butter.

Eternity with Artemis?" He heaved a big sigh. Thalia rolled her eyes. "You satyrs. You're all in love with Artemis. Don't you get that she'll never love you back?" "But she's so…into nature," Grover swooned. "You're nuts," said Thalia. "Nuts and berries," Grover said dreamily. "Yeah.

I'll show them 'love is worthless,'" Silena Beauregard grumbled as she strapped on her armor. "I'll pulverize them!

your loved ones have been used to lure you into Kronos's traps. Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty Percy. You do not know when it is time to cut your losses. To save a friend you would sacrifice the world.

Love knows no boundaries. I wish I would have known that before I hired a cartographer to map out my romantic territory.

I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for know I'm doing it, and they love me, Unk, as best they can. I found me a home.

He’s a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy. And though he’s not a Lord, he does have a curse hanging over his head. I have the book to prove it.” William growled low in his throat. “Anya! Must you share my secrets with everyone?” He flattened his palms on the arms of his chair. “Fine. If you can spill, I can, too. Anya’s the reason the Titanic sank. She was playing chicken with the icebergs.” Scowling, Anya anchored her hands on her hips. “William had a bronze made of his penis and placed it on his mantel.

My love is like the shape your mouth makes while you whistle. Would you mind if I accompanied you on my harmonica?

It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Love lets us ride on its back as if it were a camel. But you’ve got to water it, or it won’t grow into a healthy rose bush.

My love for you would blot out the sun like a cloud made out of yogurt. I hope you brought a spoon.

I once made love to a taco shell stuffed with rancid meat and watery tomato bits. It was the best sex I’ve ever served to an unsuspecting customer.

ROSE: I love you, Jack. JACK: No...don’t say your goodbyes, Rose. Don’t you give up. Don’t do it. ROSE: I’m so cold. JACK: You’re going to get out of this...you’re going to go on and you’re going to make babies and watch them grow and you’re going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here...Not this night. Do you understand me? ROSE: I can’t feel my body. JACK: Rose, listen to me. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you. And I’m thankful, Rose. I’m thankful. You must do me this honor...promise me you will survive....that you will never give up...not matter what happens...no matter how hopeless...promise me now, and never let go of that promise. ROSE: I promise. JACK: Never let go. ROSE: I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From it's own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, not falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous,beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory

Bianca, camp is cool! It's got a pegasus stable and a sword-fighting arena and… I mean, what do you get by joining the Hunters?" To begin with," Zoe said, "immortality." I stared at her, then at Artemis. "She's kidding, right?" Zoe rarely kids about anything," Artemis said. "My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal… unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath." What oath?" I said. To foreswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally." Like you?" The goddess nodded. I tried to imagine what she was saying. Being immortal. Hanging out with only middle-school girls forever. I couldn't get my mind around it.

She’s not showing any interest in me and she looks like she doesn’t want to be here. Should I take off her handcuffs? I thought kidnap victims were supposed to fall in love with their captors?


Kevin Love has a last name that sums up my feelings for you. But then again, so does Renaldo Letsfucktonight.

You know it’s a bad sign when the theme song from Titanic describes your relationship.

Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and loves you?

Power without compassion is like a giant that blocks the sunlight.

Elysia!" Driggs interrupted. "Slow the hell down." She grinned at Lex. "Sorry. I talk a lot when I get excited." "That's okay," Lex said with an impish nod. "We all have our flaws. Driggs here loves Titanic." "Really??" Driggs folded his arms and studied the girls. "I can already see the ramifications of an alliance between you two. And they are troublesome.

Should I go up one flight of stairs and then come back down, or should I go down one flight of stairs and then come back up? Same destination, same distance, same amount of work, but two different paths. Who knows, I might find love on one path. Probably the path I don’t choose. 


What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I'm talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down. That's the size of it, the immensity of it. It's not proper, it's not clean, it's not containable.

I think JJ will tell me that he loves me soon," Lacey says to Kristen. "He definitely will," Kristen says. "I can tell by the way he looks at you." I force myself to cough so I don't laugh. JJ stares at Lacey the way he stares at every one of the Titans' cheerleaders. It's the same way he stares at cheese fries, for that matter.

As our bodies are mostly made of water, I’d rather be hungry than thirsty. And as love is mostly made up of sugar water, I’d rather be a hummingbird caged in your heart.

I had to prove that what he believed wasn't true. Prove that he was the total of everything he had done and not the dark things he was ashamed of, and I would do so because I loved him and accepted him for who he was, for all his faults. That was what love meant. Love fostered courage.

What were you thinking when we were holding hands diagonally?" I ask. Jeff says, "I was thinking, 'It's going to be so hard for her when she chooses not to get on that lifeboat and stay with me.'" I decide I can't start this marriage with a lie. "Really?" I say. "'Cause I was thinking that it was going to be so hard for you when I got on the lifeboat and you had to stay behind." He is appalled. I plead my case. "Remember when we saw Titanic how mad I was at Kate Winslet when she climbed out of the lifeboat and back into the ship? I think she encumbered Leonardo DiCaprio. If she had gone on the lifeboat, then he could have had that piece of wood she was floating on and they both would have survived. I would never do that to you." I wait for his response, hoping that in the twenty-first century romantic love can be defined as not lying about your plans to get on the lifeboat and remembering to get your partner some pills. He just laughs. With that settled, we begin our married life.

How could I be everything to you when you broke my heart?

She was an ocean, and he was just a sinking man lost in her waves.

Loving him meant that I knew from the first moment that I fell for Seth that he was complicated – that loving him wouldn’t be easy. Loving him…Well, it meant that I was willing to fight for him.

To foreswear romantic love forever. To never grow up, never get married. To be maiden eternally.

God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.

Love happens to some people, sometimes. Other times other stuff happens to other people. I’m a person like those people.

Now they were regaining consciousness– were being treated to a cruel and lovely illusion.

Love fostered courage.

A silhouette stepped toward us, and another wave of pure power ripped through the throne room. "I'm only going to warn you once, Cronus," said a voice, dark and dangerous. "Get the hell away from my wife.

Katie shook her head in dismay. “I thought being poor was the worst thing that could happen to a girl.” “No, Katie,” the countess said in a clear voice. “The worst thing is to be in love with one man and have to marry another.” —Katie O'Reilly to the Countess of Marbury

What I feel for you increases every waking moment and sometimes that scares the hell out of me but I love you. Yesterday. Today. A thousand tomorrows from now, I will be in love with you.

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

He watched and recorded their subversive activites with love, amusement, and detachment.

Bye,” he whispered to me. “Bye.” Neither of us moved. “Seriously? This isn’t the Titanic, you’ll see each other again,” Bethan said to us.

Goddammit, T-bird, he said. I love that faerie as much as any of us, but I couldn’t watch and do nothing while she becomes your Titanic.

...And now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me, in every way that a person can be saved.

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.

You’ll never lose me,” I said, my voice breaking. “Promise.” His gaze searched mine as he ran his fingertip up my spine. “I promise.” I closed the minuscule gap between us once more, capturing his lips and trying to show him how much I meant it. “I love you. I love our family. I love our life together, and I can’t wait for the day when we’re back home, just the three of us, and this whole war is over. I swear to you that will happen. That will be our future.” He cradled the back of my head, his palm searing against my skin. “I have waited an eternity for this love. I’m not going to let anyone, Titan or not, take it from us.” “Promise?” I said, and this time it was Henry’s turn to kiss me. “I promise.” “Then do me a favor.” “Anything.” I shifted onto my back, rolling him with me. His body pressed against mine in all the right places, and I lifted my head high enough to rest my forehead against his. “Live this love now,” I whispered. “And never stop.

Look forward to being really in love for the first time, Bea," said Rumfoord. “Look forward to behaving aristocratically without any outward proofs of your aristocracy.Look forward to having nothing but the dignity and intelligence and tenderness that God gave you—look forward to taking those materials and nothing else, and making something exquisite with them.

She smiled sympathetically. She really was beautiful. And not just because she had a pretty face or anything. She believed in love so much, it was impossible not to feel giddy when she talked about it.

God's love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.

Your Here, There's Nothing I Fear.

I love Nico

You don't apologise,' (Deacon) said, pressing a kiss to my greasy head, unlocking best friend status.

I have bread, water, and love—what more can a man ask for? How about pasta, wine, and sex.

I love the movie "Titanic." It's my favorite romantic comedy!

But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was Titanic. It amazed me that it was a story that took place a hundred years ago. Those people living in 1912 had better technology than most North Koreans! But mostly I couldn’t believe how someone could make a movie out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea, the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. But in Titanic, the characters talked about love and humanity. I was amazed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were willing to die for love, not just for the regime, as we were. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood movie gave me my first small taste of freedom.

I was the Titanic and the iceberg all at once.

You Jump, I jump, remember -Kate Winslet Titanic

I loved you once. You think I can’t again?

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom. To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

... my aim in writing The Watch That Ends the Night was not to present history. My aim was to present humanity. The people represented in this book lived and breathed and loved. They were as real as you or me. They could have been any one of us.

Naphta loathed the bourgeois state and its love of security. He found occasion to express this loathing one autumn afternoon when, as they were walking along the main street, it suddenly began to rain and, as if on command, there was an umbrella over every head. That was a symbol of cowardice and vulgar effeminacy, the end product of civilization. An incident like the sinking of the Titanic was atavistic, true, but its effect was most refreshing, it was the handwriting on the wall. Afterward, of course, came the hue and cry for more security in shipping. How pitiful, but such weak-willed humanitarianism squared very nicely with the wolfish cruelty and villainy of slaughter on the economic battlefield known as the bourgeois state. War, war ! He was all for it – the universal lust for war seemed quite honorable in comparison.

The lions of hard rock, guys like Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, Brian Johnson, Rob Halford, these monsters feel completely timeless, iconic, eternal. They simply shall not, will not, do not die. It's almost impossible to imagine a musical world without Robert Plant. No metal fan of any stripe can imagine a day when, say, Iron Maiden shuts it all down because Bruce Dickinson turned 85 and suddenly can't remember the lyrics to "Hallowed Be Thy Name." Metal revels in the raw energy and unchecked phantasmagorical ridiculousness of youth. It is all fire and testosterone and rebellious fantasy. It doesn't go well with reality. So it is for hard rock and a guy like Dio, an elfin titan with an undying love for lasers and sorcery, dragons and kings. The man wrote some terribly corny metal songs, but he sang every one with a ferocity and love and total honesty. He also wrote some of the finest hard rock melodies of all time, sang them with a precision and love unmatched by any hard rock singer since. It's a rare thing to give metal some heartfelt props. It is time. Raise your devil horns and salute.

When two individuals love each other, they become free from the Leviathan, they create space it cannot control. Eros shall always triumph, as the true message of the gods, over all titanic creations.

You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo. “Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

...love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down

Percy, whatever you decide, I love you. And I know you’ll do what’s best for Annabeth.’ ‘How can you be sure?’ ‘Because she’d do the same for you.

Joel reached for her hands and held them tight. ‘No offence to Riza, but you are more than just energy. I can feel your hands in mine. Smell the perfume in your hair. You are Emily, and you’re a part of me. I couldn’t love a ball of energy, but I love . . .’ Joel seemed unable to continue. Emily’s heart started to pound. ‘You love . . .’ she gently prodded. He looked down at her hands in his and dropped them abruptly. He shuffled on his feet and wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Nothing . . .’ His voice had lost its softness.

Unk, standing at a porthole, wept quietly. He was weeping for love, for family, for friendship, for truth, for civilization. The things he wept for were all abstractions, since his memory could furnish few faces or artifacts with which his imagination might fashion a passion play.

You are Emily, and you’re a part of me. I couldn’t love a ball of energy, but I love . . .’ Joel seemed unable to continue. Emily’s heart started to pound. ‘You love . . .’ she gently prodded. He looked down at her hands in his and dropped them abruptly. He shuffled on his feet and wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Nothing . . .’ His voice had lost its softness.

Teach me how to love you so good our hearts will be beating thunderously against our ribcages straining to get out. For so long I have only known how to hurt. There are scars on my body like constellations. The one on my hip was from when I was six and I learned my parents were the Titanic and the iceberg. My wrist has a faint bruise reminding me of when I gave myself to a boy who crashed and burned and took me down with him. Heartbreak sounds a lot like a slamming door. Show me it doesn’t have to be this way, I want to be proven wrong. Teach me how to love right.

All those artists and writers who bemoan how hard the work is, and oh, how tedious the creative process, and oh, what a tortured genius they are. Don’t buy into it. . . . As if difficulty and struggle and torture somehow confer seriousness upon your chosen work. Doing great work simply because you love it, sounds, in our culture, somehow flimsy, and that’s a failing of our culture, not of the choice of work that artists make.” This

If a billowy white cloud exploded, that’d be close to what my love looks like. The only difference is my love has more precipitation.

Many of those who elected to remain might have escaped. 'Chivalry' is a mild appellation for their conduct. Some of the vaunted knights of old were desperate cowards by comparison. A fight in the open field, or jousting in the tournament, did not call out the manhood in a man as did the waiting till the great ship took the final plunge, in the knowledge that the seas round about were covered with loving and yearning witnesses whose own salvation was not assured.

How do we imagine a great love? Perhaps something along the lines of Gone with the Wind or Titanic is what comes to mind. But those aren’t really about love itself, but about a situation. Everything becomes more grand when it takes place in the context of a civil war, a shipwreck, or natural catastrophe. But that is like judging the painting by the frame. That the Mona Lisa should be judged a masterpiece largely because of the carvings that surround it. Love is love. In the dramatic stories, the people involved are physically willing to give up their lives for each other, but that is exactly what happens in the great but everyday love also. You give your lives to each other the whole way and every day, until death.

He realized that all men were like this; that each person was to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If he should scream, if he should holler for help, would it matter? Blackness could come swiftly, swallowing; in one titanically freezing moment all would be concluded. Long before dawn, long before police with flashlights might probe the dark, disturbed pathway, long before men with trembling brains could rustle down the pebbles to his help. Even if they were within five hundred yards of him now, and help certainly was, in three seconds a dark tide could rise to take all ten years from him and— The essential impact of life’s loneliness crushed his beginning-to-tremble body. Mother was alone, too. She could not look to the sanctity of marriage, the protection of her family’s love, she could not look to the United States Constitution or the City Police, she could not look anywhere, in this very instant, save into her heart, and there she would find nothing but uncontrollable repugnance and a will to fear. In this instant it was an individual problem seeking an individual solution. He must accept being alone and work on from there.

we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We’d love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.

Bob,” she said, “offerings burned in the mortal world appear on this altar, right?” Bob frowned uncomfortably, like he wasn’t ready for a pop quiz. “Yes?” “So what happens if I burn something on the altar here?” “Uh…” “That’s all right,” Annabeth said. “You don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s never been done.” There was a chance, she thought, just the slimmest chance that an offering burned on this altar might appear at Camp Half-Blood. Doubtful, but if it did work… “Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got that I’m-planning-something look.” “I don’t have an I’m-planning-something look.” “Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit and your lips press together and—” “Do you have a pen?” she asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” He brought out Riptide. “Yes, but can you actually write with it?” “I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “Never tried.” He uncapped the pen. As usual, it sprang into a full-sized sword. Annabeth had watched him do this hundreds of times. Normally when he fought, Percy simply discarded the cap. It always appeared in his pocket later, as needed. When he touched the cap to the point of the sword, it would turn back into a ballpoint pen. “What if you touch the cap to the other end of the sword?” Annabeth said. “Like where you’d put the cap if you were actually going to write with the pen.” “Uh…” Percy looked doubtful, but he touched the cap to the hilt of the sword. Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint pen, but now the writing point was exposed. “May I?” Annabeth plucked it from his hand. She flattened the napkin against the altar and began to write. Riptide’s ink glowed Celestial bronze. “What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth She took a deep breath. She was asking Rachel Dare to do something ridiculously dangerous, but it was the only way she could think of to communicate with the Romans—the only way that might avoid bloodshed. “Now I just need to burn it,” she said. “Anybody got a match?” The point of Bob’s spear shot from his broom handle. It sparked against the altar and erupted in silvery fire. “Uh, thanks.” Annabeth lit the napkin and set it on the altar. She watched it crumble to ash and wondered if she was crazy. Could the smoke really make it out of Tartarus? “We should go now,” Bob advised. “Really, really go. Before we are killed.” Annabeth stared at the wall of blackness in front of them. Somewhere in there was a lady who dispensed a Death Mist that might hide them from monsters—a plan recommended by a Titan, one of their bitterest enemies. Another dose of weirdness to explode her brain. “Right,” she said. “I’m ready.” ANNABETH LITERALLY STUMBLED over the second Titan.

Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus" -- "Pagan that you are! what does that signify?" "I say, there were giants on the earth in those days: giants that strove to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence: the stregth which could bear a thousand years of bondage, -- the vitality which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, -- the unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation. ... I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehova's daughter, as Adam was His son.

For a long time, I was convinced that love potion resided in his mouth. On his tongue.   But I was wrong. The source of his power is the Titan.   It’s practically a godly entity of its own when it's awakened.   Every time I think my sexual credit card is maxed out, he touches me and I'm ready to go shopping again.   And we all know how much I love to shop.

Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you! You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denied God -- and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to pass -- the old conception of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Everyone will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave'... and so on and so on in the same style. Charming! Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears, but he began trembling all over. The voice continued. (The devil) The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity is settled for ever. But as, owing to man's inveterate stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand years, everyone who recognises the truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense, 'all things are lawful' for him. What's more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slaveman, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place... 'all things are lawful' and that's the end of it! That's all very charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's our modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth-.

I immensely enjoyed James Cameron’s Titanic. I read how a large number of Indians shed copious tears over a fictitious story of a woman not being able to overcome the loss of her love despite decades rolling by. And I fail to understand how the same Indians could never empathise with Emilie Schenkl, who was not at peace even forty years after Bose had disappeared.

I have had a lifelong association with these things. (Odd that the word 'trees' does not apply.) I can accept them and their power and their age because I was early exposed to them. ON the other hand, people lacking such experience begin to have a feeling of uneasiness here, of danger, of being shut in, enclosed and overwhelmed. It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period. Fossils of these ancients have been found dating from the Cretaceous era while in the Eocene and Miocene they were spread over England and Europe and America. And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left--a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it?

Seth tilted his head to the side as he stared at me. “What did you just say?” Taking another step back, I glanced at the door. Could I make a run for it? Seth could definitely catch me, but right now, he probably didn’t want to. “Josie?” My heart stuttered at the raw quality of his voice. I wanted to deny that I’d uttered those words, but I couldn’t. How could I when it was the truth, and it wasn’t like I could take those words back. I couldn’t. Lowering my hand, I drew in a shallow breath. “I love you; I’m in love with you.” Seth jerked like I’d punched him. “You can’t love me.

ANNABETH WANTED TO HATE NEW ROME. But as an aspiring architect, she couldn’t help admiring the terraced gardens, the fountains and temples, the winding cobblestone streets and gleaming white villas. After the Titan War last summer, she’d gotten her dream job of redesigning the palaces of Mount Olympus. Now, walking through this miniature city, she kept thinking, I should have made a dome like that. I love the way those columns lead into that

Worrying about what does not yet exist, is that a gesture of love or the worst kind of argument putting pressure on the living, an excess of scrupulous conscience? For fear of soiling our hands, we prefer to cut them off right now. [...] How far can responsibility go without turning into an abstraction? To extend it to all coming generations is to empty it of its meaning, to put a titanic weight on our shoulders. By being accountable for everything, we are accountable for nothing. We can receive no pardon for our errors, since those who would be in a position to grant it have not yet been born! A vicious circle: isn't sacrificing people today for the benefit of those to come also a way of penalizing the latter [...]?

Theo thought he knew the answer: Vincent was the victim of his own fanatic heart. “There’s something in the way he talks that makes people either love him or hate him,” he tried to explain. “He spares nothing and no one.” Long after others had put away the breathless manias of youth, Vincent still lived by their unsparing rules. Titanic, unappeasable passions swept through his life. “I am a fanatic!” Vincent declared in 1881. “I feel a power within me … a fire that I may not quench, but must keep ablaze.

And thus, the Titans & titanesses made love without passion And so did the Gods & Goddesses. They only had Longing[Pothos], Love[Eros] & Reciprocal Love[Anteros] between them, but no Passion. And this fact accounted for the unimaginative number of offspring that some of them had. And the unimaginative tendency of Gods & Goddesses to take aunts & uncles, sons & daughters & even granddads & grandmas to wife or to husband. So much so that some Gods & Goddesses preferred to produce offspring asexually, even without Love. As Hera begot Hephaestus.

I loved Cinderella, Snow White, and James Bond movies. But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was Titanic. It amazed me that it was a story that took place a hundred years ago. Those people living in 1912 had better technology than most North Koreans! But mostly I couldn’t believe how someone could make a movie out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea, the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. But in Titanic, the characters talked about love and humanity. I was amazed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were willing to die for love, not just for the regime, as we were. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood movie gave me my first small taste of freedom.

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!

The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.

-Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever 'truer.' The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. -The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) -Symmetry demands an actual + virtualfuture, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. -Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future? -One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each 'shell' (the present) encased inside a nest of 'shells' (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of 'now' likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future. -Proposition: I am in love with Luisa Ray.

It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period. Fossils of these ancients have been found dating from the Cretaceous era while in the Eocene and Miocene they were spread over England and Europe and America. And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left--a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it?

I must not hesitate to acknowledge where Europe is great, for great she is without doubt. We cannot help loving her with all our heart, and paying her the best homage of our admiration,—the Europe who, in her literature and art, pours out an inexhaustible cascade of beauty and truth fertilizing all countries and all time; the Europe who, with a mind which is titanic in its untiring power, is sweeping the height and the depth of the universe, winning her homage of knowledge from the infinitely great and the infinitely small, applying all the resources of her great intellect and heart in healing the sick and alleviating those miseries of man which up till now we were contented to accept in a spirit of hopeless resignation; the Europe who is making the earth yield more fruit than seemed possible, coaxing and compelling the great forces of nature into man's service. Such true greatness must have its motive power in spiritual strength.

Who’s Josie?” Alex asked, confused. “Uh . . .” I looked over at Deacon. “You want to do the honors? I know how much you love awkward conversations.” A wide smile broke out across his face. “Of course, especially when I’m not the center of the awkwardness.” Luke snorted. “So!” Deacon clapped his hands together as he faced Alex and Aiden. “Did you guys happen to notice a certain girl out on the quad when you did your magic doorway thing?” Aiden glanced at Alex. She raised a shoulder. “There were a lot of people out there that I hadn’t seen before.” She paused. “I noticed Boobs, though.” I slowly shook my head. “Um, that’s not who I’m talking about. Anyway,” Deacon said, his gray eyes light. “She’s pretty tall. Well, taller than you and everyone is practically taller than you, Alex. Has long blondish-brown hair. Kind of weird hair.” “Awesome hair,” Luke added. Alexander frowned silently. “She does. It’s like an array of colors. One moment it looks completely blonde. The next it’s long brown and then it changes again. It’s very cool,” Deacon continued, and I had to agree with him on that. “And when you see her, you’re going to think, wow, this girl looks familiar. You won’t be able to put a finger on it at first, but it’s going to nag at you and then, when it hits you, you’ll—” “Deacon,” Aiden warned. “Who is Josie?” His brother pouted for a second and then sighed. “Fine. She’s a demigod. Like, a born demigod. Powers unlocked and all, and she’s super-cool and really nice.” His gaze slid over to where I stood and his expression turned sly. “Isn’t that right, Seth?” I eyed him. “Right.” “You’re forgetting the best part.” Solos walked past the couch, sending me a long look. “Which god she came from.” Aiden seemed to get what wasn’t being said first. His eyes closed as he rubbed his fingers along his brow. “Gods.” “What?” Alex looked at him and then at me. “Whose kid is she?” “Apollo’s,” Deacon answered, his smile going up a notch when Alex’s gaze flew to him. “Yep. Josie is Apollo’s daughter.” Her mouth dropped open. “And that kind of makes you and her cousins? I guess?” Luke frowned. “I don’t know what exactly, but it does make you two related. Somehow. I don’t know how, but she does have some of your mannerisms. It gets really weird sometimes.

Stop.” He shot in front of me, moving so fast I didn’t see him until we were face to face. “Please just . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say, Josie.” I winced, feeling what he was saying all the way to the core. “That . . . that says everything, Seth, because if you don’t—” My voice cracked, right along with what was left of my heart. “If you don’t know what to say, then that’s it.” “You don’t understand.” His voice was low.“I don’t understand anything.” Heart aching, I stepped to the side, but Seth followed. “Please, just let me go. We can forget we even had—” He clasped my cheeks in a gentle grasp. “No one has ever told me that before.” “What?” I whispered after a moment. His eyes were wide, slightly dilated. “No one has ever said they loved me or were in love with me, and actually meant it.” I couldn’t believe that. Not even his mother? Yes, that was a different kind of love, but then I remembered how his mom was and once again I found myself wishing she was alive so I could bitch-slap her into eternity. But to live the years he had, and to never experience any kind of love wasn’t just wrong, it was sad. I wished it wasn’t so. Seth’s hands slid down my neck, stopping where his thumbs pressed against my pulse. “But you . . .” I had a choice here. I recognized that. I could save face and let this go. I could pull away and walk out of this room, but I was hurting for myself and despite everything that had gone on between us, I was still hurting for him. Maybe that. “But I love you.” Seth’s hands shook—his hands. Hands that were always so steady in battle, but they trembled now, touching me. “I don’t deserve that from anyone, but especially from you.” Voice rough and heavy, he searched my face intently. “That is a precious gift that I . . . that I am not worthy of.” I sucked in air. Oh gosh, that hurt. Hearing him say that tore me up, ripped me right apart, and it struck me then. I knew why he had backed off. Him pushing me away had nothing to do with Alex or with me. It was because of him, because of how he believed he deserved nothing more than punishment. That he sincerely believed that the only thing he had was to atone for his past sins. Tears pricked my eyes as I folded my hands over his wrists. I had to prove what he believed wasn’t true. Prove that he was the total of everything he’d done and not just the dark things he was ashamed of, and I would do so, because I loved him and accepted him for who he was, for all his faults. That was what love meant.

We're all so happy you're feeling better, Miss McIntosh. Looks like you still have a good bump on your noggin, though," she says in her childlike voice. Since there is no bump on my noggin, I take a little offense but decide to drop it. "Thanks, Mrs. Poindexter. It looks worse than it feels. Just a little tender." "Yeah, I'd say the door got the worst of it," he says beside me. Galen signs himself in on the unexcused tardy sheet below my name. When his arm brushes against mine, it feels like my blood's turned into boiling water. I turn to face him. My dreams really do not do him justice. Long black lashes, flawless olive skin, cut jaw like an Italian model, lips like-for the love of God, have some dignity, nitwit. He just made fun of you. I cross my arms and lift my chin. "You would know," I say. He grins, yanks my backpack from me, and walks out. Trying to ignore the waft of his scent as the door shuts, I look to Mrs. Poindexter, who giggles, shrugs, and pretends to sort some papers. The message is clear: He's your problem, but what a great problem to have. Has he charmed he sense out of the staff here, too? If he started stealing kids' lunch money, would they also giggle at that? I growl through clenched teeth and stomp out of the office. Galen is waiting for me right outside the door, and I almost barrel into him. He chuckles and catches my arm. "This is becoming a habit for you, I think." After I'm steady-after Galen steadies me, that is-I poke my finger into his chest and back him against the wall, which only makes him grin wider. "You...are...irritating...me," I tell him. "I noticed. I'll work on it." "You can start by giving me my backpack." "Nope." "Nope?" "Right-nope. I'm carrying it for you. It's the least I can do." "Well, can't argue with that, can I?" I reach around for it, but he moves to block me. "Galen, I don't want you to carry it. Now knock it off. I'm late for class." "I'm late for it too, remember?" Oh, that's right. I've let him distract me from my agenda. "Actually, I need to go back to the office." "No problem. I'll wait for you here, then I'll walk you to class." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "That's the thing. I'm changing my schedule. I won't be in your class anymore, so you really should just go. You're seriously violating Rule Numero Uno." He crosses his arms. "Why are you changing your schedule? Is it because of me?" "No." "Liar." "Sort of." "Emma-" "Look, I don't want you to take this personally. It's just that...well, something bad happens every time I'm around you." He raises a brow. "Are you sure it's me? I mean, from where I stood, it looked like your flip-flops-" "What were we arguing about anyway? We were arguing, right?" "You...you don't remember?" I shake my head. "Dr. Morton said I might have some short-term memory loss. I do remember being mad at you, though." He looks at me like I'm a criminal. "You're saying you don't remember anything I said. Anything you said." The way I cross my arms reminds me of my mother. "That's what I'm saying, yes." "You swear?" "If you're not going to tell me, then give me my backpack. I have a concussion, not broken arms. I'm not helpless." His smile could land him a cover shoot for any magazine in the country. "We were arguing about which beach you wanted me to take you to. We were going swimming after school." "Liar." With a capital L. Swimming-drowning-falls on my to-do list somewhere below giving birth to porcupines. "Oh, wait. You're right. We were arguing about when the Titanic actually sank. We had already agreed to go to my house to swim.